Not educating your brand advocates is like shooting blanks.
You or your team can have the best of intent, but unless you pack some POW in your brand messages . . . well, you’re wasting your time & money.
This is the POW information your brand advocates need . . .
‘P’articulars
Be sure to have the who, what, when, where and why in the message – or at the least a simple URL and motivator/call to action.
‘O‘h so simple to share
By making it easy for your brand advocates to act on and share the information you are providing, your message is more likely to spread organically through their networks of friends, family and peers.
‘W’here in the world wide web are you?
When it comes to advertising, a website, your business card or any thing else that may potentially come into contact with your current and future brand advocates there is only one thing to remember . . . avoid the ‘find us philosophy’. Be sure that if you are online that your URL is present and NEVER use social icons in print or packaging without providing your URL.
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4 Things Brand Advocates Want You to Know
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5 Steps for Turning Customers Into Brand Advocates
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8 Characteristics of Brand Advocates
Remember that when it comes to your brand message, it is just as important to educate your volunteers, interns and team mates as it is your brand advocates. They are extensions of your brand and when they fire off messages, or approve design on behalf of your brand they can easily run the risk of firing blanks.
Your brand advocates shouldn’t have to hunt for your information.
As an example; if and ad agency is designing an ad for your brand, they would never place the twitter icon in the ad space and only ‘Follow Us!’ That would be a waste of your ad dollars. Who ever designed and ad like that for you does not understand the social medium or the message it’s sending and you would be Missing Social Media Opportunities In Print Advertising.
What you need to remember, in this instance, is that your twitter handle may be different from your web URL. By only putting an icon and a hollow call to action, you’re asking the person seeing the ad to do all of the work to find you online. . . and I can tell you right now, most people won’t take the time. What some think is a clever ad is really more of a brick wall for your brand.
Another example is being active on social media sites and not having the icons and links in an easy to see place on your website. Just because it makes sense to you to have all of your social links under the “about us” section . . . does not mean that those visiting your website will think to look there. If you are serious about connecting, these links should me on very page.
One last thing to remember is the art of listening when your brand advocates fire off their own messages. I call it the “tomato nightclub effect”. If you are busy building buzz around your brand – take the time to listen and celebrate with those just as passionate as you are.
By taking the time to properly load your messages, website, emails, stationary, volunteers, business cards, blogs and advocates with POW you will not only make your message contagious – your brand will no longer be shooting blanks.
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How are you educating your current brand advocates and reaching new ones?
Are you actively listening to those mentioning your brand online? How are you sharing and engaging with them?
