Give and take is tried and true. “Pay it forward” and you will get it back ten fold. Have your generous actions yielded future results?
The evolution of marketing as illustrated by Tom Fishburne really says it all. We are at a state of marketing and especially in the social media realm of identifying either key influencers or brand enthusiasts to advocate and drive friends, family and colleagues to whichever product, service, and event or otherwise they happen to be advocating.
Statistics show, the #1 reason Brand Advocates recommend brands and products is that they want to help others. (58%) Other reasons include: they would want to know before they buy (53%), help others make smarter purchase decisions (47%), and feeling connected to other people (33%). Getting promotional discounts was not cited at all by Brand Advocates as a motivation for recommending brands and products. (Source: “Engaging Advocates rough Search and Social Media,” Comscore, Yahoo!, Dec. 2006)
This stat may be 7 years old but holds very true today. And to delve further down the rabbit hole of the power of brand advocates you can find many mind blowing stats via the Brand Advocacy experts at Zuberance.com.
Social media is fueling the availability and exposure for people to voice their recommendations and positive experiences as well as their negative ones.
This approach works wonders on brands but also works wonders when we advocate for each other. Friends help friends and that’s typically the natural order of helping each other advance in their careers. We stand by our friends, their creditability, their work effort, if we experienced it first hand. We even recommend them to help increase their client base through referrals. I advocate you, you make me look good, and I make you look good.
This week we are even seeing an event industry association adopting the advocate model. ISES International just announced their regional “brand champion” program as seen in this release. Go ISES!
What brand advocate programs have you put in place for your events? Or have you advocating for a colleague or company and helped them with their success? Share!
Kaylynne Hatch
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