Social Media Advocacy: What It Means and Why Your Brand Needs It

Social media has changed the role of marketing and public relations. And while those kinds of activities used to be solely for a small team of specialists, today, smart companies are getting their entire workforce in on the action.

Social media has democratized many aspects of life—it’s given everyone a voice. And one area where this power is still underused is social media advocacy. When employees become involved in spreading the word across their own networks and promoting their brand, incredible things can happen—things that are difficult to achieve with conventional marketing or public relations campaigns.

It’s organic, it’s authentic, and it generates amazing engagement. Learn more about what social media advocacy means and how your company can harness its full potential in this article.

What does social media advocacy mean exactly?

It’s a term you may have heard before, and you may have wondered, “what does it mean?” Here is the answer: social media advocacy is essentially a form of marketing that leverages social media to build relationships with key influencers in the online community. Advocates, specifically, are the people who share your content and help spread the word about your brand and its message.

What kind of people are they? Well, they may be industry experts, bloggers, journalists, or even customers who have had positive experiences with your product or service. But there’s one other category that is often overlooked: your own employees. They, too, can use their networks to spread positive brand awareness.

And what is all of this ultimately trying to achieve? The goal of social media advocacy is to create an online presence for your brand and build relationships with key people in the industry.

By engaging with these influencers, you can cultivate a community of brand advocates who will help promote your message to their followers. This type of positive word-of-mouth marketing can be incredibly powerful in driving traffic, generating leads, and ultimately increasing sales.

And then there are also the customers. Social media advocacy is also a great way to build relationships with potential customers and provide them with valuable content that they’re interested in.

By creating compelling content and engaging with your target audience, you can create an online presence that truly resonates. This will help to increase brand awareness and potentially convert prospects into customers.

When the right strategy and tools combine, social media advocacy can become an extremely powerful component of your overall marketing plan.

How social media has helped advocacy

Everybody is an ambassador in their own way, in various aspects of their daily life. You talk to a friend about your new coffee machine, you tell a co-worker about a movie you saw, you share with your family your experiences at a restaurant or hotel—you’re already acting as an ambassador with the people you know. Social media advocacy is simply carrying that out over social networks, spreading the word to your followers.

Social media has revolutionized the way we communicate, making it easier than ever to spread word-of-mouth marketing and build relationships with influencers. With the widespread adoption of social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn, everybody is an ambassador for their cause in everyday life. This means that when you share content about your brand or your message, it has the potential to be seen and shared by a much larger audience.

This makes social media advocacy an incredibly powerful tool for connecting with key influencers and building relationships with potential customers. It gives you the opportunity to create valuable content that resonates with your target audiences, establish yourself as an industry expert, and ultimately generate leads and sales. With the power of strong social media, you can build a strong presence and boost your brand’s awareness with minimal effort.

What are examples of social media advocacy?

But what exactly does this look like? What are the ways and places these ambassadors can shout out their praise or engage with other fans? Well, examples of successful social media advocacy include engaging in meaningful conversations on platforms like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

This can be done by responding to customer feedback, interacting with followers, and even answering questions (consumers love to interact directly with brands online and be part of a conversation, so engage with them!). It also involves creating content such as blog posts, videos, and other forms of visual media that resonates with your target audience and drives traffic to your website.

Additionally, businesses can use various social media channels to create relationships with key influencers who can help promote their message to their followers. Content is key—it needs to be engaging, fun, and attractive. It needs to draw people in, in some way or another. That’s what they’re getting out of the experience, after all.

Which advocates to include in an advocacy marketing strategy?

Customers and supporters

Customers and supporters can be powerful brand advocates on social media, because they’re the ones who have no reason to be anything but honest, which gives them more authenticity, and makes their opinions, in the eyes of many, the most reliable.

And the right digital tool can help. With the Sociabble platform, for example, one of the biggest software and IT companies in the world was able to create an online space for their “super fans” and generate powerful engagement across social networks, boosting visibility and interest.

Digital influencers and thought leaders

Influencers and thought leaders can be powerful brand ambassadors on social media, because they usually have a large number of followers, and because people listen to their opinions as experts—they, after all, are often the ones setting the trends.

Employees

This is the one that is most often overlooked by companies, which is unfortunate, because employees of a company carry a great deal of influential power—they have a unique insight, because they have a vantage point from within the company walls. If they have good things to say about their employer, people will listen.

In fact, Sociabble comes with employee advocacy features designed to encourage all of the above, one of which is one-click sharing across all major social media platforms: LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and many others. Employees can also create their own content (UGC), and share it with their followers with equal ease. Discover the exact advocacy meaning.

How effective is social media brand advocacy?

But does it work? Yes! Time and time again, we’ve seen just how effective social media brand advocacy can be in boosting a brand’s reputation online. When it comes to measuring that success, it can be gauged through various metrics such as reach, engagement, website traffic, leads generated, and sales.

By tracking these metrics, businesses can get a better idea of the effectiveness of their social advocacy campaigns and make necessary adjustments to optimize their performance. Additionally, businesses should also track customer sentiment by monitoring conversations about their brand online. This will help them understand how people feel about their products or services and determine the best strategies for engaging with customers on social media.

Which means that analytics are key. Sociabble comes with a full analytics package that provides admins with very precise data in terms of reach, clicks, and engagement, along with the ability to segment data in a variety of ways—region, department, topic, time of day, etc.

How to build a social media advocacy program?

You’ve got to start somewhere to achieve your advocacy goals. But where is that, exactly? The first step in building a successful social media advocacy program is to identify and engage key influencers.

This means reaching out to individuals who are respected within the industry, have large online followings, or have an engaged audience that your brand can tap into. Once key influencers are identified, businesses should work on developing content tailored to their interests and create a social media advocacy strategy to reach and engage with them.

But it’s not all about big shots with a million followers. Everyday customers and consumers are equally important. Businesses should also focus on creating content that resonates with their target audience by responding to customer inquiries, providing helpful information, and offering exclusive deals or discounts.

Additionally, businesses should track the success of their campaigns using metrics such as website traffic, leads generated, and sales in order to measure the effectiveness of their efforts. Finally, businesses should continue to develop relationships with their key influencers by engaging with them on social media channels and participating in relevant conversations. 

But then there’s the third category: your own workforce. The same strategy can and should be applied to employees. Employees can be powerful brand advocates because they have a unique insight into the company and understand its values and culture. They can use their social media presence to share their experiences and talk about what it’s like to work at their organizations, which helps to build trust with potential customers. Employees can also share content related to the brand, such as blog posts, videos, and other forms of visual media.

This helps to increase brand visibility and create relationships with key influencers. Additionally, employees can use their personal networks to help spread the word about the company’s message, driving traffic and leads back to the website.

By following these steps, businesses can create successful social media advocacy programs that drive increased brand awareness, generate leads, and increase sales. With the help of such programs, businesses can create a strong online presence and build relationships with their target market.

Which social media advocacy platform to choose? 

Choosing the right social media advocacy platform can be an overwhelming task, as there are many outlets available for organizations. However, businesses should consider their target audience and business goals when selecting a platform.

For example, Instagram may be a great choice for businesses targeting millennials, while LinkedIn is ideal for businesses looking to engage with more traditional professionals. Additionally, businesses should consider the features and functionalities of each platform, as well as their pricing plans before making a decision.

When it comes to choosing the right digital tool to facilitate this, Sociabble is the solution that is specially designed to tackle all of the above. Sociabble is compatible with all social media platforms, and thanks to its many integrated features, you will effectively create relevant and varied content, engage with different audiences, and easily track the performance of your initiative.

Sociabble has already helped companies around the world boost their communications, including industry leaders like L’Occitane en Provence, Coca-Cola CCEP, Primark, and Renault Group.

To learn how we can help your company take its social media advocacy to the next level, sign up for a free demo. We’d love to chat!