BENEFITS OF SOCIAL MEDIA-BASED BRAND AMBASSADOR PROGRAMS
[This post is part 3 in a series of posts related to Social Media-Based Brand Ambassadors. This post focuses on the benefits associated with a brand ambassador program.]
According to TomBlackett in Brands and Branding (Bloomberg Press, 2009), “When employees areexcited by the proposition they will help to sustain it and communicate it tocustomers, suppliers and others through their enthusiasm and commitment.”
Forrester Research, Inc.’s Cindy Commander states in the 2007 Report Brief: Transforming Employees Into Brand Advocates that “Employees who actively ‘live the brand’create significant benefits for both the customer and the organization. Customers of organizations with employeebrand advocates enjoy better customer service, greater anticipation of andability to have their needs met, and more attentiveness to their voice andfeedback. The organization enjoys thebenefits of word-of-mouth marketing, greater profitability and financial results,and a more differentiated brand.” Social media-enabled brand ambassadorsprovide benefits to the organization as a result of their efforts to humanizethe organization.
Ability to Humanize the Organization: AdWeek Magazine blogger Noreen O’Leary emphasizes(“Employee Benefits: Workers as BrandAmbassadors”) that “The use of workers to humanize corporate entities hasbeen a time-honored marketing tradition, of course. But in an era of Web 2.0 transparency, theirvisibility takes on greater meaning, signaling the higher importance ofcustomer service in the marketing mix. More subliminally, as America’s battered consumers have lost faith inthe institutions they hold responsible for the current economic mess – and areangry with corporations behind massive layoffs – staffers offer a kind of peercredibility as corporate advocates.”
Socialmedia-enabled employee brand ambassadors can play a major role in changing thepublic’s perception of the organization. Brand ambassadors have the ability to transform cold and impersonal organizationsinto warm and friendly customer-friendly companies. Instead of dealing with an abstract concept,logo, or the image of an ivory tower, social media-enabled employee brandambassadors are able to transform transactions into human relations. Social media platforms provide the “social”vehicle to connect with customers at a personal level – something that is notpossible through static Web pages and advertising.
Organizations transformthemselves by responding to social media inquiries as well as seeking out andcreating “conversations” on social media platforms. These interactions are perceived positivelyif the communication is determined to be honest, genuine, and transparent. Through these activities brand ambassadors havethe ability to transform customer interactions into rewarding personalexperiences.
Brand Awareness: Social media-enabled employee brandambassadors can be very effective at creating brand awareness. While the reach of a brand ambassador is generallynot the same as a mass market advertisement, the quality of the social media interactioncan produce a valuable word-of-mouth affect – the “viral” affect – that cancreate significant awareness and interest in the brand.
A sound SocialMedia-Based Employee Brand Ambassador Program turns employees into influencers. As long as the brand ambassadors act in anhonest and transparent manner and consistent with expectations, they can createa favorable impression of the brand.
Meet Customer Expectations: Social media platforms act asconvenient and easily accessible forums where customers and potential customerscan reach out to organizations through their brand ambassadors. Customers are able to use social media platformsto pose questions, make statements or generally express their feelings about thebrand on their time and on their platform of choice (Facebook, Twitter,Foursquare, LinkedIn, etc.).
The use of socialmedia-enabled employee brand ambassadors allows organizations to meet these customerexpectations. According to Top DogSocial Media blogger Melonie Dodaro, “More than one quarter of all thetime people spend online is spent on social networks. Regardless of what their needs happen to be,they are turning to sites like Twitter and Facebook in order to find what theyare looking for.”
The result of widespreaduse of social media is the recently developed customer expectation thatorganizations should also reside on the social networks used by customers. Social media-enabled brand ambassadors that monitorsocial media platforms allow organizations to not only react to demand but to alsoproactively create a social media presence.
Techncom.com bloggerRajib Kumar states that “Customers want immediateacknowledgement and resolution and are not willing to wait endlessly listeningto call Centre hold tunes. Consumerswant instant gratification even in customer service. Smart and savvy businesses have started usingthe social media space to get closer to their customers and increase theirservice levels up a notch vis-à-vis the competition.”
Brand Differentiation: In today’s globally competitivemarketplace it is not enough to be just as good as the next guy. In today’s business environment it is importantto be different. Anyone can make a plainvanilla product. And vanilla generallytastes the same regardless of the maker. As such, unless the organization seeks to enter a price war overvanilla, the organization is better suited finding a way to differentiate its productsor services.
Brand ambassadorsprovide the organization with a method of setting itself apart from thecompetition. Relative to competitorsthat do not employ brand ambassadors the organization is able to set itselfapart. This differentiation not onlyassists the organization in avoiding vanilla product pricing but may alsoprovide for the opportunity to create loyalty and charge premium prices.
Early Warning System: Social media monitoring involvesthe use of applications such as Google Alerts, SocialMention.com andradian6 to locate comments that reside on social mediaplatforms. Identification of comments enablesthe organization to provide a timely response that is likely to be appreciated bythe commenter.
According toTechncom’s Kumar, social media monitoring providesorganizations with an early warning system. Customers will generally give organizations an opportunity to “right thewrong” before unleashing their fury on social media platforms. As such, organizations that utilize socialmedia-enabled employee brand ambassadors to “listen” to social media conversationsare able to proactively identify and address problems before they manifest intomajor public relations disasters.
Top Dog SocialMedia blogger Dodaro says that “Using social media the right waymeans you’ll also have the ability to listen to your audience, find out whattheir needs are and offer them a solution.” An additional benefit is derived from customersthat share the positive experience via social media, turning themselves into a customer brand ambassadors.
Development of a Knowledgebase: The use of social media to locateand answer organization-specific questions benefits not only the party askingthe question but also others that may have similar questions. It is not uncommon for customers andprospective customers to search the Internet for answers to product and/orservice-related questions. To the extentthat the response to a question is addressed on a social media platform it issubject to search engine indexing that makes the response retrievable by others. The availability of this information islikely to be viewed favorably by customers and prospective customers.
Techncom’s Kumar says about creating a public knowledgebase,“It can become a great resource for future reference and a guide point forother customers who will refer to the link or post.” But the knowledgebase need not only includeresponses to questions. It can alsoinclude proactive information provided through blog posts, tweets and otherinformation.
Improved Financial Results: It is no surprise that anincrease in brand awareness results in improved financial results. However, a Social Media-Based Employee BrandAmbassador Program will not in of itself create blockbuster financialsuccess. It will contribute to thebottom line along with the organization’s other revenue generatingactivities. Regardless, its effectshould not be minimized as it has the potential to become a significantcontributor to the organization.
Dow Jones MediaLab blogger Diane Thieke (“Employeesas Brand Ambassadors: Enthusiasm is Infectious”) states, “Today, I don’tthink there’s much question about whether there’s a benefit to having employeesengaged as brand ambassadors in social media.” Instead, Thieke believes that that keyquestion is how to effectively manage a Brand Ambassador Program.
To the extent thatan organization can establish a sound Social Media-Enabled Brand AmbassadorProgram and use it to motivate its employees, the organization can become incrediblyeffective at influencing stakeholders. Theconsensus among the experts suggests that the maintenance of a cadre of brand ambassadorsresults in stronger branding, improved customer satisfaction, increased revenueand stronger overall financial results.
