Why Brand Advocacy is Important

Brand advocacy is a great way to help your business grow. Basically in a nutshell brand advocacy comes from word of mouth. No, seeing your favorite celebrity posting about "Flat Tummy Tea" or "Sugar Bear Hair" is not brand advocacy. Those are paid advertisements where the brand pays them to post because of how influential they are on the public, they probably don't even use those products. Brand advocacy is spread by a company's loyal customers' who genuinely enjoy their product or service and want to spread the word, it can have its benefits for the advocate as well.

Source: Liquid Agency

According to the Neilson report, "Global Trust in Advertising," more than 83 percent of people, globally, trust the recommendations of friends or family. This is why word of mouth is so important, chances are if someone you trust says something positive about a product, its going to make you want to try it.

Don't get me wrong, influencers and celebrities can definitely be advocates for brands, but knowing the difference between a paid ad and someone praising a product or company is where the trust comes in.

Recently, it has been made clear that influencers must disclose whether or not they were paid for their post or not, which makes it easier to spot genuine reviews of products or services. If you want to know more about what the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) has to say about disclosing ads and how to do it, click here to read a blog from Benjamin Chacon.

Anybody can really be a brand advocate for a company as long as their talking about their brand or products. For brands, as mentioned before, its a great way to gain loyal consumers.

You often hear negative experiences with companies, however, when you speak positively about a company it really does help. Just keep that in mind whenever you have positive experiences and let people know, it does have an effect and possible benefits. Always be an advocate.