Recently, I attended a corporate event that showcased products related to an industry. Press, media, bloggers, and influencers were invited to attend, and meet a variety of vendors and see products. Featured were members of the company’s advocacy program, (a group of preferred clients), and were given products to demo. Some members of the this advocacy program are bloggers, in particular one with a journalistic background, who’s credibility came into question. While the event continued on, a not-impressed attendee (who claimed to be a journalist) started to make comments that some of the members of the advocacy program were not authentic and went so far as to say quite loudly during the presentation they were “shills” from the back of the room.<\/p>\n
<\/center>Let’s break it down, as these same events are likely going to happen to your advocacy program at events and echo online.<\/p>\n
Opportunities: Advocacy Programs\u00a0Foster A Low-Cost Trusted Voice<\/strong> Take for example the B2B Microsoft MVP program<\/a> (I was formerly briefed) selects the most helpful professionals in their space, and anoint their most knowledgeable customers in public, and use the program as a way to get product and program feedback. They MVPs aren’t directly paid, but may have travel and expenses covered to speak at a variety of industry events. Another example is \u00a0consumer facing\u00a0WalMart’s Mom and Dad blogger program<\/a> (also briefed) where influencers that fit their ideal market are given a place to blog on the corporate website. They have very few limitations and often talk about the competition.<\/p>\n These programs provide brands with a: trusted set of market influencers, a lower-cost program compared to traditional marketing efforts, and a platform to engage in dialog with their most knowledgeable market.<\/p>\n Risks: Incorrectly Implemented, Advocacy Programs Will Cause Brand Backlash<\/strong> Checklist: Develop a Successful Advocacy Program Advocacy programs are a mainstay of today and future marketing programs –yet to be successful companies must have the mindset of being enablers<\/em> –not controllers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Recently, I attended a corporate event that showcased products related to an industry. Press, media, bloggers, and influencers were invited to attend, and meet a variety of vendors and see products. Featured were members of the company’s advocacy program, (a group of preferred clients), and … Continue readingChecklist: Develop a Successful Advocacy Program<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[149,18,4,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advocacy","category-community-marketing","category-social-media","category-word-of-mouth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web-strategist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web-strategist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web-strategist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web-strategist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web-strategist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4812"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web-strategist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4812\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web-strategist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web-strategist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web-strategist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nCompanies aren’t trusted, brands aren’t trusted, and nor are your executives. People trust each other<\/em>, and now they have the tools to communicate with each other using social technologies and mobile with or without brands involved. As a result, trust has shifted to the participants. Many brands, knowing their credibility has diminished, rely on advocacy programs where trusted members of the community are given a platform and encouraged to speak.<\/p>\n
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\nInnovation always requires risk, and many corporate cultures aren’t yet ready to yield control to the market. As a result, they apply command and control tactics to a group that could ultimately shoot them in the foot. Example? The “Target Rounders” program<\/a> (I’ve not been briefed) encouraged customers to advocate the brand on public social networks, but unfortunately encouraged them to do so without transparency. The email sent from corporate to the members suggesting they advocate without disclosing their ties was quickly put on blogs –detracting from the whole movement. Also, companies not ready to take the bad with the good may not know what to do with the negative feedback, and may push back resulting in the program to crumble. Lastly, the members of the advocacy program themselves may be subjected to scrutiny from the community, they need to ensure they are inline with their own editorial guidelines.<\/p>\n
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\nDon’t build your relationships on a whim, have a plan, and build off the learnings of others. \u00a0This checklist is the start of your program plan, share it with your internal teams before getting started.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n