One of the most powerful yet often overlooked marketing tools for multi-location businesses is brand advocacy. 

What better way to attract new customers to a business than with a trustworthy review? Word of mouth can go such a long way. And the best part is, it's usually free!

Brand advocacy is also a win-win situation. Businesses get a boost in sales and reach, while brand advocates learn social media skills that can help them kickstart a new career - but more on that later.

Keep reading to learn more about brand advocacy, including its effectiveness and examples of campaigns that may inspire you.

What Is a Brand Advocate?

Overall, a brand advocate is a genuine fan of your products and services who promotes them happily. Brand advocates aren't usually paid and can be anyone, which boosts trust and credibility. This is an organic marketing tool that works better than paid promotions.

Brand advocates can be anyone, including loyal customers, employees, and even influencers. However, not all influencers are brand advocates. But how can you tell the difference, especially since social media is still new and has grown fast? The words' influencers' and 'ambassadors' are thrown around a lot.

An influencer is someone who has built an online presence and has influence over their followers. They can be brand advocate, but not always. Using influencers for marketing is an option, but it comes with a higher price tag than a brand advocate.

A band ambassador is a mix between an influencer and a brand advocate. They typically have a large social media following and are paid directly by companies to promote their brand long-term. For social media influencers, promotion is typically a short-term endeavor.

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Why Brand Advocates Matter for Multi-Location Businesses

Multi-location businesses thrive when utilizing brand advocates due to their cost-effectiveness and the boost they provide to a brand's credibility. 

People are more likely to trust reviews from 'normal' individuals. Approximately 92% of people trust word-of-mouth recommendations more than other types. The same data also found that 70% of people trust consumer opinions posted online. The numbers drop with paid advertisements.

Shining a light on local customers and their reviews, especially when they include images or videos, boosts local credibility.

For businesses with multiple locations, it's best to gather brand advocates and customers from each location. 

It's also true that customers are more likely to post their reviews, Instagram/Facebook check-ins, and photos of the product or service when someone else has done it first. Brand advocacy is a marketing tool that is easy to expand.

Lastly, using brand advocacy with multi-location businesses also helps to humanize the business by showcasing authentic voices. People prefer authenticity over scripted marketing. 

Data and Source

How To Identify Brand Advocates

Finding your brand advocates isn't as difficult as you might think, especially for established businesses.

Marketers and business owners can find brand advocates by searching for their fans.

It's easier and more cost-effective to utilize the resources at your disposal, including existing recurring customers. Marketers who don't visit each physical location can speak with managers to identify superfans.

Which customers come in daily or even weekly? Or how about customers who have referred others multiple times? These are key brand advocates because they genuinely love your products.

As a marketer, the best way to find them is by checking the business's geotags. Who has posted about the business, and how often? 

Lastly, utilize surveys. Encourage customers to complete surveys with a question asking them to rate their likelihood of returning or recommending the business (Net Promoter Score (NPS). 

How To Activate Brand Advocates on Social Media

So, how do you encourage brand advocates to post more and use their referrals? There are countless ways.

One way is to repost their content with credit. If they've tagged you in an Instagram story, for instance, also report it to yours with a thank you. 

You can also consider creating Advocate of the Month campaigns, where you highlight an advocate or customer who frequently visits and posts. You don't have to call it Advocate of the Month, either. To make it more authentic and approachable, you can use the terms "guest” or “customer.”

To repeat customers and those who bring in referrals, offer sneak peeks and previews of new products or promotions. This makes them feel special while also allowing for more free marketing for the business. 

Free things also make a big difference. You can create campaigns offering a freebie on their next visit if they share the post or tag their friends.

For example, if you run a coffee shop's social media, this can be a free cup of coffee. 

Finally, run community hashtags with events and campaigns. Create a hashtag with your brand's name or product and encourage customers and internet users to use it. Then, highlight or shout out some of the posters who use the hashtag.

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Encourage Local Teams To Build Brand Advocacy Programs

As a marketing expert, the possibilities with brand advocacy are endless. You don't have to just stick to promoting one or two brands. Instead, what would help both you and the companies you work for is to encourage local teams to create brand advocacy programs.

Find regional teams by specific locations to train. You can train them to identify brand advocates and learn how to highlight them effectively.

This doesn't take as much time as you'd think, either. Instead of hosting in-person classes, you can create and provide the regional teams with content templates and guidelines.

It can be confusing to work with so many brand advocacy teams. However, you don't need to feel confused or alone.

Instead, you could use a marketing and scheduling tool like Sendible to manage advocacy campaigns across branches. Sendible allows for multi-profile scheduling that offers marketers a chance to approve posts before they go live. 

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Brand Advocate Campaign Examples

Now that we know the basics behind brand advocacy, we can see it in action. How can you use campaigns in various industries?

Restaurant Chain

Although there are dozens of campaign examples, we will be focusing on one each under the industry.

For restaurant chains, a great way to highlight brand advocacy is by resharing a customer's pictures or videos of the product or service with geotags. This can be a story or a post!

This is reflected in the reposted Instagram Story below. Rock and Brews reshared a Story from happy customers at their location with the tag.

Dental Group

Brand advocacy can also be used by medical professionals like dentists.

Two ways you can use brand advocacy while working with a dental group are to share before and after pictures and location-based testimonials.

These can be a Story, Posts, or Reels on Instagram. You can also post them on Facebook and TikTok. The example below is of a dentist group in Texas.

They shared a positive testimonial on their Instagram. Although they didn't post a before and after picture, they have many on their page.

Retail Franchise

You can do a lot with a social media account. There are various ways to use brand advocacy to boost engagement and customers.

One way is to reshare tagged posts of products. This is shown below. Under the tagged posts of Plato's Closet in East Colonial, a happy customer posted their favorite find with a location-specific tag.

Not only is this an example of how brand advocacy can be used, but it is also how marketers can find brand advocates. Another way marketers can use brand advocacy with retail stores is by featuring loyal shoppers in campaign carousels tagged by location. 

Fitness Chain

Lastly are fitness chains. With a fitness chain, you can include member spotlights. Post members that frequently attend the fitness location on a Story. It can be a highlight post daily, weekly, or monthly.

A lot of gym memberships also save these Stories as Instagram Highlights. An example of this is the Crunch Folsom account on Instagram. 

Best Practices To Build Long-Term Advocacy

Advocacy is not a short-term feat. Instead, it's a long-term relationship between a brand and its loyal customers and employees. 

To keep it long-term, you have to nurture your relationship with your customers and brand advocates on social media.

But how do you do this?

One way is to keep it authentic. It's okay to give away some freebies, but not every reposted Story should include a free drink. Your page also needs a mix of brand advocates and other content ideas. 

Also, give thanks publicly. Customers and clients love feeling appreciated and are more likely to come back if they are thanked. This can be in a quick Post or a Story. 

Although the internet is public, it doesn't hurt to ask for permission before reposting UGC.

Even though someone made a post with the brand's name and a tag, it doesn't mean they are comfortable with more attention. Adding a quick comment under their post asking if it's okay to repost is a good idea and doesn't take long.

As you build trust and relationships with your brand advocates and customers, don't be afraid to reach out for feedback.

This helps create a feedback loop, which is perfect when you are trying out different social media campaigns. The same goes for owners. Shop owners can have their brand advocates give feedback on new products early.

The final tip is to measure the impact of your posts with brand advocacy. How can you tell if they are working without looking at numbers? Track and compare numbers associated with engagement and referral traffic to plan content moving forward.

FAQs

• How do brand advocates differ from influencers?

Brand advocates are employees, customers, friends, and sometimes influencers. They build long-term relationships with brands they genuinely care about, while influencers often build short-term relationships. Influencers also have a wider reach, but it's not necessarily local.

• What social content works best for brand advocacy?

Any brand advocate-created post is good, but pictures are especially strong. They showcase the products and services, and are easier to repost than a wall of text.

• Can I create a formal brand advocate program for each location?

Each location of a company is different. It's important to create different formal brand advocate programs for each location. This is especially important for multi-location businesses that are a long distance from each other.

• What’s the best way to find advocates on Instagram or Facebook?

The best way to find advocates on Facebook and Instagram is by noticing who is constantly tagging and posting about the brand. Are they checking in often? Do they post to their story with a geotag? Are they in the comments of each post?