Today we are celebrating the Who’s Who list of The Top Ten Employee Advocates Rock Stars Edition from Social Arts & Science Institute (SASI).
Employee Advocates are a special breed of employees that care about the future success of their company, are passionate about customer relationships, take action beyond their defined job descriptions and are willing to forge new relationships online on behalf of their company.
Employee Advocates are different as they make their engagements visible, defend their employers from criticism and act as active advocates, online and off. Some of these recipients below are part of larger company initiatives while others have organically shown up out of self-motivation, passion and determination.
We strongly believe that Employee Advocacy is central to company success and is the underlying foundation for high-performing companies.
We are excited to celebrate this top ten list, in alphabetical order.
1. Amber Armstrong @Ambarmstrong
Submission by Amy Tennison, IBM
“Amber was one of the main people who helped implement IBM's first employee advocacy program with Dynamic Signal. Best practices from this program have since been mirrored across the entire company. She is also an avid user of the tool. She regularly tops the "best social sharer" leaderboard and shows up as one of the top sources for all the IBM Social Business campaigns across Twitter.”
2. Colleen Burns @Colleeni
Submission by Amy Tennison, IBM
“Colleen is a huge employee advocacy advocate from IBM's Corporate team. Her team was responsible for bringing Dynamic Signal into IBM. Since then, she's been leading the charge across IBM to launch new employee advocacy programs based on the success from the initial IBM Social Business pilot. Colleen has also implemented an all employee social sharing hub to highlight some of IBM's biggest events and campaigns."
3. Graciano Beyhaut @BizPowering
Submission by DeShelia Spann, Eaton
“Graciano stepped into the role of an Eaton employee advocate with an amazing understanding of how powerful one’s voice can be in impacting the social landscape. He’s not only built a strong social media (from 10 followers to over 700+) in just a few months, he has also empowered his product management team to become advocates and encourages them to make it a part of their performance goals. Graciano has embraced the power of sharing content outside of our advocacy platform as well. You can often find him providing commentary or posting helpful information to his social connects – and in some cases using the #EatonEngaged hashtag to drive the message forward.”
4. Mona Charif @MonaTweeting
Submission by Amy Heiss, Dell
“Mona is such an asset to Dell in the social media space. She is a VP of Services Marketing who completed our #SocialExec program over the summer. Since then, she has published several LinkedIn articles and is a consistent voice for Dell on Twitter. She has just the right balance of posts including personal stories, relevant articles on the field of services marketing, and posts about how Dell is making a difference in the Services industry. In addition to deepening her relationships with customers, her influence, reach, and social footprint have all grown as a result of her work.”
5. Jim Clancy @emcstrong
Submission by Jennifer Kirk, EMC
“Jim is a VP in Sales and leads by example. He knows the importance of social selling, encourages his sales teams to engage online, take classes in social selling and join the Hub to further share EMC’s message.”
6. Kylie Face @kyreeee on Instagram
Submission by Jess Ryan, Whole Foods
“Kylie is extremely active on Instagram, and her ambassador-related posts get a ton of support and engagement from her followers. She’s authentic with her experiences as a Team Member, and her presence on Instagram makes it crystal clear that she’s proud to be part of our community.”
7. Phil George @vPhilGeorge
Submission by Jennifer Kirk, EMC
“Phil has been socially supportive of EMC, our division and each other since day 1. He’s always eager to make connections, engage with customers and partners and is a high user of the advocate hub and encourages his coworkers to participate socially and on The Hub as well.”
8. Ken Kaplan @kenekaplan
Submission by Scott Jaworski, Intel
“Not only is Ken the Managing Editor of iQ.intel.com, but he is a long time veteran. Ken has continued to navigate and propel himself forward by hard work, discipline and a deep and true spirited team attitude for all of his years. His value and service to Intel is not only reflected on the inside, but out. A rich social following with record numbers of social sharing and commentary that is not only a push vehicle, but a conversational one will continue to net him high scores in employee advocacy. The best part is he doesn’t even know he’s doing it or that he is one of our shining advocates.”
9. Susan Warner @Sswarner12
Submission by Andrew Bowins, Mastercard
“This year, Susan and her internal communications team created Girls4Tech, MasterCard’s signature science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) curriculum, and fired up employees to serve as role models and mentors. The program rolled out in the US this year and will go global in 2015 with events planned in Dubai, Frankfurt, London, Gurgaon, India and Johannesburg.”
10. Greg Zach @oldgreg73 on Instagram and @greg_zach on Twitter
Submission by Jess Ryan, Whole Foods
"Greg regularly posts shared and original content on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, and he’s reached out to our team on multiple occasions with feedback and a desire to help the program succeed. From an email he sent us: 'I have loved being a part of this program. It has majorly reinvigorated my passion for food, and the enjoyment of coming to work, and sharing the joy of food with others!'"
Please celebrate this Who’s Who list, along with all the employee advocates at your company, for the incredible work, passion, excitement and connections that they bring.
Photo Credit: Wong Yu Liang