SocialChorus, the only Advocate Marketing platform purpose-built for all employees and brand ambassadors, announced today that the company has secured $7.5 million in Series B funding and will open its first international office in Vancouver, Canada. The investment round was led by Kohlberg Ventures and brings the company's total funding raised to $15.5 million. The Series B round will be used to further develop the SocialChorus platform to meet the needs of the Global Fortune 1000.

This announcement comes as brands are investing in content creation at unprecedented levels but still struggle to distribute that content effectively. SocialChorus makes it easy for employees and ambassadors to actively participate in programs that distribute branded content such as social selling, social recruiting, content marketing and employee engagement initiatives.

'Leading brands are realizing that social and content marketing are much more powerful when not trapped with a small group of social media specialists,' said Gregory Shove, founder and CEO of SocialChorus. 'Our platform makes it easy for all employees and brand ambassadors to consume and share brand-safe content, and significantly improve the return on social and content marketing.'

Leading brands agree. Since closing their Series A round in August 2013, SocialChorus has welcomed nearly 100 category-leading brands to its customer base. Today, SocialChorus powers Advocate Marketing for:

10 of the Fortune 50
15 of Fortune's Most Admired Companies
5 of the 12 Fortune 500 software companies
3 of the 5 largest U.S. retailers
4 of the 5 largest consumer packaged goods companies
3 of the 4 largest telecommunications companies
'SocialChorus has proven that the right platform and partner can power thousands of employees and brand ambassadors to drive results across the organization,' said James Kohlberg, Chairman at Kohlberg Ventures. 'We are convinced that every company will deploy advocate and content marketing platforms in the next two years.'

Lee Diaz Hired as Solutions Director

Today, SocialChorus also announced the hiring of Lee Diaz as the company's new Solutions Director. Previously Senior Manager of Emerging Communications at AT&T, Diaz pioneered employee advocacy for that company. AT&T now has one of the world's largest employee advocacy programs. Lee will be responsible for designing employee advocacy programs for SocialChorus customers.

'SocialChorus customers employ millions of people,' said Gregory Shove. 'They see the tremendous business potential when they turn all of their employees into social content marketers.'

About SocialChorus

SocialChorus enables all employees and brand ambassadors to consume, share and create branded content generating new awareness, engagement and sales for brands. We call this new category Advocate Marketing.

Our all-in-one web and mobile platform makes it easy for employees and ambassadors to actively participate in your brand's content marketing, social selling, social recruiting, and employee engagement initiatives. The solution trains advocates, manages content relevance, integrates with any internal system, runs on any device and tracks the business impact of every content and social engagement.

Leaders in every industry, including consumer packaged goods, retail, technology, telecommunications and financial services have chosen SocialChorus, the recognized leader in Advocate Marketing. Learn more at socialchorus.com.