George Haynes, Digital and Social Media Manager at Kia Motors, recently joined Greg Shove, Founder and CEO at SocialChorus, for a webinar to discuss how Kia has been successful with advocate marketing. Watch the full recording below or view the presentation slides to learn how Kia is leveraging advocates to deliver social stories to millions.
The webinar covered lots of great content but a couple key lessons about how to run a successful advocacy program stood out in particular.
Great content drives engagement. One thing Kia does exceptionally well is create engaging advertising – like hip-hop hamsters and space babies. This fun, unique content encourages advocate sharing and engagement. Additionally, there is huge value in allowing advocates to tell their own stories about the brand. To avoid cookie-cutter content that typically has low engagement, Kia encourages advocates to be creative and have their own voice.
Create long-term relationships with advocates. It is essential that brands create lasting and trusting relationships with their advocates. George summed it up best when he said that building relationships with advocates is like dating. If you go on a first date and never call after – you’re going to lose that person. The same goes for advocates. If you engage an advocate and then don’t keep them engaged – the relationship is lost, and so is their trust. Once an advocate is engaged, brands need to continue to keep building and maintaining the relationship to develop a long-term relationship. Instead of a one-time campaign, advocate programs should be “always-on” and run in tandem with every marketing program, not on a program-by-program basis.
To learn more about these lessons, as well as many other great insights George talked about during the presentation, watch the webinar or view the presentation slides.
How Kia Drives Social Stories to Millions of Consumers from SocialChorus on Vimeo.