91 [EB Series] The Honest Truth About Running an Employee Advocacy Program | Samantha Chong (GSK)

In this episode of the VideoMy Pod's Employer Brand Series, recorded live in Singapore, hosts David Macciocca and Emma Lang chat with Samantha Chong, APAC Recruitment Marketing Manager at GSK, to get into the nuts and bolts of building employee ambassador programs – what works, what fails and how to grow something meaningful from almost nothing.Drawing on her experience building advocacy initiatives across APAC for some of the world's most recognised brands, Samantha shares how she started with a small group of recruiters and a one-pager before gradually building a structured, six-month program with clear expectations, governance frameworks, and measurable outcomes. She gets into how to spot natural ambassadors, what actually motivates people to participate, how to balance brand standards with authentic storytelling, and why trying to measure ROI, while genuinely hard, is still worth the effort.For employer brand and recruitment marketing practitioners who are just starting out with an advocacy program, or looking to take a scrappy initiative to the next level, this episode is full of practical, hard-won advice from someone who's built it from the ground up.Key Topics:02:00 – Why Samantha started with recruiters as her first ambassadors05:30 – The benefits of starting scrappy and learning as you go09:00 – How early wins create internal buy-in and stakeholder interest13:00 – Finding natural ambassadors: hashtag searches, social listening and organic posts17:00 – What's in it for them: recognition, swag, leaderboards and community21:00 – Building a structured six-month cohort program with clear expectations25:00 – Measuring ROI: from screenshot collection to source-of-hire data29:00 – Balancing authentic storytelling with brand governance and approvals33:00 – How to preemptively answer the questions that slow ambassadors down35:30 – Lessons from China: when going a little rogue actually pays off37:00 – Three final tips: don't force it, don't overscript it, and pitch the "what's in it for them"If you want to learn more about activating your employer brand strategy and EVP then you can check out podcast.videomyjob.com for a library of industry perspectives and how-to's.Now, if you’re ready to level up your activation strategy then you need an employee story video platform and that’s what we do! Go to videomyjob.com/demo to book a walkthrough with one of our video specialists.Lastly, we’d love for you to help us spread the word about the VMJPod to attract new experts and practitioners to share their activation strategies, so please take a screenshot and post it on LinkedIn, don’t forget to tag us at VideoMy, we are so grateful when you do that!