The main focus of any brand from day 1 has been to be in the mind of the consumer “Its” consumer as long as it can be,in the outside world this is made possible by offering promotions,putting up billboards, getting brand mascots and what not, however,in today’s marketing environment with the inception of social media and online mediums becoming a normal part of all marketing campaigns, companies and marketers should also start paying attention towards how to maintain those online customers and brand “loyals” they have.
As long as brands want to increase their online and social media presence,fellowship and engagement more effectively, they will have to create relevant,genuine and interesting custom based and community-oriented content for their consumers. Another solution is by giving these consumers a chance to be the brand representatives.
Social Media Ambassador campaigns can be very effective,especially if they are run with people who are super active with Facebook,Twitter or LinkedIn and/or they are super bloggers. how a brand benefits from it is ;
- if the representative is super active he would definitely have a vast following on the social media making him an “influencer” so they can spread the “brand word” within the relevant communities.
- if the Brand is successful due to the ambassador, the ambassador is likely to be bestowed with not only a long lasting relationship with the brand,but also a key spotlight by the brand on the ambassador.
- the consumer/target audience wins, when they are provided interesting and exciting content and things to look at/read/experience from the person/people (ambassador) who they listen and like.
so quickly and briefly lets see how we can do this;
how to set up a Social Media ambassador program :
- Identifying “talent”: the first step towards starting a social ambassador program is through researching and selecting a whole pool of probable talented candidates who can represent your brand on the Social Media front. Many a times companies tend to take this “recruitment” process on their own so that they could maintain total control. however some brands also leave this process to be open sourced, this way everyone/anyone is allowed to be a part of the process and the brand promotion already starts well before the actual program itself through word of mouth.
- Selecting the “talent”: ok so after you/your brand has identified or shortlisted potential ambassadors,now comes the time when you need to select people out of the shortlisted list. for this you need to look at a few things;
- How good is the social REACH of the person, how far stretched are his existing followers or contacts.
- What is the persons PERSPECTIVE regarding the brand?
- Is he an INFLUENCER within his circle, how much do his network contacts listen to him.
- Would the person be a good MEDIA FIT for your future promotions, for e.g if you wanted a video testimonial from the ambassador to put up on Youtube or FB.
- Managing the Ambassadors: once the brand/you are done with the above processes, you need to put in processes and regulations to monitor and manage the access and activities of the ambassadors, sometimes professional talent comes with managers, but if you are hiring crowd sourced ambassadors then they need to be properly trained in the “ways” of the brand so that they can understand what exactly they need to do for you.
- What to hold back: you need to set filters on how the ambassadors are to communicate with the audience, giving them a free reign over everything can make you and your brand lose control over the communication being disseminated, hence always remember what to say out loud and what to hold back.
- Maintaining Longevity: with the Social Media brand ambassador campaign almost done and complete, you just have to maintain a long relation with the ambassador or this will not end up well for you,as a followup to the campaign you can do things like,putting up videos by the ambassadors, shooting their testimonials,getting their comments on the product/brand and creating themed competitions around it. etc, this way the ambassadors maintain that good impression about your brand and this way you would be able to keep your “brand call” on for a longer period. 🙂 Cheers
DIGITARIUM 