With a number of online review forums available, as well as a broad range of blogs and social media channels, anyone can become a critic or ambassador for your brand - but how you can make the most out of these interactions to encourage more sales?

Brand advocacy allows you to take your customer relationship beyond their initial purchase and towards them sharing positive experiences with their own community about your brand, both on and offline.

Brand advocacy goes a step further than that of traditional PR. Instead of just focusing on gaining a burst of exposure for your brand that can provide a spike in conversation, brand advocacy is about creating a community of regular endorsements from repeat customers who will be happy to recommend you as well as buy again.

Building the foundation for good brand advocates requires your brand’s commitment with an investment of time and money to make it work. Therefore, it is always worth creating objectives for what you hope to achieve through your advocacy campaigns. Then, you will be able to measure each one’s success through metrics like conversion or engagement rates to see how well each campaign worked for your company.

Build on your social media strategy

To build a brand advocacy program for your business you need to start with making sure you can be found on the social media channels your audience is likely to be on. This is one of the easiest ways to interact with your customers, but make sure that you respond in a timely manner Whether they have a question, complaint or positive review, ensure your response carries the right tone that suits the situation and your company’s tone of voice.

Through a well thought-out social media strategy that provides insightful, interesting content that is relevant to your audience, you will be able to start to create a brand personality that will appeal to your followers.

Within your social media strategy you can also encourage customers to become advocates through incentives and competitions that involve your customers sharing experiences, photos or reviews of your product or service.

Make sure your customer service is up to scratch

Another way to help create advocates for your brand is through your customer service protocols. Whether it is on or offline, make sure your customer service team always offers the highest level of service to go above and beyond for your customers. This way, you will provide an excellent experience for your customers at every contact point.

By providing an outstanding service they will be more likely to review or recommend your brand and, with 54% of UK adults using online reviews to make informed purchase decisions, leaving the right impression can really make a difference to your future sales.

Build brand advocacy through your employees

Some companies also use their employees to help create a community of brand advocates. By interacting with employees who share your content on social media, you can start to build a picture to your audience of what kind of company you are. Whether it is an employee sharing a photo from something exciting in the office or enjoying your products, by creating a dialog with them others will get to see your brand’s personality and help it to really stand out from the crowd.

Not only do 92% of consumers trust brand advocates, a study by Deloitte has also found that customers who were referred to a brand have a 37% higher retention rate than those who were not referred.

With a host of benefits for nurturing your brand advocates, it is clear to see that it really can make a difference to your company’s sales over time. Therefore, can you really afford to not have a brand advocacy strategy?