As we noted in our last blog, the strategy of leveraging a relatively small community of passionate social brand advocates to drive a much broader base of consumer targets is more important and relevant than ever.
In this week’s blog we thought we’d touch on some of the pathways for driving advocates to share their passion for your brand via social media.
- Make it easy for advocates to advocate. When recruiting advocates, keep it simple…for example, just 1 or 2 clicks to upload social contacts.
- Determine what inspires your brand advocates and drives them to your brand. Employ your brand’s unique drivers in your advocate outreach efforts to both current brand franchise members as well as prospects.
- Brand advocacy can potentially be promoted in all of the channels your brand utilizes. Consider using all of these channels to reach and stimulate brand advocates to reach out to others. For example, if your brand is marketed online, ask your brand advocates to share their purchase experience with their social contacts at the point of online checkout.
- Keeping track of advocates is essential to continued success. Tracking advocates ensures that you are updated on what drives their brand passion and if it changes.
- Tracking advocate performance also will identify those who are more active, effective and deserving of greater recognition. Rewarding advocates motivates them to action and cultivates their relationship with your brand.
- Along with core brand drivers, global brand advocacy initiatives need to consider accenting advocacy drivers that are relevant at the local market level.