How can you identify the most influential brand advocates?

1 Define your goals

Before you start looking for your brand advocates, you need to have a clear idea of what you want to achieve with them. Do you want to increase your social media reach, engagement, or conversions? Do you want to improve your online reputation, customer satisfaction, or referrals? Do you want to launch a new product, service, or campaign? Having specific and measurable goals will help you narrow down your search and align your expectations with your advocates.

2 Analyze your data

One of the best ways to identify your brand advocates is to use data from your own channels and platforms. You can use tools like Google Analytics, social media analytics, email marketing analytics, customer relationship management (CRM) software, and online reviews to track and measure your customers' behavior, preferences, feedback, and interactions with your brand. Look for indicators such as repeat purchases, high engagement rates, positive ratings, referrals, testimonials, mentions, and hashtags. These can help you identify who are your most loyal, satisfied, and vocal customers.

3 Segment your audience

Once you have a list of potential brand advocates, you need to segment them based on their level of influence, reach, and relevance. You can use tools like Klout, BuzzSumo, or Kred to evaluate their social media presence, authority, and impact. You can also use tools like SurveyMonkey, Typeform, or Qualtrics to collect more information about their demographics, psychographics, and interests. By segmenting your audience, you can create more personalized and targeted messages and offers for your brand advocates.

4 Engage with your advocates

After you have segmented your audience, you need to engage with your brand advocates and build a relationship with them. You can do this by following them on social media, liking and commenting on their posts, sharing their content, mentioning them in your posts, sending them thank-you notes, offering them exclusive discounts, rewards, or freebies, inviting them to events, webinars, or podcasts, asking them for feedback, testimonials, or reviews, featuring them in your blog, newsletter, or case studies, or creating a dedicated community or program for them. By engaging with your brand advocates, you can show your appreciation, recognition, and trust, as well as encourage them to spread the word about your brand.

5 Monitor and measure your results

Finally, you need to monitor and measure the results of your brand advocacy strategy. You can use tools like Google Analytics, social media analytics, email marketing analytics, CRM software, and online reviews to track and measure the performance of your brand advocates. Look for metrics such as reach, impressions, engagement, conversions, retention, loyalty, sentiment, referrals, and ROI. These can help you evaluate the effectiveness of your brand advocates and identify areas of improvement or optimization.