Social Advocacy: How To Build A Brand Advocate Program

6 Reasons To Start A Social Media Advocacy Program Now

Larger companies have a large following on social media due to their brand awareness and know how to reach their audience. To get the most out of your online presence, you need to expand your content using social media. A strong social media strategy is made even better by a social media program supported by your employees. Here are six reasons to help you figure out why you should start implementing your social media advocacy program immediately. 

1. Content That Your Employees Share Will Be More Personal
2. Social Media Advocacy Can Help Build Trust
3. Employee Posts are Less Promotional
4. Creates Brand Awareness Without Much Effort
5. Increasing Your Employees Online Exposure
6. Your Followers Are Bound to Bond with Certain People

How to Create a Social Media Advocacy Program

Employee social network leads convert seven times more often than any other lead. Under the guidance of a social media specialist, your employees can improve and reinforce your brand message on their own social networks and beyond. 

Here are five steps to building a successful social media advocacy program.

1. Define your goals
2. Establish guidelines
3. Provide incentives for employees
4. Monitor progress
5. Adapt the program to improve results

Why is Employee Advocacy Important?

Most organizations have made investments today to increase their social presence. As a result, employee advocacy has become an important marketing strategy for leading companies. One struggle that these organizations face is to keep noise out on social media. By using the voice of your employees, companies can increase the reach of their brand content on social media. For this reason, employee engagement and advocacy are essential components of an effective social media strategy. 

Identify the benefits of leadership in social networks and develop an actionable strategy to consolidate brand presence in social networks. Plan content to shape your company's perception of being a social media workplace. Watch the brand sentiment on Twitter and measure the ROI of social media activities on the main social platforms.

A social media advocacy program is a structured strategy for building a network. 
Instead of simply using the free exposure and marketing potential of these advocates, a social media advocacy strategy involves taking their feedback and entering into a mutually beneficial relationship with them.
​A social media advocacy program is much more effective than relying on traditional advertising methods.

There are a variety of social advocacy platforms on the market that you can use to identify your ideal social media advocates and track the success of your program. When choosing a platform, you need to identify the main requirements and the type of proponents you want to connect to. Some tools offer an internal library of content that you can provide to your employees, while others focus on building an influencer relationship. 

​Nielsen reports that 92% of consumers believe suggestions from friends and family more than advertising - a trend that is bound to grow over time.

Now, of course, other marketing efforts like paid advertising can strengthen your company's brand, but this can be seen as a compliment to your lobbying. Instead of spending so much money on these paid placements, let people manage your brand marketing in an organic way. While traditional marketing continues to apply to your audience, people like and trust the familiar human touch to large companies or companies that advertise their own services or products. In addition, a key aspect of branding is to find your dedicated brand representatives and then ensure that advocacy continues by promoting their success. 

The clothing retailer Showpo is an excellent example of a brand that does an excellent job with trademark lawyers. Your customer loyalty strategy is in a nutshell, as they promote their buyers quickly and regularly. The team also endeavors to send direct messages to those who mention the brand on social media. 

Employee Advocacy Software Importance!

Use advocate marketing software to find and mobilize your brand (this overlaps with formalized programs such as brand ambassador programs, so you may also get help building such structures).  Having all the benefits of employee and brand advocacy in one software will help add to your bottom line and make managing advocacy much easier. 

For the customer, your company is just another business trying to sell them something. One of the most effective ways to build trust and develop new business is to implement a branding program. They are available in all shapes and sizes, but they have the same goal: it is easy to reward customers for promoting your company. Some marketers may be concerned about implementing a brand advertising program because it removes messaging control from the company and delivers it to customers.

Measuring the actual impact of social media marketing and employee recruitment ensures that the program continues. If employee advocacy is measured using only these vanity metrics, it is difficult to prove whether the program is delivering results, justifying expenditure, and showing ROI.

Written by: Rick Rea

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