social media advocacyWe all know what advocacy is, and when done correctly it can greatly benefit us as brands. Partner this with social media, and social media advocacy becomes one of your best marketing assets. The question is are you taking full advantage of all your advocates? Are some being overlooked?

Employee Advocacy
Your employees are said to be your greatest fans so why not take full advantage by enabling them to promote your brand content through social media? Many of you, I believe, will have already adopted this, but could you be doing it better?

How to make employee advocacy better
How are you currently enabling your employees to promote your brand message? Is this through a weekly newsletter, whereby employees are encouraged to share articles? This is a good start, but could certainly be improved upon.

Tracking to see who is sharing and interacting with your content is vital so you can adjust strategies and understand what is working and what needs improving. This will not be possible through a weekly newsletter.

If however you invest in a social media collaboration platform, you will not only be able to track the effectiveness of your content and employees, but you will also be able to maintain control of your content, ensuring your brand message is promoted consistently and idealistically throughout. Yes there are a lot of platforms on the market, but it’s about finding the right one for you that will reach and go beyond your expectations.

Channel/ Partner advocacy
Not everyone sells their products directly to customers, many of us sell our products through third parties such as channel partners, sales partners, dealers, retailers or resellers. In this case, it is highly important that you leverage their social media presence too. Make sure their target audience become aware and engaged with your brand too. Enabling these advocates to promote your offerings on social media will not only benefit your brand but also them. Using a social media collaboration platform would be appropriate for this too, for exactly the same reasons as your employee advocacy program.

Other influencers and brand ambassadors
Don’t expect this to happen overnight but building an influencer network on social media can be highly beneficial. If you haven’t undertaken this task yet, whereby you share one another’s content on social media, pretty much a favour for a favour, you should certainly start now. You may think ‘but this isn’t appropriate for me, I am a large brand, I don’t need to share others content’. Wrong. Maintaining and building a strong reputation in your industry is key, and what better way than through other thought-leader influencers and brand ambassadors. Once you have built these relationships, you will also be able to increase your reach that bit further, which is certainly advantageous.

Customer advocacy
Customer reviews of your brand, whether that be on social media or elsewhere are becoming ever important, due to prospects increasingly searching for these to make their buying decision that bit easier. So if you can encourage your customers to share, retweet or comment on your content, this is a great selling point to prospects. It shows that past customers were satisfied and would recommend your brand. Everything that you could possibly wish for.

So don’t put off the inevitable. Enable all of your advocates to share your content on social media, and of course invest in a social media collaboration platform to do this. Not only will it increase your reach, but when done effectively it will show prospects just what a great brand you are, making you the choice over competitors. Start now!

Want to learn more about social media advocacy? Register for this webinar to hear Microsoft, Avalara, Xerox, Zoe Sands, the social selling expert and Ian Moyse the number 1 cloud influencer on social media, discuss social media advocacy with in the IT sector and their brands. This is taking place on the 18th February at 4pm GMT. Click here to register now.