Brand advocates can help to build positivity around your brand and encourage engagement by potential customers.
Brand advocates are a business’ most loyal, engaged and enthusiastic customers who are more likely to recommend trusted brands and favourite products or services to their friends and the wider community.
Social media provides an easy way for brand advocates to share their recommendations and reviews; providing businesses with a fantastic opportunity to reach new customers.
It is it critical for your business to establish a relationship with these advocates to encourage them to actively promote your product and services, keep them engaged and ensure they feel recognised and appreciated.
Identify your brand advocates
Identifying your brand advocates relies on you paying attention to what your customers are saying about you on social media. It is likely that your business has customers that already support and advocate your brand, but their activity may not be tracked or put to use.
Look at who is liking and favouriting your social media posts or tweets, who’s sharing or retweeting your content and who is commenting and conversing with your brand.
Most social media platforms have analytics tools that can help you to discover who is engaging with your business’ profiles.
Looking at customers who are already going the extra mile with your brand is an excellent way to start identifying potential brand advocates. Engaging these advocates in a sustainable way is critical to a brand’s success.
Encourage your brand advocates to participate
Having a satisfied customer actively promote your product or service is an excellent way to help generate positive word of mouth around your business. Once you have identified your brand advocates, you should encourage them to participate further with your brand.
Be proactive by seeking out your brand advocates and asking them for feedback and testimonials for you to use. Potential customers are much more likely to believe testimonials that praise your product or service than they are to believe your sales copy.
Sharing success stories of how you have helped your customers or how they have benefited from what you have to offer can help to demonstrate the value you offer to your customers.
Celebrating your customers is another way of building engagement and promoting your business through nurturing relationships. Many businesses are quite successful with ‘fan of the week’ or ‘fan of the month’ posts where they celebrate the fan who engaged with the page the most.
It is important to not overwhelm your advocates by asking for multiple requests. Ensure you make the participation process enjoyable by assigning brand advocates small and fun tasks which keep them involved.
Build and maintain the relationship
One of the key elements in building brand advocates for your business is to create long-term relationships with your customers. When a customer feels like a valued part of the business they will be more willing to pass on positive information about you.
It is important to engage with your customers, particularly on your business’ social media channels.
Ensure that you respond to their posts, engage in conversation and let them know their voice is heard and appreciated.
Great customer service is an important part of building brand advocates and creating relationships with your customers. It is important for your business to respond to all questions and complaints in a polite and timely manner. Listening to your customer’s feedback and taking action to implement their ideas will help them to feel as though your business cares.
Recognise your brand advocates’ value
Recognising and rewarding your advocates is an essential tactic to develop and maintain a positive relationship. Start by sending your advocates emails or messages to show your appreciation for their customer loyalty. Rewarding your advocates with special offers or discounts will ensure they realise there is value to what they share and they will be encouraged to share even more content about your business.
Be strategic when rewarding your advocates by linking the reward to a particular action you would like them to take. For example, offer them a sneak peek at your product before you launch it to generate buzz before the product has been released.
Letting your advocates know that you recognise and appreciate their efforts goes a long way in motivating them to continue to speak highly of your brand. Having a strong group of brand advocates will help to build your business’ credibility and compel potential customers to make a purchase.
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