eMarketer just published an article and report, “Brand Advocates Scaling Social Media Word of Mouth” which highlights key characteristics and motivations of Brand Advocates including research from a recent Zuberance brand advocacy study.

Here are some of the key characteristics of Brand Advocates from the report:

Brand Advocates recommend products and services, and do so frequently.

Brand Advocates educate other consumers.

Brand Advocates want to share their positive brand experiences to help others (vs getting rewards or discounts)

Brand Advocates are influenced by social media.

It’s clear that Brand Advocates are an influential and powerful marketing force. While creating a brand advocacy strategy, marketers need to ask themselves one question: What do you want your Advocates to do for you? Check out 7 ways to leverage your Brand Advocates here.

-Cara Fuggetta, Marketing Manager, Zuberance

Let me explain how our CEO, Rob Fuggetta, and I decided where to get dinner on a business trip to Chicago and you’ll see what I mean.

Twitter Implements Do Not Track Privacy Option – NY Times

It’s no secret that Facebook is worth about $100 billion because itcollected personal data about its users. A lot of data. Although Twitter tracks its users too — albeit in a much less aggressive way — the company has decided to take a different route. It announced Thursday that it is joining Mozilla, the maker of the Firefox Web browser, and giving its users the ability to opt-out of being tracked in any way through Twitter.

Marketers from GNC to P&G Weigh in on Social Platform Strategy- Brands on Facebook: Advertising is Optional – AdAge

One in five clicks in the U.S. happens on Facebook, and like any mass platform, most brands maintain a presence there and carefully cultivate their fan base. But do they need to advertise as well? That’s the question facing brands — as well as investors –as Facebook prepares for its anticipated $100 billion IPO on Friday.

GM to Forgo Pricey Superbowl Ads – WSJ

General Motors Co. said it will forgo advertising in the next Super Bowl rather than swallow a price hike, a surprising reversal of strategy that comes as the auto maker overhauls its global marketing operations. Super Bowl advertising is effective but has become too expensive to justify the cost, Joel Ewanick, GM’s global marketing chief, said in an interview. Ads for next year’s National Football League championship game are up about 9%, selling for about $3.8 million for a 30-second spot, according to media buyers.

Facebook Running Tests For User Highlighted Posts - Stuff.co.nz

Facebook is considering charging its members US$2 to “highlight” important posts so they are more visible on the social networking site. The feature is being trialled and was chanced across by a Facebook user in Whangarei who initially assumed it might be a scam. However, Facebook spokeswoman Mia Garlick confirmed it was a new “feature” it was testing.

Internet Greets Facebook IPO Price With Glee, Skepticism – CNN

Friends may be priceless. But ‘friending’ is worth $38 a share. That’s what Facebook set as the initial price when its stock begins trading on Wall Street Friday morning. That’s at the top end of the range analysts were expecting and gives the company a valuation of roughly $104 billion.

Click here to enlarge picture.

 

“Up to 90% of [marketing] spend goes to advertising and retail promotions. Yet the single most powerful impetus to buy is often someone else’s advocacy.” – David C. Edelman, Principal, McKinsey & Company, in Harvard Business Review”

Marketers are spending money in all the wrong places! To which we say…

Location: Fort Mason Center, San Francisco

Date: June 12-13

Hosted by: The Pulse Network

The Inbound Marketing Summit is a must-attend conference for digital, social and mobile marketers. With a unique mix of inspirational speakers including Kare Anderson, Rick Bakas, Chris Brogan, Laura Fitton, and Tim Hayden, industry watchers and experts like Allen Bonde, Jim Ewel, Esteban Kolsky, Scott Liewehr, Sameer Patel, and Paul Taylor, cutting edge content and real-world case studies, IMS is where innovative marketing professionals meet up, participate in sessions and network with their peers.

Zuberance is one of the sponsors of the conference and our Founder/CEO, Rob Fuggetta, will be hosting a book signing for his new book, “Brand Advocates: Turning Enthusiastic Customers into a Powerful Marketing Force.” He will also be speaking on the panel, “Fan Marketing Tools for Facebook and Beyond,” with the CEO’s of Argyle Social and Twylah.

Click here to register.

We hope you’ll join us!

1. Identify Advocates using multiple touch points. If you want to build your brand army, you should be identifying Advocates every which way. Plot our your customer experience and wherever your customers touch your product, service, or brand, ask “How likely are you to recommend us to your friends?” Place this question on your website, in emails, on social channels, in-product, etc.

2. Give Advocates lots of ways to recommend. Brand Advocates like to spread the love in various ways. Some are active content creators; some are avid sharers. Give  Advocates the opportunity to write reviews, rate products, create testimonials, share offers, whitepapers, and other content, answer prospect’s questions, and more.

3. Leverage Advocate content smartly. Advocate-generated content is pure digital gold. Lauren McCadney, Senior Social Media Manager for CDW, says that this content is better than any copywriter could write. Take advantage of your Advocates’ enthusiasm and place their content on your website and product pages, integrate it with email marketing campaigns, use it in advertising, and more.

4. Create an ongoing advocacy program, not a campaign. Advocacy should not be considered a one-off campaign. It’s an ongoing strategy and that builds over time and strengthens the brand-Advocate relationship. Advocates can support and amplify many of your marketing initiatives such as product launches, company announcements, community membership, etc. They’re even willing to give you feedback on new products, defend you from detractors, and answer prospects’ questions on your behalf.

5. Don’t pay or coach Advocates. Keep recommendations for your brand authentic and genuine. Giving customers incentives taints their recommendations and is just plain lame. If your company makes great products, there’s no need to waste precious marketing dollars on inauthentic advocacy.

To read about brand advocacy success stories, download “Turning Your Enthusiastic Customers into a Powerful Marketing Force.”

Do you have any best practices to add? Let us know by leaving a comment!

The interview also highlighted the success Parallels has seen in energizing their Brand Advocates.

“Social for us is very two-way. We learn a lot from them, but it’s also a vehicle that we offer back out. In terms of customer advocacy, we turned on an advocacy program a couple of months ago through an agency called Zuberance. That program yielded well over 1,000 reviews, where business customers in their own words are talking about the impact that Parallels Desktop for Mac has had on their businesses. They’re not hesitating to share that with one another, too. The dialogue is so rich that the customers are sharing with one another. It’s been really nice to see that authentic word-of-mouth marketing is working and doing quite well,” says Kim Johnston.

Read the full BtoB “CMO Close-Up” here.

Kim Johnston was a guest speaker in a recent webinar, “How Box, AVG, and Parallels are Leveraging Customer Advocates to Drive Sales.” Click here to watch now.

Twitter’s “Discover” feature is getting more dialed in to users’ preferences, a blog post by Twitter Vice President Satya Patel announced this morning. The post says the feature will pay attention to “additional personalization signals” to figure out which stories to display, instead of just showing users what’s trending.

Facebook Sets IPO Date For May 18: Report – Forbes

Facebook has set a planned date for its initial public offering of May 18, according to the Wall Street Journal, citing “people familiar with the matter.” The social networking giant is expected to start its roadshow on Monday to pitch the company to potential Wall Street investors, the Journal reports.

79% of Marketers Plan to Increase Spend on Social Media Marketing – eMarketer

As marketers spread their time and resources across digital, social media is becoming a bigger piece of the puzzle. Looking at spending on advertising and marketing tactics, 79% of US marketing professionals said they plan to increase spending on social media marketing or ads in the next 12 months, with mobile and tablet spending not far behind, at 75% and 66%, respectively, as the next areas that will see budget growth.

Report: Cover Images Draw Eyeballs on Facebook Timeline Pages – AllFacebook

Eye-tracking outfit EyeTrackShop turned its eyes to timeline for pages and found that the cover image was king.EyeTrackShop’s findings ran counter to those from another eye-tracking study earlier this month by Simple Usability, which concluded that the importance of cover images was overrated, saying that most users did not notice creative combinations of the cover image and profile image, and many thought of the former as advertising space.

LinkedIn Tops the Forbes Fast Fast Tech 25: Annual List of Growth Kings – Forbes

The crucial question for investors is how much weight you give to things you can’t begin to imagine. That leap of faith is what drives interest in our list of America’s 25 Fastest-Growing Tech Companies. All of them have shown a remarkable ability to defy sales gravity. We combed more than 5,000 publicly traded technology companies, looking for profitable companies with a minimum revenue of $150 million and a minimum market value of $500 million.

And unfortunately, abandonment rates are rising due to consumers seeking product information (prices, ratings, reviews, etc) from various online sources.

Charles Nicholls, founder and chief strategy officer for SeeWhy says that “…rather than being a rejection of the brand’s value proposition, [abandonment] can be a step in the decision process for some buyers and for the majority of purchases. This is visible in the way that some customers will come back multiple times as they consider the purchase, storing items in their shopping carts as ‘wish lists.’”

A greatly effective way to push the cart to checkout is to leverage the authentic enthusiasm of the customers who love you the most: your Brand Advocates.

Facilitate the Prospect-Advocate conversation: Give prospects the option to ask current customers questions about the product they are considering purchasing.

Here’s how:

1. Ask your Advocates if they’d be willing to answer questions from people considering buying your products. Those who opt in become your virtual salesforce.
2. Place a banner on various pages of your website (product page, checkout page, review page, etc.) that gives prospects the option to “Ask Real Brand X Customers” about your products.
3. Facilitate the conversation between Advocates and prospects. Through our Advocate Answers app, prospects can ask a question and Advocate responses are sent directly to them via email.
4. Place a call-to-action banner in the email or the webpage where prospects read answers (such as a special offer) to increase conversion rates.

Our customers have seen 13%-33% conversion to sale rates by connecting their prospects and Advocates. Watch the VP of Marketing for Ooma, a VoIP provider, discuss the benefits of energizing their Brand Advocates (including leveraging Advocate Answers) here.

Why it works:

• Brand Advocates are your biggest fans. They are more than willing to share their enthusiasm and expertise about your products.
• Brand Advocates, by nature, love creating content. In fact, they are 50% more likely to create content that influences a purchase.
• Brand Advocates are more trusted and powerful than brands. A recent Nielsen study on consumer trust found that consumers trust their peers above all other forms of advertising.

To learn more, download the whitepaper, “The ROI of Energizing Brand Advocates.”

Date: May 7-9, 2012

Location: Radisson Blu Aqua Hotel, Chicago

Hosted by: Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA)

REGISTER HERE

Zuberance and Restaurant.com are teaming up to present a fantastic case study at the Word of Mouth Marketing Association’s WOMM-U conference, “Advocacy is Delicious: Turning Restaurant.com Advocates into a Social Marketing Force.”

Restaurant.com is the leading provider of restaurant savings nationwide. The company offers the best deal on every meal at more than 18,000 restaurants nationwide with nearly 50,000 daily gift certificate options. Restaurant.com has helped customers save more than $2 billion since the Arlington Heights, Ill.-based company was founded in 1999. Restaurant.com will describe how they’ve created a thriving group of tens of thousands of Advocates and how they’re energizing these Advocates to spread positive Word of Mouth and drive sales.

Expert Speakers

Chris Krohn, President and Chief Marketing Officer, Restaurant.com (@ckrohn1)

Chris is a veteran of the e-commerce, hospitality and financial services industries.  With his strong background in growing entrepreneurial businesses and expertise in marketing, business development and technology, Krohn oversees the Restaurant.com’s marketing and IT functions. Krohn joined Restaurant.com in May 2011 from Whitney Automotive Group, a multi-brand B2C retailer, where he was Chief Marketing Officer and VP Business Development. Krohn’s operating experience also spans the hospitality and financial services industries. He was formerly Vice President of Marketing at Harrah’s Entertainment, head of marketing for Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) and Managing Director of CME subsidiary, OneChicago LLC.

Rob Fuggetta, Founder/CEO, Zuberance (@robfuggetta)

As Zuberance CEO, Rob is ultimately responsible for all aspects of the company’s business including product, engineering, operations, customer success, and sales and marketing. Rob is a 20-year veteran of Silicon Valley who has played a leadership role in three start-ups including Genuity, which went public in June 2000. Rob was formerly a partner at Regis McKenna Inc., the legendary Silicon Valley marketing and communications firm, where he co-led the global Apple business. Rob is the author of “Brand Advocates: Turning Enthusiastic Customers into a Powerful Marketing Force,” to be published by John H. Wiley, Inc. in June 2012.

Click here to register from WOMM-U