Free-Stuff Junkie or True Brand Advocate? - Kitty Kolding - MediaBizBloggers

I love that marketers are so tuned in now to the power of brand advocates or ambassadors and are starting to take seriously the promise and peril of serious interaction with them I know that this interaction will pay dividends to marketers and give consumers something that they consistently tell me they want a voice with the brands they loveIn order for this to work however marketers must pay special attention to one vital task making sure that the people they39re giving free stuff to and counting on to promote their brand are true brand fans and not just freestuff junkies And this leads to a crucial question How do you tell a real brand fan from a person who will do just about anything to get some free swagI put this question to some of my consumer engagement experts and I came up with three key advocate testsAre they putting their hearts into it When you give your advocates the opportunity to interact with you look at what they39re actually doing Are they merely completing some small transactional activity amp8211 filling out a short form checking a box amp8211 in order to quotget the prizequot If so they could be freestuff mercenaries gaming one of the many opportunities out there But if instead they are unleashing their creativity having fun coming up with ideas spending time and talking to you about it all the while you have real advocates on your hands customers who will do some powerful brand work for youDo they yearn to be your friend There39s no shame in incentivizing a consumer and doing so doesn39t by definition taint the engagement it can deliver But is the consumer engaging with you to get something or to be something Getting a coupon a sample or a contestentry is fine And wanting those things doesn39t in and of itself make a consumer a freestuff mercenary But consumers whose interactions with you are sometimes based simply on their wanting to be associated with your brand on wanting for example to be acknowledged brand fans amp8211 consumers like that are likely genuine brand advocates If one of the things they like most is their acknowledged association with your brand if that motivates them as much as anything else then that39s a pretty strong signal that they will be productive brand advocatesAre they dying to talk to you Our question here is will consumers talk to you without a prize in the mix If you ask them a question will they respond even if their response doesn39t enter them in a sweeps or get them a point of some kind Even better will they proactively contact you to give you an opinion suggestion or some critical feedback If they do you should count them in the brand ambassador category and deploy them wiselyApply those three tests to the consumers you39re interacting with and you39ll sort out the freestuff junkies from the true brand advocates And you39ll truly harness the power of positive wordofmouthKitty joined House Party in 2006 as SVP Sales Service and Marketing In March 2007 she was appointed CEO and has led the company to strong growth and profitable operations Kitty can be contacted at KittyKoldinghousepartycomRead all Kittyamp8217s MediaBizBlogger commentaries at Kitty Kolding MediaBizBlogger

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Free-Stuff Junkie or True Brand Advocate? - Kitty Kolding - MediaBizBloggers

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