In this edition of VMJPod's Employer Brand Series, hosts David Macciocca and Brie Mason sit down with Natasha Sweatman from Telstra's Employer Brand and Marketing team to unpack how to build and scale an authentic employee ambassador program.

Natasha manages nearly 200 Telstra brand ambassadors, what she calls ”Telstra influencers”, and shares the surprisingly simple systems that make it work. No fancy platforms, just a Teams channel where she posts ”casting calls” for content needs and ambassadors self-select to participate. The approach is deliberately light-touch and informal, respecting that people have day jobs and shouldn't be nagged into creating content on top of their real work.

The conversation reveals how Telstra's program has evolved from a rigid content calendar to a flexible brand advocacy model where ambassadors engage, amplify, and create content aligned to Telstra's EVP pillars: belonging, opportunity, flexibility and technology. Natasha shares her approach to incentives (merch, internal recognition points, and early access to campaigns), how she tracks performance through monthly ”top post” competitions, and why the hardest part isn't building the program – it's maintaining engagement while respecting people's time.

For organisations starting out, Natasha's advice is clear: don't take it too seriously, align content to your EVP, segment your ambassadors by key talent groups, and make it fun. The goal isn't just recruitment marketing, it's empowering employees to share their stories and build their personal brands.

Key Topics:
03:30 – Why authentic employee stories outperform corporate messaging
05:20 – The simple Teams channel system managing 200 ambassadors
07:40 – Balancing strategic content needs with employee authenticity
10:30 – Incentives that work: Recognition, merch, and early campaign access
14:00 – The personal branding pitch: What's in it for employees?
18:00 – Managing the reality of employee turnover in branded content
22:00 – Monthly ”top post” competitions that gamify engagement
26:00 – Measuring ambassador program impact through recruitment campaigns
30:00 – Personal branding workshops: From grads to executives

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!