Brands need to be able to get their message out and market themselves. With social media, brands can leverage the power of robust networks like Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.
Social media marketing is an essential part of any company’s marketing strategy. Companies should find ways to build brand advocates through social media. This can be done by creating engaging and relevant content and then finding ways to distribute it through the channels that are most effective for your audience. Most firms’ marketing strategies now include social media. It generates a lot of traffic, increases brand exposure, and even generates revenue. In addition, some businesses, such as Comcast, have found it a helpful customer care tool.
However, one aspect of social media that is sometimes overlooked is creating brand evangelists and supporters. These are essentially volunteer marketing representatives that write, share, and promote your company on social media… It’s even better: they’re doing it for free. Consider this: identifying, motivating, and rewarding 20 or more brand champions for your company is the equivalent of employing a small army of public relations professionals for pennies on the dollar. For you, it might be the difference between obscurity and celebrity.
Actions to build and grow brand ambassadors:
Step 1: Find prospective brand evangelists.
First and foremost. According to research published by Edison Research last year, an increasing number of Americans are utilizing social media. 52% of adults in the United States use at least one social networking site. Facebook is the most popular social networking site, with 51% of Americans having an account.
That is enormous. This means you need to concentrate your efforts and determine who your prospect is and who among your followers is already sharing and promoting your material. Just because you have a huge following doesn’t guarantee any brand supporters among them. Many individuals follow others on Facebook and Twitter solely to get a reciprocal follow. Take a look at Michael Hyatt and Chris Brogan, who quit following over 100,000 individuals, understanding how this may grow nasty and unpleasant.
The trick is to pay attention to who is sharing your material. You may accomplish so by using some of the following tools:
- Tweet Reach – This is a simple tool that will show you how far your tweets have traveled, who has shared them, and who they’ve influenced.
- Twitter Search – You may use this search tool to look for your domain name or Twitter account results. However, since history is not extensive, you would have to keep up with it daily.
- Traackr — This tool lets you see who’s prominent in your industry, what they’re sharing, and how they transmit your material.
Step 2: Establishing a connection with your brand’s supporters.
Once you’ve identified a dozen or so essential individuals who are pushing your product, it’s time to keep them on board.
Here are some ideas for keeping these promoters interested:
- Respond or post a remark to a brand supporter – Sometimes, all you have to do is reply or make a comment to a brand advocate. If it’s in a blog post, try to stop by and express your gratitude. To indicate that you read what they wrote, be precise in your complement.
- Respond — If they often tweet your content, thank them and respond. Furthermore, you should send a unique tweet to each of your strongest brand champions once every two weeks. Calling them out and praising them will inspire them to keep doing what they’re doing.
- Share – If they’re sharing your stuff on Facebook, reciprocate by sharing theirs as well. This reciprocal action will make you like them.
- Email – You should send a personal email to one of your brand champions every two months or so. Tell them how much you appreciate their help and how you couldn’t accomplish what you’re doing without it.
- Week’s Featured Promoter – Create a contest where you recognize someone who has been sharing a lot of your material each week. You must explain why they’ve been chosen as your “Promoter of the Week.” Be as precise as possible. “She retweeted three of my posts, commented on 15 Facebook posts, and re-shared two Google+ posts,” for example. When people understand that their giving has a monetary value, you’re more likely to urge them to do it again.
Step 3: Discover what drives them.
Here’s an interesting fact: brand advocates are 83 percent more likely than regular users to share information. Moreover, more than half of these brand evangelists consider sharing a kind of relaxation.
You can notice additional factors that inspire people if you look at some of the other replies on the chart. Consider the following scenario:
- To be entertained – Can you provide material that makes brand supporters laugh or cry? It’s simple to make a good meme, and it’s even easier to distribute one. Every two weeks, create a meme and distribute it to your supporters.
- To solve issues — If your brand champions are problem solvers, develop material that allows them to put their problem-solving skills to the test. This might be a contest that runs every day or every week. An excellent example is Google’s “Google a Day.”
- To get information – Do they need data on a particular subject? Because of its clever use of data, OKCupid’s blog became viral. Who wouldn’t be interested in reading and sharing a piece titled “10 Charts About Sex”?
- To learn how to accomplish things, can you make video tutorials or long-form how-to blogs with specific instructions that teach new skills to your readers and promoters?
Step 4: Make it simple for others to share your material.
The next stage is to make it simple for others to share your fantastic material.
- Making social sharing buttons prominent – While your supporters will likely share your material even if the controls are difficult to discover, you should never make them look for your social networking buttons. Instead, use a social sharing plug-in that places your social sharing buttons down the side of your post as it scrolls up and down the screen (similar to what I do on QuickSprout).
- Request content sharing from brand evangelists – Never be afraid to approach your brand champions and urge them to share material. They’d be delighted to assist. Of course, they may require a shove to get them to do it… Merely writing “please RT” on your tweets may produce four times as many retweets. Dan Zarella proved this in a study of retweets.
- Use Tribber – When you join Triberr, you’ll get an instant bump in promoters. This platform brings together like-minded bloggers in a tribe and offers the following benefits:
- Automatic social sharing — When you upload anything, it’s instantly shared on Twitter by everyone in your tribe.
- Increase the number of people who see your material – You don’t have to be a member of just one tribe. You may join numerous, greatly extending your network. On Triberr, for example, is a member of six separate tribes. For every piece he posts right away, he receives 177 tweets, giving him a reach of 6 million people. That doesn’t include all of the retweets.
- More high-quality visitors to your site — Because these tribe members share similar interests, their audiences will be highly targeted. This will result in more visitors to your website.
Step 5: Give your brand’s evangelists some leeway.
Never make your brand evangelists feel compelled to compliment you. Allow people to speak about you and your brand in whatever manner they see fit. Please encourage them to be ruthless and open up to harsh criticism.
Giving advocates that much leeway will only inspire them to work more. So here’s how you can help to promote that type of liberty:
- Ask — Send an email to your top advocates to obtain their honest input on a post you authored, a product you’re working on, or an idea you’re working on.
- Tell – Then, if they agree, give their meaningful input. People desire to be recognized for their unique perspectives.
- Finally, inform your supporters that you are launching a program to reward your worst detractors. Make this program public, and it might be a terrific method to convert your brand’s detractors into supporters.
Conclusion
Creating and nurturing an extensive network of supporters is a fantastic marketing strategy that may pay off handsomely in brand expansion, subscription growth, and profit growth. Best of all, the cost of generating brand supporters is negligible in comparison to the benefits. What additional strategies have you utilized to recruit and retain brand ambassadors? Social media marketing is a popular way for brands to build brand advocates. By building relationships with your customers, you can create a loyal customer base that will help you grow your business.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a brand advocate on social media?
A: A brand advocate is a person who advocates the use of, or positive opinions about, a particular product. They are also known as influencers and digital marketers.
How can social media promote advocacy?
A: Social media can help people find others who share the same beliefs and interests. Advocacy is about helping others, so social media promotes advocacy because it helps spread awareness.
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