Market research firm, Gleanster, recently released a report called, “Deep Dive: How Top Performers Leverage Social Networking to Mobilize Brand Advocacy.” The report explores some of the strategies, tactics, and tools currently being implemented by Top Performers in their online customer advocacy programs.

Gleanster highlights that consumers are naturally inclined to share their experiences with a product or service, and they’ve been participating with company Facebook pages and Twitter accounts for some time now. But truly leveraging the enthusiasm of your most active supporters- moving them to influence others- takes more than a basic social media ccount. True brand advocacy programs allow companies to identify and motivate their most ardent fans while providing insights and systems that work at scale.

A few key takeaways:

• Brand advocacy programs effectively drive new customer acquisition, ultimately resulting in higher sales.
• Companies need to make sharing recommendations as easy and convenient as possible, and also make it possible for Advocates to disseminate their recommendations across multiple networks in one well swoop.
• Brand advocacy programs can provide companies with important insights into the wants and needs- both met and unmet- of their most satisfied customers. These insights can help drive new product development as well as new loyalty programs and other initiatives that focus on enhancing the overall customer experience.

Download “How Top Performers Leverage Social Networking to Mobilize Brand Advocacy” now.

-Cara Fuggetta, Marketing Manager, Zuberance

Hungry for resources on brand advocacy, word of mouth marketing, and social media? Well you’re in luck! We just launched our new resources page. Check out some of the featured content:

Whitepapers

• Turning Fans and Followers into Brand Advocates
• Top 5 Reasons Brands Should Focus on Earned Media
• How to Turn Your Customers into a Powerful Marketing Force Across Industries

Webinars

• A Marketing Imperative: Balancing Paid vs. Earned Media featuring David Armano (Edelman Digital) and Sean Corcoran (Forrester Research Inc)
• How to Turn Loyal Customers into Salespeople featuring Robin Korman (Wyndham Hotel Group) and John Moser (Denihan Hospitality Group)
• How to Make Social Media Work in B2B featuring Lauren McCadney (CDW) and Paul Dunay (Networked Insights)

Case Studies

• Intuit: Social Recommendations are Game-Changing For Us
• How Blurb Cut Customer Acquisition Costs in Half
• Chili’s Peppers in Brand Advocacy

Stats on Brand Advocates

• An Army of Brand Advocates- There are more than 60 million Brand Advocates in the US and billions worldwide, creating a virtual Army of Advocates.
• The Power of Brand Advocates- 92% of consumers trust “recommendations from people I know.” Only 37% trust search engine ads, and just 24% trust online banner ads.
• Brand Advocacy by Demographic- 50% of women with social network profiles purchased products because of information they got from friends or companies on social networking sites.

Videos

• Author David Meerman Scott on “How the Grateful Dead Enabled Fans to Spread Advocacy”
• AdAge’s Abbey Klaassen on “How to Convert a Passive Fan into a Brand Advocate”
• JetBlue’s Morgan Johnston on “How JetBlue Built Long Lasting Relationships on Their 10th Birthday”

Panel discussions and key takeaways from past events

• Brand Advocacy Series: How To Turn Word of Mouth and Social Media into Sales featuring Microsoft, JetBlue, CDW, Alberto Culver, and more
• The Next Step in Social: Beyond Listening and Engagement featuring Intuit, Adobe, and Altimeter Group
• Zuberance CEO, Rob Fuggetta, speaks at TEDx Constitution Drive on “Consumer Trust in the Social Media Age”

Visit the Brand Advocacy Resources Library

-Cara Fuggetta, Marketing Manager, Zuberance

Download: Turn Your Customers into a Powerful Marketing Force

If you’re like lots of companies, you have a very valuable marketing resource just going to waste: Brand Advocates. They’re your most passionate and influential customers. They’re already recommending your products- with no incentive. Can you imagine what they’d do if you were working with them?

This report covers Word of Mouth Marketing success stories in various industries including:

• Travel and Hospitality
• Software
• Health and Fitness
• Consumer Electronics
• Restaurants and Casual Dining

Download the Case Study to learn how:

• Chili’s energized their Advocates to share over 320,000 offers with their social networks.
• Club One Fitness yielded a 9X ROI through their Advocates’ recommendations.
• A leading consumer electronics company increased their star ratings on Amazon from 2.5 to 4.1.

-Cara Fuggetta, Marketing Manager, Zuberance

Download: Turning Fans and Followers into Brand Advocates

Many marketers today are focused on getting more fans and followers on Facebook and Twitter and increasing engagement on social channels via games, discounts, and promotions. But getting more fans and followers and increasing engagement don’t necessarily translate to sales. The real social marketing value comes from finding your most enthusiastic fans and followers (AKA Brand Advocates) and energizing them to recommend your company to their social networks.

Download the whitepaper and learn how to:

• Identify your Brand Advocates amongst your fans and followers
• Turn likes into leads
• Reduce customer acquisition costs via your fans and followers
• Energize your fans to generate social recommendations

We want to hear from you! Feel free to share your thoughts on the whitepaper here.

-Cara Fuggetta, Marketing Manager, Zuberance

The New York Times Customer Insight Group has put out a very comprehensive study titled “The Psychology of Sharing: Why Do People Share Online?”  The report identifies our motivations behind sharing, if there are certain personalities more likely to share content, and what this all could mean for advertisers. (Download report here.)

The concept of sharing is nothing new.  We have hopefully all been taught the value of sharing from a very young age.  The difference is the reach and the ease of sharing has changed: online sharing is fast and extensive.  Because of this, we share more content, more often.

The group surveyed are classified as “medium /heavy online sharers”.   Some results are as follows:

• 73% agreed they processed information more deeply and thoroughly when they shared it.
• 85% said that reading other people’s responses helps them understand and process information and events.
• A whopping 94% of participants said they share because they think the information is useful to the recipient – they want to help.

Sharing has made us hyper-aware of the things that we do.  We want to tell people about them because we want to enrich the lives of others.  This was the number one reason for sharing, behind “nourishing relationships”, “supporting causes or issues” and “self-fulfillment”.  Fittingly, one personality type that’s inclined to share is an altruist.  These people are simply trying to be helpful, thoughtful and stay connected.

For marketers, the altruists are the group you most want to focus on.  The study instructs brands to “appeal to consumers’ motivation to connect with each other” not just with the brand.  Trust and simplicity are mentioned as well, as is a nod to the fact that e-mail is still the number one way people share content.

Social recommendations are the currency of the future.  More and more people are not only sharing information online – but they are relying on it to make informed purchase decisions.  As a brand, you need to allow your customers the opportunity to share an experience, product or deal through social means.

-Lucy Arnold, Marketing Intern, Zuberance

Download: How Hotels Can Turn Word of Mouth & Social Media Into Sales.

Hotel marketers dedicate precious resources, dollars, time and energy luring and converting new customers. However, their most valuable marketing resource is often overlooked: Brand Advocates. This powerful segment of influential and passionate customers is already singing your praises by recommending your hotel, both online and off. Energizing your Brand Advocates can bring you the ultimate prize: a powerful marketing force that continuously recommends and sells on behalf of your hotel without being paid to do so.

Download this whitepaper and learn:

• How to identify Brand Advocates
• Brand advocacy best practices and keys to success
• Key attributes of Brand Advocates and what they will do for your brand
• Real world case studies on how leading hotel chains are leveraging their Advocates to drive sales
• The value of Brand Advocates

We want to hear from you!  Feel free to posts your thoughts about the whitepaper here.

Download: The ROI of Energizing Brand Advocates.

Companies that systematically identify and energize Brand Advocates to create social recommendations are getting at least a 10X ROI in media and sales value, shown by our analysis of the Zuberance-powered social recommendation program. In other words, for every $1 a company invests in energizing Advocates, the company gets $10 in positive Word of Mouth impressions and sales. This 10X “Return on Advocacy” is significantly higher than the return that marketers get from paid search campaigns on Google and other marketing approaches.

Download this whitepaper and learn:

• Why energizing Brand Advocates delivers at least 10X ROI
• How a consumer electronics company is getting 10X ROI by energizing its Advocates
• How to identify Brand Advocates
• The media and sales value of energizing Advocates
• Additional benefits of energizing Advocates

We want to hear from you! Feel free to share your thoughts on the whitepaper here.

Download: Top 5 Myths of B2B Word of Mouth.

Word of Mouth (WOM) is the “world’s most powerful sales tool,” according to Nielsen. Today, thanks to social media channels like blogs, Twitter, review sites and more, WOM and social recommendations are more influential than ever. But is WOM effective in B2B environments? Discover what’s fact and what’s fiction in B2B Word of Mouth marketing.

Download this whitepaper and learn:

• What role does social media play in influencing business purchase decisions?
• How to measure B2B Word of Mouth
• How B2B and B2C WOM compare.

We want to hear from you!  Share your thoughts on the whitepaper here.

Download: Turning Social Media Into Sales.

The  Holy Grail in the Social Media Age is how to leverage social to drive leads and sales. As Ellis Booker, the editor of BtoB Magazine and BtoB’s Media Business, said recently: “How to best use- but not abuse- social media for sales conversion is the $64,000 question, and will preoccupy marketers, agencies, and media companies for the foreseeable future.”

This report features real-world examples of companies generating social recommendations, qualified leads, sales, and positive Word of Mouth now from social media by energizing their highly-satisfied customers (AKA “Brand Advocates”) via the award-winning Zuberance Social Recommendations Service

Download this white paper and learn:

• What role social media plays in influencing business purchase decisions.
• How to generate qualified leads via Brand Advocates.
• How B2B and B2C WOM compare.

We want to hear from you!  Feel free to share your thoughts about the whitepaper here.

Download: Consumer Electronics Company Gets 5% Conversions By Energizing Brand Advocates

This case study highlights a leading consumer electronics company that was recently facing a marketing crisis. Negative Word of Mouth for their new flagship product was hurting their reputation and sales. So they turned to their most enthusiastic customers (AKA their Brand Advocates) and energized them to create social recommendations for the brand and product.

In only a few months the company has:

• Energized thousands of Brand Advocates to create social recommendations
• Increased its star ratings on a leading shopping site from 2.8 to 4 stars
• Recorded a 5% sales conversion rate, 10x higher than normal

Download the case study and learn how to:

• Identify Brand Advocates by name and email address
• Mobilize Advocates to create social recommendations and drive sales
• Track results from social recommendation programs in real-time

We want to hear from you!  Feel free to share your thoughts on the whitepaper below.