#fancorps

The Value of Rewards and Recognition within a Brand Advocacy Program

 Are you currently utilizing giveaways in your brand advocacy program?

Contests, sweepstakes, giveaways, and other promotions can provide a huge boost to engagement both internally and externally. One of our entertainment industry clients recently offered a free Playstation 4 and 9 $50 gift cards to fans of one of their artists for sharing proof that they've purchased his new album on their favorite social network and using the appropriate hashtag. This is a great way to use your current brand's fans to source content for your social network and increase visibility on the social web.

Contests and giveaways can be hosted and publicized on your current social media properties, while simultaneously utilizing your brand advocacy community to increase awareness of the promotion. (In addition to participating themselves, of course.) Other ideas for incentives include hangouts with an artist, author, or celebrity, exclusive merchandise, and product previews.

Is Your Advocate Program Losing Steam?

We've already looked at 5 Reasons Why Advocacy Is Failing For Your Company, but what are the steps necessary to bring your community back to its former glory? We've identified the three most helpful tactics you can implement to increase engagement within your advocate program.

Step one: Increase Communication

Often, activity on a community will die down because the administrators stop logging in as frequently, and are sending out fewer tasks and messages. This conveys to members that nothing too exciting is going on in the community and they feel no desire to log in and see what's new. You'll be surprised by how many more completions you'll receive by sending out a new task notification or messaging members about a "sale" in the reward store.

Step Two: Offer Something Exclusive or Exciting

That being said, when was the last time you freshened up the reward store, or provided exclusive content or merchandise to members? Advocates hunger for exclusivity, something which sets them apart from the traditional fan or Facebook like. Other than having an inherent passion for your brand, this is the real reason they are here. Show your appreciation by offering them something they can't get anywhere else, or solicit their opinion about upcoming product launches or promotions. Give them a voice, you'll be pleased with what you hear. For instance, check out this awesome tee shirt exclusively available to members of Gold's Nation.

Step Three: Reevaluate Your Recruiting Strategy

New members to your advocate program will always be the most engaged; everything seems fresh to them and they are eager to dive in and see what the community is all about. When you stop trying to acquire new fans, you're putting all your faith in a dwindling group of advocates, some of which will unfailingly log in less and less frequently over time, completing fewer tasks less often. Through our Community Feed feature on the dashboard, advocates see when new members join, or which members are completing which tasks. This visibility is the primary reason why you should aim for a constant influx of new fans joining the community. We recommend posting a minimum of once per social network each month, though adding placement on your website or sending the occasional email blast doesn't hurt either!

Hopefully you can implement some of these ideas in your own community or even make use of them when interacting with fans on social media. If you'd like to take that next step towards a true advocacy program running on a platform built to manage, track, and analyze fans' actions, please let us know!

Lets be honest, most people still have no idea what a hashtag is. They may see it on TV or online on their Facebook feed and understand that this symbol (#) is indeed now referred to as a hashtag- but they do not grasp what it actually means or what it does. This is especially true as it pertains to the importance of the hashtag to brand marketers and advertisers. It has quickly become an important tool to enable tracking and visibility of an ad or campaign and can propel the real time conversations around events and promotions. Unfortunately, this is way over the heads of your everyday social media user.

We won't dive deeper into the basics of hashtag marketing, as that has been well documented time and time again (and again). Hashtags are here to stay on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to name a few...and it is apparent that they will penetrate even more social channels in the future.

The interesting tie-in to our business, advocacy marketing, is that hashtags present both an opportunity for marketers as well as a unique challenge. Creating a campaign and associating a hashtag with it is merely the starting point. How do marketers then get people to actually use the hashtag, and at scale? Without mass adoption it will never take off; luckily, this is where an advocacy program can come in to play in a powerful way.

A few hundred, or thousand advocates (e.g. customers, fans, influencers, employees) can propel a hashtag driven campaign from day one. These are the early adopters who want to engage with your brand and are happy to use your hashtag alongside their posts. If coordinated and executed properly an advocacy program can be just the boost your campaign needs to get off the ground.

Retention vs. Acquisition- An Advocacy Discussion

I read a recent article featured on ClickZ which immediately piqued my interest, "Retention vs. Acquisition - and the Winner Is...." The title alone resonated with concerns I hear from clients almost daily. Should we focus primarily on our current advocates? How important is recruiting new members? How often should we post on social networks or other channels? How many members can we expect to join in the first week, month, year, etc.? All of the above are legitimate questions which I field constantly from marketing managers and their staff, and each deserves a concrete and data-supported answer.

The original article, by Ohad Hecht, discusses the current trends in marketing spending and priority in regards to customer retention and acquisition, citing some staggering numbers from Econsultancy: "34 percent of the participants indicated that they will increase their investment in acquisition, while only 18 percent will focus on retention."A more poignant summary comes from Forrester, "Even as the lines between marketing and customer experience blur, our survey respondents prioritize customer acquisition efforts over nurturing and deepening relationships with their most valuable and loyal customers." What does this mean for advocacy or ambassador programs you ask? Well, we can translate this discussion into the WOMM marketing space and it becomes a question as to the true purpose of your advocacy initiative. Is it to reward and involve your most passionate consumers, or to have yet another facet to your content marketing and lead generation strategies?  At Fancorps, we find the the former can often be a catalyst for the latter. By actively engaging with your advocates and sourcing their feedback and opinions on current policy, products, and services, you can gain hundreds if not thousands of new consumers through passive word of mouth.

Members of your advocacy or ambassador program will WANT to create content for you, participate in online discussions, share offers, and review products. All of these actions result in support and praise for your brand which is easily visible to their friends and family. Therefore we find that launching an advocacy program is an excellent first step in shifting the imbalance between Retention and Acquisition based marketing. If executed properly, your advocate community will bridge the gap between both strategies and lead to increased revenue across the board. For a continued discussion about retention and acquisition within your advocacy program, as well as the importance and frequency of recruitment, contact your dedicated account manager today!

5 Reasons Advocacy is Failing For Your Company

1. You don't have an advocacy program!

Sorry to state the obvious, but it had to be said. So many companies are still behind the ball, continuing to bet their entire social marketing budgets on traditional posts from their official channels and sponsored content. The sooner you start to cultivate advocacy for your brand the better, as it takes time to scale and provide long term ROI. 

2. You are manually trying to manage/run the program.

Many companies participate and attempt to encourage advocacy from their customers and even employees. But, often times it is done in a completely inefficient and ineffective manner. Seeing companies still using email and spreadsheets to manage and track communication and engagement makes me want to slam my head against the desk. This is 2014, and technology exists for a reason, because it solves problems and makes our lives easier. There is no reason to be manually organizing advocacy for your company in a one-to-one scenario. Stop fighting it, and adopt to a tool or application that will assist and improve your performance across the board. It will ultimately save you (as a Digital Marketer) time and greatly enhance the user experience for your advocates.

3. You are making it too complicated.

Simplicity is key. Don't over think it...and put yourself in their shoes. Encourage and empower advocates to do what they do, in a natural and authentic way. The best way to get results from your program is to let your advocates be themselves and inject their own point of view along side your content. The moment their audience sees through it and call them out for forcing content down their throat is the moment you lose that individual from the program. It's all about transparency and authenticity. Make sure your advocates know you want them to be honest in their approach and only support the content/messaging that aligns with their personal point of view.

4. You aren't giving your advocates a voice.

It has to be a give and take, a two way street. You can't be pushy, and you need ensure that advocates know they have every ability to participate in the creative process themselves. User generated content can be powerful, to the end viewer but also in the increased level of engagement with the creator. There is nothing more exciting to a true advocate than getting to see behind the scenes, what lies on the other side of the curtain. Give them access to tools they can use to create great content and recognition for their efforts- they'll be an advocate for life.

5. You are failing to coach and train your advocates.