Knowing and cultivating relationships with fans of your brand is invaluable. Some of these fans can even become significant brand ambassadors. We are going to take a look at what it means to be a brand ambassador and how important they are in building a loyal consumer base.
Contents
What Is a Brand Ambassador?
Why Are Brand Ambassadors So Important?
What Makes a Good Brand Ambassador?
How to Become a Brand Ambassador
What is an Ambassador Program
Why Run an Ambassador Program
How to Find, Connect With, and Manage Brand Ambassadors
Summary
What Is a Brand Ambassador?
Essentially, a brand ambassador is a content creator who promotes a products or brands that they feel positively towards and want to share with their followers. They typically have large audiences on social media, who are heavily engaged.
Brand ambassadors are also known by similar titles such as: brand advocates, brand representatives, and brand associates. But essentially these terms all represent individuals who companies partner with to increase their brand awareness.
There are many types of brand ambassadors. We are going to focus on the four most popular:
Influencers
Influencers are one of the main types of brand ambassadors. A transactional relationship, often paid directly by the brand to promote products, they usually have a medium-large engaged following across multiple social media platforms. Working with brands on specific campaigns and representing them both online and at physical events.
And we aren't just talking A-List celebrities! Nowadays, brands have a lot more choices at their fingertips, with the ability to find brand ambassadors with extremely relevant audiences and niches.
You could focus on bloggers, large social media personalities, or even on go the other direction to partner with micro-influencers. These social media content creators can often achieve more impactful marketing results than big names, because of the relationship they've cultivated with their audience. They have the unique ability to showcase your products to their engaged community on major platforms like TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram.
Customer Ambassadors
Client brand ambassadors are customers who positively talk about a brand on their social media, thereby encouraging others to buy that brands products or services over a competitor.
These posts can be unprompted, or perhaps made as a part of a promotion on the part of the business to generate UGC.
Expert Ambassadors
Expert ambassadors for a brand are growing increasingly important to help brands demonstrate industry leadership and cultivate a real sense of authority when it comes to what they offer. They are not necessarily a customer of the specific brand or product, but they are well known in the industry for their expertise, and are a trusted voice when it comes to their recommendations.
Affiliate Ambassadors
You'll often see brand ambassador posts tagged with #Affiliated or #Affiliate. These individuals receive a referral fee or commission on sales of the products they are promoting. The Venn Diagram of affiliates and influencers is almost a circle, but there are some differences. Affiliate ambassadors typically run promotions for much longer and are always based on more concrete metrics than some influencer campaigns. Think sales vs brand exposure.
Why Are Brand Ambassadors So Important?
Building brand awareness can be thought as both the hardest its ever been, but also the simplest.
How is that possible? Well, consider this: The most difficult thing to overcome in traditional advertising is that it has become predictable. Consumers today are savvy, and they are fed up with being marketed. They are demanding authenticity in marketing — and that can be hard to achieve from a brands owned messaging.
According to Digital Marketing Institute, 49% of consumers depend on influencer recommendations. Furthermore, 69% of consumers trust what influencers say and recommend (Shopify). Herein lies the power of the brand ambassador.
If the audience knows that a person promoting the brand is not being paid to do so, they will more likely believe them. Authenticity and trust are rising the ranks as the most significant factors that drive purchases.
And it doesn't cost much to start building a brand ambassador program. With just a small budget, you can reach thousands of new fans.
Brand ambassadors not only make people eager to try new products, but they also help promote your brand as a whole.
This type of word-of-mouth marketing works especially great with influencers because they have a built in audience. But what are some of the other qualifications should you look for in a brand ambassador?
What Makes a Good Brand Ambassador?
Here are some key things to look out for when scouting brand ambassadors:
- Social media prowess. Do they have the essential social media skills to create the content you need, and that accurately represents your brand? Social listening tools give this insight in real-time. You can also use an influencer management platform to quickly find profiles and assess their content.
- An engaged audience base. While a high volume of followers is often part of the puzzle, it's actually not the most important metric. Sometimes nano or micro influencers who have small followings, have the most engaged fans (and it's easier to trust that they don't have fake followers). High engagement is a better indication that a brand ambassador will have success promoting a product or service.
- Professionalism. Before recruiting any individuals into a brand ambassador role, it is essential to vet them thoroughly. Ambassadors become an extension of your brand, so make sure they are a culture fit and their content aligns with your brand values and brand tone of voice.
How to Become a Brand Ambassador
There are a few ways you can go about becoming a brand ambassador on social media.
Consider becoming a brand representative for your employer. This is can be an easy way to get started, as you already know the internal stakeholders, the target audience, and have a solid base knowledge of your customers. It's a win-win situation for your employer too, as employees advocating on behalf of businesses is great for positive PR. Having employee ambassadors demonstrates dedication to the company as well, which is very helpful when trying to attract top talent and new business.
Learn more about recommended social media guidelines for staff ambassadors
Another route to working as a brand ambassador is to simply start laying the foundation by building up your social media presence and establishing a personal brand. Brands may reach out to you to represent them, but you can also look for brands that are advertising for brand representative positions.
What is an Ambassador Program
Incorporating influencer marketing into your brand strategy can support many objectives. Traditionally brands have used influencers to boost brand awareness and promote brand values through authentic and meaningful connections. As brands become more familiar with influencers the channel has also begun to play an integral role in sale objectives.
Ambassador programs are strategic campaigns that leverage influencer marketing for sales. However, the unique element of an Ambassador program is that brands collaborate with existing customers who have strong social media influence. This collaboration not only helps foster stronger relationships with a brand’s existing clients, but cultivates strong brand loyalty among new fans as well.
Why Run an Ambassador Program
Ambassador programs are a great way to cultivate lasting relationships with influential customers. It is an integrated program within the customer journey that allows you to collect the social credentials of high profile clients, using data-driven technologies to identify those with strong influence.
Once you have identified influential clients you can connect with them, having them advocate for your brand as social ambassadors. The way you incentivize ambassadors can vary in scope, covering anything from free products and discounts to monetary compensation like commissions.
The benefits of running an Ambassador Program are many. Not only are these programs used to promote sales through cost-effective collaborations, but they will provide rich insights that will teach you about your network and produce a treasure-trove of easily repurposable content.
How to Find, Connect With, and Manage Brand Ambassadors
You can find potential brand ambassadors on forums, review sites, writing articles and blogs, and on social media channels. That's a lot of ground to cover, so how do you start?!
Luckily, there are available tools to help you find creators at scale who mention your brand on social media or in other digital spaces. Using a social media monitoring tool you can track brand mentions and get insights into top posters.
You can even set up alerts for mentions so that you never miss when someone posts something about your brand, product or service.
You could also use an influencer management tool if you're looking for brand ambassadors to partner with on an influencer campaign. With Klear, from Meltwater, you can search by topics, demographics, follower size, and more to pinpoint the most relevant influencers for your brand.
Okay, so that's Step 1. Step 2 is connecting with someone you'd like to work with in a brand ambassador capacity.
The first thing to do is thank them! The quicker the better after they've posted something that mentions you. Reacting swiftly and appreciating the efforts reflects very favorably on you as a brand. By showing your interest, you communicate that you are aware of what your audience says about you and that the feedback is appreciated.
You could then extend your appreciation further by sending them a gift like a branded product, or a free month-subscription to your app or service. Whatever you choose to send should be high quality and relevant.
Summary
Brand ambassadors are an incredibly efficient and cost-effective source of brand awareness and a solid avenue for increasing sales.
Keep an eye on brand ambassadors, be thankful, appreciative, stay in touch, ask what they expect of your brand and what positive role you want them to play, and never, NEVER underestimate their power.
If you would like help finding and engaging with brand ambassadors or are ready to step into the realms of influencer marketing download The Ultimate Guide to Influencer Marketing. Or if you’d like to learn more about how our social listening platform can help you measure your brand ambassador’s success, fill out the demo form below.
This article originally was written by Magdalena Urbaniak from Business2Community.
