A common problem for community, marketing, and product leadership is the ability to quickly identify advocates. Community advocates are the lifeblood of a community. They drive engagement and attract new community members. They are invaluable promoters due to how they often take ownership in a brand or product. 

‍

Identifying and engaging these advocates is important. But brands can’t engage in a meaningful way unless they understand who these advocates are, what they engage with, and vital details about the effectiveness and impact of their involvement. 

With the continued momentum and use of social media and community communications, it is clear that brands and organizations must learn to harness this power. 

Taking a Deeper Dive Into Community Engagement 

A recent research study by Forester identified some eye opening statistics about what community leadership is looking for when choosing a community management platform. 

Many influencer platforms only seek to ascertain engagement levels and numbers of followers. But tapping into the real secret sauce of community advocates requires brands and organizations to go much deeper, seeking quality over quantity. Do these advocates create meaningful conversations when they interact with the community? Why does their content generate high engagement and get shared often? 

Community managers are measured for success primarily according to the company advocacy program. Up until now, community managers struggled to juggle profiles and numbers about advocates on old-fashioned spreadsheets, with limited metrics to determine an advocate’s impact. This was often a full-time job that only begat very limited success while creating far too much frustration. 

A deeper dive into the identity and effectiveness of community advocates seeks to answer questions like: 

• Who are the most influential community members?
• What is the sentiment of the community member’s interactions and conversations?
• How do I track conversions and referrals from the community?

Many social media tools allow you to track communications, but they do not provide any means of tracking those users who post on your behalf. This is quickly changing. Companies like AhoyConnect are now creating tools that allow you to identify top contributors and combine data from the many ways they are communicating. From this pivotal data, you can easily identify and engage with your most influential community advocates.

Cultivating Community Advocates 

Tools from AhoyConnect and similar companies provide the means to create marketing programs that directly engage your advocates while encouraging their future participation. Plus, brands or organizations can promote new brand activations, promotions and deals, facilitate strategic leaks of information, and much more. The power of this capability is endless and vital to a business’ competitive advantage. 

Here are some examples of how measuring and identifying community advocates of your brand can help propel initiatives as well as grow the community and encourage further engagement. 

1. The Snowflake Community uses Data Superheroes to harness and incentivize engagement. Community members get rated and rewarded as they publish content, organize meetups, share public presentations, provide answers to questions, and more. Top advocates are profiled and showcased among the community, and receive cool swag, social media shoutouts, speaking platforms at brand events, early invites to conferences, direct access to brand staff, and credits they can cash in. 
2. The Docker Captain Program allows select members of their community to earn this high distinction by becoming Docker experts and sharing their knowledge and passion with others. They are rewarded for speaking, writing, holding classes, creating tutorials, offering support and answers in user forums, contributing to local events and more. This activity further grows and adds value to becoming a member of the Docker community. 

Managing complex and effective programs like these is impossible without tools to measure engagement and tie that activity to particular users. This is the true power of community that creates word-of-mouth about brand products, organizations, or initiatives. This is the power of combining a great community manager and team with an application that empowers them to effectively foster growth.