Want to know how to set up your most effective marketing force? Read this article and tap into the power of genuinely caring fans who want to talk about you all the time. Learn how to identify your power brand advocates!
Social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ or Pinterest thrive by people connecting with other people on a daily basis. While some of them might not know you, others talk about you all the time. These are your brand advocates. You better start to identify them and offer them supportive tools to do their marketing job. They need it and so do you!
Here’s why:
“Brand Advocates: are even more active than previously thought, have larger social networks than earlier estimated and recommend both consumer and business products (Zuberance – online research Jan 2012)”
#1 Identify your Brand Advocates
When it comes to marketing, referrals or recommendations are the most effective type of marketing that money can’t buy! Every company has advocates, but not all of them cater to their needs.
Start by identifying your most engaging advocates: your power advocates. These are habitual recommenders! They have 500+ people in their social networks and recommend a brand or company several times each week. Given these facts, Power Brand Advocates’s reach rivals advertising. And it’s free and much more effective!
Some facts: Power advocates recommend a wide variety of brands (on average 9) – and they do so on average 26 times per year. They are also active in many industries.
#2 Energize your Brand Advocates
With an average of 500+ connections, one online referral by a brand advocate generates a huge multiplier to spread the word about your business faster and wider than any offline contact could ever do. Build long-term relationships with brand advocates to enter their very large social networks.
Brand advocates are not motivated by money or personal rewards! They simply do it because they have a good experience with you! 50% mention “I had good experiences with a product or service” as their number one reason to share it with others (Zuberance – online research Jan 2012).
Give them tools – stories, offers, promotional content and make it easy for them to spread the word.
Follow this advice:
“Don’t pimp out your advocates with paying them for shares or recommendations. Thank them! Give them access to exclusive content.” (Rob Fuggetta ~ Zuberance’s CEO)
#3 Track the results ~ ROI
Brand Advocates recommend both consumer and business products. So, what tools do they use online to recommend you to their friends and family? According to Zuberance, Email is their number one tool for referring their social connections to your products or services (57%). Facebook comes second (35%)!
Identify your most influential brand advocates. Through tracking you can see who is most engaging. Who shares it with their networks, generates inbound-clicks that came from that sharing, and makes the referrals (calls to action) that lead to purchases.
Take Away: identify your brand advocates, start building a relationship and keep the conversation going. Ask for their opinion, advice and feedback. Ask for ideas. Use a review of your product or service as the beginning of a long-term relationship with your most effective marketers. They want it and so do you!
Thanks to Rob Fuggetta, Founder / CEO of Zuberance for sharing these great insights!: follow @Zuberance ~ @robfuggetta
~ What are your thoughts on brand advocates?
Please share it with us, leave a comment in the box below 
~
About Juan FelixJuan Felix is the owner of Felix Relationship Marketing. His company offers smart marketing strategies, guided by creative ideas and measurable results.
His company focuses on how to use social media like Facebook, Twitter, G+, YouTube, LinkedIn and Pinterest to build solid relations on the social web - share valuable content -create word of mouth - generate leads and grow your revenue.
Juan works as the senior editor and contributing author of Nieuwe Media Gids. An online magazine to support Dutch entrepreneurs and marketers with new media marketing.
Juan also works as Mari Smith's Chief Facebook Moderator.
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