In advocacy marketing, brand advocates present themselves as true spokespersons, ready to speak about your brand in a positive and objective way and say it loud and clear. Indeed, a message has up to 20 times more impact when it is not the brand itself that promotes it but when it comes from “human” promoters. In other words, if the message is transmitted by a client or a collaborator, it will be perceived as much more credible in the eyes of readers.
2 types of brand advocates
Several reasons can motivate a person to do advocacy marketing. As such, two kinds of advocates or "brand advocates" should be distinguished: on the one hand, those who are linked to the brand because they buy its products or services and are satisfied with them: are customer advocates. On the other hand, employees who have no direct link with the brand but will take the initiative to talk about it around them are employee advocates.
Here are five reasons why people share content online:
-To provide quality content and/or to entertain each other.
-To define oneself to others.
-To grow and nurture relationships.
-For their personal development.
-To share information about causes that are important to them.
How to identify brand advocates?
Using social media monitoring tools, research your brand, your products, and all the terms that express satisfaction or sharing (“(I) recommend, (I) “suggest”, (I) “advise”, etc.). Also expand your search to phrases like “you should try…”, “if I were you, I would buy…”, etc.
Once this work is done, it is important to identify and list the reasons why brand advocates are talking about you. While your customers buy your products or services for personal reasons and circumstances, brand advocates talk about you for specific objective reasons. Whether it's a characteristic of one of your products, your prices, the extent of your range, or simply an effect on your brand, these advocates will willingly share their reasons for liking your brand with their close entourage. Take note of what they share, like, and retweet about you. Go beyond keywords and take note every time they share one of your content: sometimes a simple link can be worth a lot more than thousands of words.
How to motivate brand advocates
Once detected, the advocates must be supported and stimulated regularly by the brand so as not to be lost. This requires personal recognition from the brand, the allocation of objects, goodies, or personal benefits allowing them to distinguish themselves. Thus, you establish a privileged relationship of trust with your advocates who will know how to return it to you by raising your brand image.
