When building a well-respected brand, it is important to have a clear vision, mission and values, as well as strong market positioning and cohesive messaging. This will allow you to create a social media strategy that is consistent throughout multiple platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and YouTube. In years past, companies have used a social media manager to act as the voice of the company and to post company content; however, only 15% of people trust brand posts from companies compared to the 70% that trust brand or product recommendations from friends and family. So after spending time and resources developing a brand strategy, what is the best way to promote your brand in a trustworthy way? The answer is to use inside advocates as your brand ambassadors.
Inside advocates are a team of company employees that promote company content, answer product questions and engage with customers online for the company, as themselves. The best way to assemble brand ambassadors is to empower your employees using these key elements:
- Create a great company culture – one that makes employees feel happy, respected and trusted to interact with online customers
- Communicate clearly – your company messaging, brand voice, market stance, policies and products should be familiar to all employees
- Use internal tools – like private, internal communities, which connect employees to share information and collaborate around providing an exceptional customer experience
- Provide leadership support – give employees direction as to what content you want them to share and publicly recognize and reward employees who actively advocate your brand online
Employee advocates can be highly influential and can provide your customers with an online branded community where they can engage and even become advocates themselves.
- 83% of branded community participants would be willing to become advocates for companies whose communities they’ve joined
- 70% of companies run an online customer community or plan to by 2014
- 90% of consumers think online branded communities give the most relevant information for purchase decisions
So get working! When your employees are engaged and informed, they can be the eyes, ears and voice of the company, which will result in strong brand identity and a thriving online community.
For social media, online marketing and all other full-service integrated marketing, please contact Sagefrog Marketing Group at 215-230-9024 or visit sagefrog.com.
