How Leonardo Supports Safe Social Media Sharing in the Aerospace Industry With Walls.io

Watch this video to learn how Mark Gunning, Head of UK Digital Communications at Leonardo, uses Walls.io to build trust in social media sharing, increase employee advocacy, and integrate digital content into events and corporate communications.

Overview

Challenge: Leonardo operates in a conservative and highly regulated industry where employees are often cautious about engaging with social media. The company needed a way to make social media content more accessible and easier to share, while ensuring employees felt secure in using approved messaging.

Solution: Leonardo implemented Walls.io to showcase curated social media content across its website, events, and internal communications, making it easier for employees to confidently share company-approved updates.

Results: The social walls help Leonardo bridge the gap between traditional corporate communications and digital engagement. Employees now have a trusted source of social media content they can share, contributing to increased LinkedIn engagement and brand awareness.

How Leonardo Uses Walls.io

Leonardo, a global security company, uses Walls.io across multiple touchpoints to improve digital communication and employee engagement.

Safe social media sharing

• Employees in the defense sector are often hesitant to engage with social media due to strict regulations and security concerns.
• Walls.io provides a way for employees to access pre-approved, publicly available content, making them more comfortable sharing corporate updates on platforms like LinkedIn.
• The social walls help normalize digital engagement, encouraging employees to be brand advocates while ensuring compliance with industry standards.

Website engagement

• Leonardo integrates Walls.io into its homepage and multiple campaign pages to keep the website fresh, dynamic, and continuously updated.
• The embedded social walls allow visitors to see real-time updates, news, and industry conversations without leaving the site.
• The feature also supports Leonardo’s goal of making its digital presence more engaging and interactive.

Event communication

• Leonardo attends major industry events and sets up social walls in its large pavilions to keep attendees informed.
• The walls showcase real-time social media updates, press coverage, and campaign highlights, extending the reach of event messaging.
• By integrating digital and physical experiences, Leonardo ensures that event attendees stay informed beyond what’s displayed on the exhibition stand.

Interview with Leonardo’s Head of UK Digital Communications

What challenges made you to look for a solution like Walls.io?

Mark: Leonardo Corporate were using Walls.io, and we thought the tool would be beneficial for our UK business, and there were a couple of reasons why we saw value in it.

We are increasingly focusing on integrated communications. It’s not just about attending an event, publishing an article, or running a campaign through the press or media—we’re aiming to integrate all these efforts. We wanted to ensure that people had the opportunity to see and learn more from digital communications and the content being produced, so it could be repurposed across various campaigns.

Additionally, we are strong supporters of employee advocacy and have been making a significant internal push to encourage more employees to become advocates for our company. To do this, we needed to raise awareness of the content being shared through our digital and social media channels.

By using Walls.io both on our website and internal screens, we ensure that visitors to our website see relevant content, and our employees see the same content on internal displays before events. This way, we tie together our online presence with our event presence, amplifying our story across multiple touchpoints.

Ultimately, Walls.io helps us support our advocacy campaign by enabling employees to share our story—because, at the end of the day, they are the best people to do so.

What improvements have you noticed since using Walls.io? 

Mark: Well, we’re getting good feedback from people who see the walls, saying things like, “Great content!” and engaging with us about it. These things don’t stand in isolation, but year on year, our LinkedIn engagement is growing—which is important since LinkedIn is the primary social media platform used by most of our employees.

We’re seeing strong engagement growth on LinkedIn, both from employees who list Leonardo as their employer and from a wider audience. While I can’t say there’s a direct correlation, Walls.io is definitely supporting the overall growth of our social media presence and brand awareness in the UK.

You use multiple social walls for your homepage and campaigns—can you share how you use them?

Mark: Sure, yeah. So on our website, we have multiple campaign pages as well as our homepage. We wanted to include social walls to make the website feel more active, live, and continuously updated.

On our homepage, if you scroll to the bottom, we have a wall that displays our latest news. Throughout the website, we have various campaign-specific walls. For example, Wildcat Wednesday supports a specific helicopter that flies and has a well-known hashtag. It’s not just us using it—the Royal Navy and some Naval Air Squadrons also contribute. By aggregating this content, we can highlight the value of the Wildcat helicopter.

Similarly, we are part of Team Tempest, which is developing the next combat air aircraft for the UK as part of the Global Combat Air Programme. We use a social wall to showcase not just our own updates but also press coverage and partner contributions, reinforcing the campaign’s activity and visibility. That’s why we have multiple walls primarily on our website.

Beyond the website, we also use Walls.io at events. At Leonardo, we have large pavilions featuring graphic walls, and we want attendees to see real-time updates, media mentions, and press releases. This ensures that people at events don’t just engage with what’s physically on display but also gain a broader perspective on Leonardo’s work and campaigns beyond the exhibition stand.

Using Walls.io helps us bring everything together—from our website to events—creating a seamless digital and in-person experience.

If you were to recommend Walls.io to other brands, what would be your reasons for doing so? 

Mark: Well, all of those things, really. Walls.io helps at live events, providing real-time news and updates to attendees.

It also improves engagement on our website, making it more dynamic and informative for visitors. This allows people to see the full scope of Leonardo’s work across various campaigns and markets.

Internally, we’re increasingly using it to keep employees informed about what we’re doing as a business. This not only makes them proud to be part of the company but also encourages them to share content. Since they know the information is approved and publicly available, they feel more confident sharing it on social media.

Can you describe the benefits of using Walls.io?

Mark: It makes our job easier and directly supports our goal of raising the profile of what we do digitally while showcasing the power of digital communication.

We operate in a very conservative and traditional industry—defense—where employees are often cautious about using social media and sharing information. Walls.io helps by making our content visible and easily accessible, so employees can confidently share approved information, knowing it is safe to do so.

This is a big step for us in terms of changing behaviors, increasing employee awareness, and expanding visibility beyond our external campaigns to reach both our employees and wider audiences.