• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, April 13, 2015

Given the cringe-worthy risks, companies are often wary about employees speaking on their behalf on social media. Yet, LinkedIn thinks this cautious approach means missing a huge marketing opportunity.

To promote the sharing of more content -- LinkedIn is testing a new product that encourages companies and employees to curate suitable content, share it across social channels, and then measure the resulting impact.

LinkedIn Elevate combines algorithmic recommendations from LinkedIn Pulse, Newsle, and human curation, according to Will Sun, a product manager at LinkedInSun. Available by invitation only, Elevate is expected to roll out more broadly by the third quarter of the year.

On average, when LinkedIn members share content about their employers, the companies in question receive six job views, three “Company Page” views and one “Company Page” follower, according to internal data. Overall, employees are responsible for about 20% of companies’ social engagement -- including clicks, likes, comments, and shares -- Sun explains in a new blog post.

“That’s not surprising, given employees have 10 times more connections than their company has followers, and people tend to be considered more authentic than companies,” Sun notes. Despite that, it finds only 2% of employees share content their company has shared on LinkedIn.

Adobe, Quintiles, Unilever and several other companies have been experimenting with Elevate -- and with what LinkedIn says are solid results. Employees participating in the pilot program shared six times more often than in the months leading up to the test, the social network found.

LinkedIn could stand to see more content sharing among its roughly 350 million members. While the company’s ad business remains healthy, it is unlikely to increase market share through 2017, according to a recent forecast from eMarketer.

LinkedIn’s display revenues will increase from $310 million in 2015 to $430 million in 2017, the research firm projected, which will leave its share unchanged at about 1.1%.

That’s despite the fact that LinkedIn recently began letting businesses target potential business clients beyond its borders. A recently launched LinkedIn Network Display is helping brands reach professional audiences with display ads both on LinkedIn and off-platform across thousands of publisher sites.

Thanks to a successful mobile shift and international expansion, LinkedIn did recently posted strong quarterly earnings. Year-over-year, revenue for the fourth quarter rose 44% to $643 million on earnings per share of $0.02.