What Brand Advocacy is Not:
Brand advocacy is different than “word-of-mouth” because it requires you to build a stable of content that is brand driven. This may include, but is not limited to, a branded ID, 30 second video spots, short films, a soundtrack, banner ads, text only ads, whitepapers and an avalanche of pictures, memes and posts. (Content buckets will always change.)
Brand advocacy is also focused on leveraging “words” that already exist—or what we call leveraging other people’s audiences (LOPA).
Signs of Brand Advocacy Impostors
1. They tell you it is purely word-of-mouth
2. They tell you it is all digitally driven—or paid advocate based.
3. They sell you on advocates instead of advocacy.
4. They sell you on advertising like PPC (and that is just for starters).
5. Their whole spiel just feels inauthentic.
Brand advocacy differs from purely digitally driven advocacy in its assumption that content creates its own awareness. It is closest in practice to the way a novelist develops a “readership.”
A classic example of paid or targeted brand advocacy would be a Mommy Blogger or a LinkedIn Influencer who is paid to say things about a brand or product. While they may have readers and followers galore, everyone knows the deal is quid pro quo.
The biggest issue with this approach is that there is little surprise or discovery. The best advocates feel fulfilled by performing a curator function, one that allows them to bring new stuff to their audience in a mediated way.
We like to think of advocates, therefore, as personal media empires who exist to feed their audiences a steady stream of super cool stuff. They derive psychic rewards from the discovery and dissemination of ideas. [1]
And so do we.
[1] (Conill, 2015)