Ep. 66: Is Your Campus Ready for Employee Advocacy? The Culture Check Higher Ed Marketers Can’t Skip

Think your university's perfectly curated Instagram feed is attracting Gen Z students? Think again. Employee advocacy experts Ben Hayes and Maria DeMario reveal why letting professors post typos and unpopular opinions on LinkedIn might be your best recruitment strategy yet. But here's the catch: if you're asking faculty to 'stick to brand guidelines,' you're missing the entire point. Discover why the messiest social media presence might be your competitive advantage in the age of AI.

Guest Names:
Maria Di Mario, Head of Editorial, Hubbub Labs
Ben Hayes, Senior Account & Community Manager, Hubbub Labs

Guest Socials:
Maria: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maria-di-mario/
Ben: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjaminhayes80/

Guest Bios:
Maria Di Mario is Head of Editorial at Hubbub Labs, a Barcelona-based marketing agency specialising in education. With more than 18 months leading the agency’s editorial strategy, she shapes high-impact content for education organisations across international markets. Her work sits at the intersection of storytelling, strategy, and education. She develops thought leadership, long-form content, and campaign narratives that help institutions strengthen recruitment, build brand authority, and communicate complex ideas with clarity and nuance. Advising on brand voice, content frameworks and emerging challenges, she is particularly focused on issues of access, equity, and the shifting landscape of international student mobility. Beyond marketing, she advocates for creativity and sustainability, building a personal brand that challenges conventional narratives while elevating thoughtful and intentional work.

Ben Hayes is the Senior Account and Community Manager at Hubbub Labs. Daily, he brings more than 20 years experience working in Marketing and Education, and uses this to help create and manage a variety of high impact campaigns for major brands in the education space. His work ensures that strategy, messaging, content and community work in harmony to not only drive results for education brands, but also help people access education to transform their lives. This year, in conjunction with Maria, he developed and launched an internal Employee Advocacy programme at Hubbub Labs and used this experience to lead a client programme. He's passionate about the connections, ROI and personal sense of accomplishment that comes from a well run Employee Advocate programme.

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Connect With Our Host:
Safaniya Stevenson
https://www.linkedin.com/in/safaniyastevenson/

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