A mid-sized company can spend months perfecting a LinkedIn page that a few hundred people follow, while the audience it actually wants sits quietly in the contact lists of its own staff.

Every employee who logs in brings a network of clients, suppliers, former colleagues and peers. Added together, that reach usually dwarfs anything the corporate account can manage on its own. For smaller businesses without a large media budget, this is one of the few channels where size is not the deciding factor.

The reach already sits inside your business

The instinct of most owners is to push everything through the brand account, then wonder why engagement stays flat. People follow people. A post from a recognisable colleague lands in a feed with a face and a name attached, and it carries a credibility no logo can buy. This is the thinking behind a deliberate employee advocacy strategy: instead of asking the marketing team to shout louder, you give the wider workforce a simple, low-effort way to share what the company is doing in their own words.

The barrier has never really been willingness. Most staff are happy to support the business they work for. The barrier is friction. People do not know what to post, worry about getting the tone wrong, or simply forget. Remove those obstacles and participation climbs quickly.

Turning goodwill into a repeatable habit

The firms that get this right treat sharing as a light routine rather than a campaign: a short prompt, a draft they can edit, a nudge at the right moment. Newer thought leadership software now handles much of that groundwork, suggesting angles based on someone’s role and letting them rewrite a post so it still sounds like them rather than a press release. The technology matters less than the principle: keep it personal, keep it easy, and let consistency do the heavy lifting.

Measurement helps too, though it is easy to overcomplicate. Track how many people are active, which themes earn replies, and whether any of it turns into conversations with prospects. As recent coverage in the magazine’s business news pages has shown, buyers increasingly research suppliers through the individuals behind them long before they ever fill in a contact form.

There is a cultural payoff as well. When employees post about their work, they tend to feel more connected to it. Recruitment gets easier because candidates can see real people enjoying real projects. The company page becomes a supporting act rather than the entire show, which is exactly where it belongs for most growing businesses.

None of this requires a rebrand or a six-figure agency retainer. It asks for a clear reason to take part, a bit of structure, and the patience to let a handful of regular contributors set the tone. The businesses that build that habit now will own a presence on LinkedIn that competitors with deeper pockets find surprisingly hard to copy, because it rests on something they cannot simply buy: the trust their own people have already earned.

By James Picerno

The outlook for the Federal Reserve’s mandate to control inflation isn’t getting any easier.

The Middle East conflict is escalating again, creating new shipping bottlenecks for energy exports from the region, which could delay – and possibly reverse – the

The businessman brought in to fix Britain’s cost of living crisis has quit, declaring it “damn hard to get anything done” in Whitehall, the day before Andy Burnham sets out measures to give families more “breathing space” on rising bills.

Lord Walker of Broxton, the executive chairman of Iceland Foods, was appointed by Sir Keir Starmer in February to “work across government” as cost of living champion. Announcing on LinkedIn that his role had “expired” with Starmer’s departure, he warned the new prime minister that he “doesn’t have time for rests and delays”.

His parting verdict on government will ring true for any business owner who has waited months for a policy decision. “Plans are all very good but daily political machinations consume everything,” he wrote, adding that restricted communication flows mean “anyone from the outside with fresh ideas” can be frozen out.

Walker saved his sharpest criticism for the building itself, saying No 10 “as a building is not fit for purpose”. “The 17th Century rabbit-warren design makes collaborative co-working impossible,” he wrote.

His advice to Burnham was to make plans for a No 10 North “more than just a PR exercise”. “I would move the cost of living remit into there and away from the Westminster bubble to make policy work better for every part of the country.”

Walker is not the only business figure heading for the exit. Lord Timpson, former chief executive of the shoe repair and key-cutting chain, is also leaving his role as prisons minister, pointing to “green shoots” in the system and saying he looked forward to returning to lead the family business. For SMEs hoping commercial experience would carry weight inside government, the departure of two of its most prominent business voices within days of a new premiership is not an encouraging signal.

The resignations landed as business groups gave a cautious welcome to Burnham’s first speech as prime minister, in which he spoke of the need to “regain our stability” and a “new economic model”, including a “ten-year plan”, devolution, “stronger public control” of “life’s essentials”, more council homes and “re-industrialising Britain, using public procurement to back British industry”. It follows weeks of business leaders demanding an end to drift and delay during the handover of power.

Their message now is that firms must not be an afterthought. Shevaun Haviland, director general of the British Chambers of Commerce, said: “The cost of living and the cost of doing business are two sides of the same coin. Our surveys show energy and taxation are squeezing businesses, hitting confidence and investment. Easing the cost of doing business will deliver the growth we all want to see.”

Burnham has already pledged a 20 per cent business rates cut for pubs and high street firms, but recruiters want him to go further. Neil Carberry, chief executive of the REC, said “firms across the country need to see action. Over the past few years, businesses have seen a swathe of well-intentioned policies raise costs and dampen hiring, contributing to the rising cost of living people face.”

He urged Burnham to insert “pragmatism into the unworkable elements of the government’s employment law changes, reducing the tax wedge on hiring people, and re-invigorating the industrial strategy with the kind of skills, planning and infrastructure reforms that will get private capital working”. Small firms have long warned the employment law overhaul would hit hiring.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies offered a colder dose of realism. Helen Miller, its director, said: “Seeking to rewire the British state, against a backdrop of constrained public finances and with an in-tray full of domestic and international challenges, will require much more than ambition.”

She added that the government “will need to quickly flesh out the vision of what it wants to achieve and be ruthless in its prioritisation”, warning that generous NHS settlements would mean cuts elsewhere, and that on council housing “the subsidies required won’t come cheap”.

With consumer price inflation still running at 2.8 per cent, Burnham’s breathing space cannot come soon enough, for households or the firms that serve them. Walker’s parting message suggests delivering it from inside the rabbit warren will be the hard part.

Jamie Young

Jamie Young is Senior Reporter at Business Matters, covering SME finance, employment law and Westminster policy since 2016. He has reported on every Budget and Autumn Statement since 2018, helped make sense of the ‘covid era’ and the bounce-back loan scheme from launch through the fraud investigations, and broke the magazine’s coverage of the 2024 late-payment reforms. He joined Business Matters straight from completing his BA in Administration from Exeter University and is NCTJ-qualified. Reach him at jyoung@cbmeg.co.uk

The U.S. Department of the Treasury has prevented nearly $99 million in federal payments from being disbursed to deceased individuals using a new verification system deployed under President Donald Trump’s executive order targeting government fraud, waste and abuse.

Following Executive Order 14249, “Protecting America’s Bank Account Against Fraud, Waste, and Abuse,” the Department of the Treasury and the Bureau of the Fiscal Service implemented a verification process that reviewed more than 885 million payments totaling approximately $2.77 trillion.

That screening flagged more than 4,900 payments totaling nearly $99 million that were associated with deceased individuals, returning the payments to the originating federal agencies for review before any funds were disbursed.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent attends a meeting with President Donald Trump and other Cabinet members. (Getty Images)

BESSENT CREDITS TRUMP IMMIGRATION POLICIES WITH HELPING RETURN JOBS TO AMERICANS AS WAGE GAINS RESUME

“So far, we’ve saved about $100 million, payments that didn’t go to deceased people… We think that there’s up to $350 million that we can stop before the end of this year,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on “Mornings with Maria” Tuesday. “The [Government Accountability Office] estimates that… this number might be up to $500 billion, which is about 1.66% of GDP. So that could go a long way towards paying down the debt, providing more services, and this is just the start.”

“In the Biden administration, HHS got rid of about 50 or 60 of the people who were charged with monitoring fraud. And, Maria, what’s important here is that we are stopping the money from going out. So once the money gets out, trying to retrieve it, it’s very, very difficult. So stopping it at the source here is our goal,” he continued.

The initiative relies on permanent access to the Social Security Administration’s Full Death Master File, access that was initially granted on a temporary three-year basis in 2021 through the Consolidated Appropriations Act, according to a Treasury press release.

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Following initial projections estimating $330 million in net benefits between 2024 and 2026, Congress made the verification authority permanent through the “Ending Improper Payments to Deceased People Act,” which President Trump signed into law in February.

“This new safeguard addresses a longstanding vulnerability and helps ensure every dollar the federal government spends reaches its intended recipient,” Bessent also said in the press release. “Treasury will continue efforts to modernize the federal payment system, strengthen safeguards against fraud and improper payments, and protect taxpayer dollars.”

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The maker of Wegovy and Ozempic, Novo Nordisk, has launched legal action accusing its arch rival Eli Lilly of false advertising in suggesting its weight-loss drugs perform better.

The Danish company filed a lawsuit in the US on Tuesday claiming Eli Lilly, which makes Mounjaro and Zepbound, deployed ad campaigns to “create the misleading impression that Eli Lilly’s medicines are superior”.

Novo said its rival compared the highest approved doses of its medicines for obesity and type-2 diabetes with lower doses of Novo Nordisk’s, while omitting newer, higher-dose options.

The BBC has contacted Eli Lilly for comment.

The lawsuit comes as Novo and Eli Lilly are locked in battle to dominate the fast–growing weight-loss drug industry, especially in the US, which analysts have estimated could be worth more than $100bn by 2030.

Novo Nordisk claimed its main competitor in the weight-loss drug business had committed “multiple violations” of federal and state false advertising and unfair competition laws, through its nationwide ad campaigns.

The company said Eli Lilly’s current campaigns “intentionally” selected outdated studies comparing Lilly’s highest doses against lower doses of Novo Nordisk’s medicines.

It said the ads had “deceptively” presented that Eli Lilly’s products were superior, but buried or omitted “critical clinical context”.

The products being compared incorrectly, according to Novo, were Mounjaro vs. Ozempic and Zepbound vs Wegovy.

“As new and more effective treatment options become available, people deserve accurate information that reflects the latest scientific evidence and helps them make informed care decisions,” said John F. Kuckelman, senior vice president and group general counsel for Novo Nordisk.

“Healthcare companies have a responsibility to keep their public claims accurate and current – ineffective, fine-print disclaimers do not fix the misleading impression created by major national campaigns,” he said.

Novo said it was seeking a court order requiring Eli Lilly to pull its ads and instead run what it called a “corrective advertising campaign”.

It added if Eli Lilly did not voluntarily remove the commercials, it would file a motion in the coming days to seek a preliminary injunction to block them.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed Tuesday morning, trading at 52,010.37, up 0.33%, or 171.11 points, as semiconductor stocks staged a fresh rebound and easing rhetoric from Iranian officials helped lift broader investor sentiment ahead of a heavy week of corporate earnings reports from major technology companies.

The gains extended into the broader market as well, with the S&P 500 rising roughly 0.6% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite climbing about 0.9%, as chip names took center stage ahead of results due later this week from Alphabet, Intel, IBM and Tesla, among others.

Chip stocks lead the rebound

Semiconductor shares were the standout performers of Tuesday’s session, continuing to recover after a difficult stretch of losses last week. Asian equities had already risen for the first time in four days overnight, with the MSCI Asia Pacific Index climbing 1.7% and chip giants Samsung Electronics and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. among the biggest contributors to that regional rally. South Korea’s Kospi and Taiwan’s benchmark index each gained more than 2.5% overnight, while Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 2.2% as trading resumed following Monday’s holiday.

That momentum carried directly into U.S. trading, with a broad gauge of American chip stocks rebounding from last week’s sharp selloff and continuing to build on early gains through Tuesday’s session.

A reversal from Monday’s decline

Tuesday’s advance follows a weaker session Monday, when the Dow fell 307.16 points, or 0.59%, to close at 51,839.26, dragged lower in part by a more than 2% decline in Apple shares. The S&P 500 dropped 0.19% to 7,443.28 on Monday, while the Nasdaq Composite slipped 0.05% to 25,508.07, as oil prices advanced following the latest round of military exchanges between the United States and Iran.

Signs of a possible diplomatic opening

Much of Tuesday’s improved sentiment traced back to comments from Iranian officials suggesting a possible path toward renewed negotiations, even as the underlying military conflict continued. The United States completed its ninth consecutive night of strikes on Iranian targets overnight into Monday, but investor sentiment began improving by midmorning London time after Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei signaled openness to a diplomatic resolution.

Baghaei told reporters that intermediaries had continued exchanging messages with Iran even amid the latest round of U.S. strikes, and said negotiations between the two countries could still be pursued based on each side’s national interests. That comment, while not a formal breakthrough, was enough to ease some of the geopolitical risk premium that had been weighing on markets in recent sessions, contributing to lower oil prices Tuesday after crude had briefly touched $90 a barrel over the weekend.

A pivotal week for earnings season

With markets now entering what TheStreet Pro contributor James “Rev Shark” DePorre described as the heart of earnings season, investor attention is increasingly shifting toward how companies’ quarterly results are received rather than simply whether they beat expectations. “The big question is whether the recent carnage has changed expectations enough to change the response to the numbers,” DePorre said. “Will in-line reports be good enough, or does the sell-the-news dynamic that has been punishing some strong results remain in charge?”

DePorre noted that more than 86% of S&P 500 companies that have reported results so far this season have beaten analyst expectations, “and the market has sold plenty of them anyway,” underscoring how closely investors are scrutinizing forward guidance and capital spending plans rather than headline earnings beats alone.

Intel layoffs add to sector-specific news

Beyond the broader market moves, individual company developments continued to shape sentiment within the technology sector. Intel confirmed plans for a new round of layoffs as part of what the company described as a broader strategic realignment, with more than 5,000 U.S. employees affected so far, concentrated primarily in California and Oregon, alongside additional cuts in Arizona and Texas.

An Intel spokesperson explained the rationale behind the restructuring. “As part of our broader strategy to become a more focused and efficient company, our data center group is aligning its organization to ensure it has the right roles and skills in place to position the business for long-term success,” the spokesperson said, adding that the company remains committed to treating all affected employees with respect throughout the transition.

Markets bracing for a wave of Big Tech results

With Alphabet, Intel, IBM and Tesla all scheduled to report earnings later this week, market participants are looking for the next meaningful catalyst for the broader artificial intelligence trade following a series of sharp sector rotations in recent weeks. Analysts said Wall Street has raised its expectations heading into those reports, given the extent to which capital expenditure guidance from major technology companies has increasingly driven stock reactions this earnings season, often more so than the headline profit and revenue figures themselves.

With chip stocks attempting to build on Tuesday’s rebound and cautious optimism building around potential U.S.-Iran diplomatic engagement, investors are likely to remain focused on this week’s earnings reports as the next major test of whether the broader technology rally can regain its footing following weeks of volatility. At the same time, any further developments in the U.S.-Iran conflict, whether toward continued escalation or renewed negotiation, are expected to remain a significant factor shaping both oil prices and broader market sentiment in the sessions ahead.