The Employee Advocacy & Influence Podcast 🎧

Join Lewis Gray and Elliot Elsley as they sit down with special guest Melissa Heidmiller, Procore’s Brand Marketing Manager. Melissa joins our hosts to discuss Procore’s employee advocacy program, diving deep into how they’ve scaled and refined it. Melissa shares her approach to tracking success, the challenges faced in gathering and interpreting data, and how she’s getting leadership buy-in with real, measurable outcomes.

Melissa also talks about how they engage employees by connecting the value of advocacy to their personal brand and career growth. Plus, she highlights how Procore’s annual conference, Groundbreak, became a catalyst for social media success and how their new employee advocacy platform is driving engagement.

Lewis and Elliot welcome Sarah Ruzgar O’Connell, Global Head of Communications at Awin, to explore how Awin has evolved its employee advocacy program and strategy over the years to stay on top of industry trends.

Sarah shares how Awin has entered the new era of employee advocacy, the shift from content sharing to personal branding, and how company culture plays a vital role in long-term engagement. Sarah also discusses the power of leadership buy-in, gamification, and actionable strategies for strengthening advocacy momentum.

In this episode, we dive into the key findings from our latest Employee Advocacy Benchmark Report. Lewis and Elliot unpack the data and share actionable insights to help organizations enhance their employee advocacy programs. They both highlight their favourite stats from the report, which focus on employee engagement, social media and the role of technology. They also discuss employees’ resistance towards social media and the best strategies to overcome it.

In this special episode of our podcast, Lewis welcomes Emily Paige Jones, Director of Customer Success at DSMN8, as his special guest. Emily, being DSMN8’s latest recruit, brings forth an important question about a misconception that she’s eager to debunk – “Does employee advocacy look like spam posting?” Lewis navigates unravels the reasons why, with the right technology, the same content can be shared multiple times by hundreds or thousands of people and look unique every time. Learn how this approach can help companies avoid the appearance of spam posting while maintaining authenticity.

Bradley and Lewis explore an important question raised by a member of The Employee Advocacy Certification’s Alumni Network. Together, they navigate through the question and debunk the idea that employee advocacy programs inadvertently inflate performance numbers through internal engagement.

In this episode of the podcast, Bradley and Lewis discuss tips to get sign-off from your CFO to launch an employee advocacy program. They touch on statistics that highlight the impact that employee advocacy has and how an employee advocacy tool can save your company money. All valuable information to take to your CFO!

In this episode, Bradley and Lewis discuss how to step up from manual employee advocacy to a formal program, and the issues that may occur when you rely on manual employee advocacy.

In this special workshop-style episode, Lewis invites special guest Shannon Loveridge to lend her insights on the law and legal industry and why employee advocacy is a crucial tool that should be utilized in this industry. Shannon highlights the challenges that come with employee advocacy in law firms and how to overcome them.

In this episode, Bradley discusses the common misconception that employee advocacy can’t work for companies within regulated industries, and outlines the features and processes needed to make it a success, no matter which industry you’re in.

In this episode, find out what enterprises need to consider when choosing an employee advocacy platform. Plus, find out how to distribute your content in a smart way, and learn our tips for managing an enterprise employee advocacy program!

Think all employee advocacy programs are just people sharing the same message over and over again? Or that you can spot an initiative a mile off when people are sharing the exact same thing? Well, GOOD employee advocacy really isn’t this and the assumption shouldn’t be that all employee advocacy programs follow the same strategy.

In this episode, we discuss: why seeing bad implementations of other people’s attempts shouldn’t stop you, what you need to do when running an EA program, a key component that all the best programs have, and explain what the perfect execution of employee advocacy is.

Employee advocacy works incredibly well for B2B companies, but can it be successful for a B2C business? Which social networks are right for B2C employee advocacy? Consider taking a different approach to advocacy: maybe it’s time to open up your advocacy program to consumers too!

In this episode, we discuss; the social media spectrum; the difference between B2B and B2C advocacy programs; the importance of keeping advocacy programs exciting AND the #1 question you should ask YOURSELF before you ask your employees to post to their own social media.

Sliding door moments… Say hello to your new career launch pad! In this episode, we look at how employee advocacy can be a career launch pad.

We talk about the network effect of employee advocacy, its purpose, how to increase impact by 300%, provide a career differentiator AND how to build your personal business case!

When times get tough, it’s even more important to assess what is and isn’t working for your organization. BUT how do you avoid going silent and continue to communicate regularly with your target audience in the most cost-effective way?

Well, it starts with your employees – the people already closest to your business AND moving the needle is easier than you may think!

In this episode,  we talk about what 60% of podcasts never do! We’ll cover; the cheapest and most efficient way for your brand to communicate, how Content AND Culture are the TWO main ingredients for success, how you don’t need to overestimate the amount of content and employees needed in your program AND what the results YOU can expect to generate from employee advocacy will be!

How does internal communications impact employee advocacy? Are they the same thing?

In this episode, we talk how employee advocacy forms an internal communication function. We’ll cover: what we found from analyzing over 1,000 social media posts from employees, how to utilize your existing internal comms tools for even greater impact, why you should ask yourself this ONE question and what the dream scenario of employee advocacy really is!

We’re starting at the start, well, before the start! In this episode, we talk about the things you need to do way ahead of choosing a technology partner in order to run a successful employee advocacy program.

We’ll cover: choosing a program manager, defining what advocacy-ready content actually means, what success will look like AND finally, the most important thing that you MUST do before launching an employee advocacy program.

Lewis and Elliot sit down with Brad Nevin, the brains behind Nissan’s global employee advocacy program, to discuss how he scaled advocacy from a small pilot project into a powerhouse initiative.

Brad shares his journey from securing leadership buy-in to overcoming challenges across global markets. He also reveals the strategies that kept employees engaged and the game-changing impact Nissan’s advocacy program had on brand visibility and LinkedIn presence.

In this special episode, Lewis and Elliot introduce special guest Vahbiz Cooper, Digital Marketing Manager at Demandbase, to explore Vahbiz’s action plan behind successful user adoption and employee engagement in advocacy programs.

Vahbiz shares her strategies for getting employees excited about advocacy, ensuring long-term engagement, and measuring the real impact of these programs. She also discusses the role of leadership in driving adoption and how a creative onboarding process can turn employees into advocates.

In this episode, Lewis and Elliot are joined by Eva Baluchova, Global Employer Branding Lead at Danfoss, to uncover Eva’s journey in building and scaling an employee advocacy program without using a dedicated tool.

Discover how Danfoss scaled their employee advocacy program globally, creating an inclusive and thriving community. Eva shares insights into why she explored employee advocacy and how she has helped employees build authentic personal brands. All while boosting engagement and visibility the hard way without the help of a tool.

In this episode, Lewis and Elliot sit down with Roy Sexton, Director of Marketing at Clark Hill Law, to uncover how the firm successfully set up, launched, scaled, and managed an employee advocacy program in a highly regulated industry.

Roy shares his journey, from overcoming early challenges to implementing strategies that turned employees into brand ambassadors. Whether you’re just starting or looking to scale your employee advocacy program, this episode is packed with actionable insights.

Roy highlights the importance of internal training, awareness-building, and creative ways to keep employees engaged and consistently share content. The conversation also dives into the personal benefits employees have gained, how Roy measures ROI, and how this impacts Clark Hill.

In this episode, Lewis brings in a special guest: April Jones, Account Executive at DSMN8. April specializes in helping companies launch and streamline their advocacy programs, so we couldn’t think of a better place to garner some fresh insights.

April picks Lewis’s brain for his best practices on maximizing employee participation in advocacy programs and asks him about the benefits employees will receive from participating.

Lewis dives into the importance of establishing a strong brand presence for employees and shares insights on effectively communicating these benefits across all levels of an organization. But that’s not all—Lewis also dishes out the latest tips and tricks to help employees create a habit of posting on social media.

In this special episode, find out how Dropbox approached the first 30 days of launching an employee advocacy program with actionable tips to help you improve your E.A. game!

Whether your organization is a first-timer or you’re looking to give your existing initiative a boost, Katherine Keenan, Dropbox’s Head of Talent Brand Programs runs through the top tips to help you succeed.

Counter-intuitive? Maybe. Maybe not. Hear us out as there is a logic to our madness of why you SHOULD limit your employee advocacy.

In this episode, we talk about the four types of employees, what wise program leaders do, what we advise clients to limit daily shares to, the content economics of employee advocacy AND explain what the MOST important thing to remember is!

Content tumbleweeds…. Are you creating loads of content that nobody shares? Worse. Your Sales team don’t see the value? In this episode, we discuss how you can effectively onboard your sales team to your advocacy program.

We talk about how salespeople have the most vested interest, the easiest way to get salespeople onboard, what to do BEFORE you carry out any employee advocacy training, an absolute MUST to include AND the steps to follow to effectively onboard your salespeople.

What is the Pyramid of Employee Influence? Find out how it can help you decide which employees to include in an advocacy program. Do you really need 100% of your employees engaged in advocacy for it be successful?

Exciting announcement: we’ve got a book coming out! In the next 4 episodes of the Employee Advocacy & Influence podcast, our CEO Bradley Keenan will share some of the best Employee Advocacy tips, chosen from the book at random!

In this episode, find out how to encourage employee advocacy program sign-ups, and why you shouldn’t force it.

Bradley and Lewis host another workshop-style episode. Bradley explains how to create ideal advocate profiles for your employee advocacy program strategy. Lewis offers insights on how he would create a profile using the template Brad provides. They highlight the importance of having ideal advocate profiles and how this can lead to a successful employee advocacy program.

In this episode of the podcast, Bradley and Lewis debunk the idea that employee advocacy programs solely benefit marketing teams. They highlight that although an employee advocacy tool is perceived as being a marketing function, it can have an equally significant impact on other departments in a business, such as sales and employer branding teams.

This is how to make your social media policy ‘employee-ready’!

In this episode, we talk about how you can evolve from a “Do Not Post on Social Media” strategy to a “Post on Social Media” strategy with your employees. We’ll cover: what 55% of Employees have NO idea about, what your Employee-Ready Social Media Policy MUST include, how to support your Employee Advocates, AND finally, provide you with a Checklist for Employee Success!

We get asked this question all the time!

In this episode, we talk about how you can get your CEO to post on social media. We’ll cover; what to do if your CEO doesn’t get social, how you can show the value, how to build a business case for employee advocacy, AND finally, introduce you to the Social CEO Framework which features the steps you can take right away and take your C-Level Executives from social zero’s to social heroes!

Mastering user engagement is the key to success for your employee advocacy program. BUT, how do you ensure this?

In this episode, we talk about how to master user adoption with your employee advocacy program. We’ll cover; HOW to lead from the front, the benefits of creating a feedback loop, harnessing the POWER of new recruits, AND finally, how you can re-engage lapsed users.

Should employees be rewarded for participating in your company’s employee advocacy program?

As with most things in business, the answer is: it depends. In this episode, we discuss gamification, how it can impact your program, and whether or not employees should be rewarded for participating. We’ll cover; the downsides and how gamification can go wrong, how to decide if gamification will be right for YOUR organization, using leaderboards versus rewards, and, most importantly, how to get gamification right!

In this episode, we talk about the 3 C’s of Employee Advocacy – content, culture and coordination. We’ll cover: the content that will make your employee advocacy take off, how to power your employee advocacy program with free content, the ultimate hack to finding talent for your organization, the number one ingredient to employee advocacy success, and finally, how to find existing influencers in your organization.

In this episode, Jordan Tennenbaum, Head of Social Media at Talkdesk, shares insider strategies and actionable tips that have helped Talkdesk’s social media presence to new heights.

Jordan highlights LinkedIn’s key role in professional branding and employee engagement, offering a behind-the-scenes look at how he runs Talkdesk’s employee advocacy program effectively.

Learn how to empower employees as brand ambassadors, increase visibility, and drive meaningful engagement with employee advocacy combined with strategies that work. From crafting compelling LinkedIn content to building a thriving community of advocates, Jordan shares his results-driven tips.

In this episode of The Employee Advocacy and Influence Podcast, Lewis Gray and Elliot Elsley are joined by Anna Bertoldini, Senior Social Media Brand Manager at NielsenIQ. Anna shares practical insights on how employee advocacy empowers employees to build personal brands that strengthen the company’s overall brand impact.

Together, they dive into the critical topic of measuring ROI in employee advocacy—exploring different metrics and methods tailored to various goals, from boosting brand awareness to enhancing employee engagement. They also discuss the long-term career benefits for employees who participate in advocacy programs and develop a strong personal brand.

In this episode of The Employee Advocacy & Influence Podcast, we have a special guest, Maike Jansen. Together, hosts Lewis and Elliot take a deep dive into Maike’s role as an employee advocacy lead at Dentsu Benelux. They discuss the importance of employee advocacy and how to maintain brand consistency, safety, and suitability on social media.

This insightful episode explores strategies for managing employee-generated content, mitigating intellectual property risks, and addressing security concerns that often arise with these programs.

Maike shares real-world examples of aligning employee advocacy with brand safety and consistency. Plus, you’ll learn how top organizations keep their brand message strong, safe, and authentic with the right social media guidelines, training, and tools.

Whether managing employee advocacy for a highly regulated sector or looking to refine your approach, this episode will equip you with the tools and strategies to run a safe and impactful employee advocacy program.

In this episode, discover the top 5 ways to boost employee engagement when running an employee advocacy program. Elliot shares valuable insights from his experience as the Director of Customer Success at DSMN8. He reveals how employee advocacy program managers can nurture their programs and unleash the competitive nature of leadership teams to ensure consistent participation.

Lewis explains a mistake he made and how speaking to one employee led to a shift in content strategy that skyrocketed engagement. Plus, find out which group of advocates are the MOST important to engage for employee advocacy success! Whether you’re just launching your advocacy initiative or struggling to keep your team engaged, following these tips will enable you to build a thriving community of employee influencers and thought leaders.

Bradley and Lewis are back with a bang to officially announce the launch of The Employee Advocacy Certification. In this exclusive episode, Lewis delivers insights and gives you a sneak peek into the course’s offerings. Meanwhile, Brad delves into a module that explores measuring and defining success from an employee advocacy program.

In this special two-part episode of the podcast, Bradley and Lewis discuss LinkedIn’s recent algorithm changes, and how they impact employee advocacy. In part one, Bradley & Lewis break down the changes to LinkedIn’s algorithm and offer their key takeaways from the recent updates. In part two, Lewis & Bradley host a workshop in writing great social media posts for employee advocacy, and Lewis explains DSMN8’s PACKD analogy for writing better posts.

In this special two-part episode of the podcast, Bradley and Lewis discuss LinkedIn’s recent algorithm changes, and how they impact employee advocacy. In part two, Lewis & Bradley host a workshop in writing great social media posts for employee advocacy, and Lewis explains DSMN8’s PACKD analogy for writing better posts.

In this episode, Bradley and Lewis highlight quick wins that can help elevate your employee advocacy platform. They highlight the wins that may seem obvious, but that a lot of program leaders overlook. They discuss how to implement these wins and the immediate difference it will make to your employee advocacy program.

In this episode of the podcast, Bradley and Lewis discuss how to use employee advocacy for content idea generation. They highlight the importance of employees being active on social and why social activity and employee advocacy should be treated as one combined activity.

In this episode, Bradley and Lewis discuss what they consider to be the three most common/problematic roadblocks (or “enemies”) of an employee advocacy program.

In this episode, find out why consistency is the key to employee advocacy community building.

What does employee advocacy consistency look like? Find out how to build your EA community and consistently provide content for employees to share.

The importance of a Test, Listen & Learn approach and creating feedback loops to guide your employee advocacy success.

In this episode, we discuss, why an authentic tone of voice is a must, would your employees share content, how to tell if employee shares resonate with audiences, the dark social impact of employee advocacy AND how to create employee advocate feedback loops.

When life gets in the way, posting to social media falls by the wayside. Scheduling content and keeping your content “evergreen” are your secret weapons to keep your employees’ social media presence consistent.

You’re interrupting people’s day – so, you better make it worth their while if you want employee advocacy success! A well thought out, and structured post caption can be the difference between impact for your social content and failure. THIS is how to get it right and hit your goals.

This is the single BIGGEST piece of advice for onboarding new users to your advocacy program. In this episode, we talk about the mistakes we’ve seen made when launching an employee advocacy program, and how you can ensure success when it comes to getting employees to join your program and maintaining engagement.

Unhappy with the results of your employee advocacy program? Inherited an employee advocacy program but disappointed with employee engagement? Well, there are times where a program just needs a re-boot to take results to the next level.

We talk about why you need to establish what went wrong the first time, how to create your new game plan, plus the importance of identifying and communicating your employee value proposition.

Want to encourage employees to become content creators?

In this episode, we talk about how to get more employees to submit content to you. We’ll cover: why creating B2B social that doesn’t suck is difficult, what you can do to help your B2B social presence, the one thing you have to accept, what many get so wrong, AND finally, introduce you to the REALLY simple employee-generated content framework that will get more of your employees submitting content to you today!

Social selling is every salesperson’s greatest asset, and it’s employee advocacy’s secret weapon!

In this episode, we talk about how your social selling efforts can be taken to the next level with an employee advocacy platform. We’ll cover: how to become that go-to person in your industry, why you should embrace employee advocacy as part of your sales process, how to get your sales leaders on board, how employee advocacy becomes effortless lead nurturing at scale, AND, finally, why social selling with employee advocacy is here to stay.

This has to be the number 1 employee advocacy blunder we see!

In this episode, we talk about the biggest blunder employee advocacy programs make. We’ll cover; what you need for Employee Advocacy success, the power of dynamic content, how time-effective distribution can equal continued program value, AND finally, what the true aim of good employee advocacy should be.