LinkedIn has nearly 350 million users, but many of them use it as an online resume or a job-searching tool rather than for sharing content. The company has launched a new standalone app called Elevate to change all that.

The new paid app aimed at companies makes it easier for employees to share company and industry-specific content - and encourages their employees to then share out the posts on Twitter and, of course, on LinkedIn.

Elevate is targeted at companies and allows them to broadcast relevant content to employees to share with their networks to help increase engagement and connections for their companies. The idea is that content being shared by employees among friends and colleagues is far more credible than messages coming from the top brass at the board room level. The product release claims that "people are three times more likely to trust company information from employees than from the CEO."

Through Elevate a company can push articles to employees based on algorithms from LinkedIn's news recommendation services Pulse and Newsle or curate and write original material. The employee can then schedule to share out the posts on Twitter or LinkedIn and there are plans to include other social media sites like Facebook in the future. The app also measures audience activity to suggest the best times to share posts for maximum visibility.

Also included are analytic tools for individual users and the company to see how much their content has been shared and commented on.

LinkedIn Elevate is available now on desktop, iOS and Android to a select group of companies and is expected to launch to the public in the third quarter. The businesses will pay for the app rather than individuals paying, but LinkedIn is still said to be experimenting with pricing.

It's an interesting move for LinkedIn, trying to get companies to get all employees to contribute to social media promotion. The tricky part will be getting the tone of the content right. Companies will want employees sharing content that puts the business in a good light, but if it sounds too corporate or sanitized people won't actually share the content and it won't feel authentic.