Social media sharing is about the who, not the what: An advocate marketer's perspective

Against the backdrop of the new Sage Boss-It campaign and the success of the supporting TikTok campaign which was one of the first B2B uses of this channel, we’re seeing customers of B2B brands are playing a huge part in marketing and amplifying the company’s message in volumes never seen before. This campaign shows it well. On the surface, the impact is incredible – over 27.7m views and 122,000 likes so far, growing. Working in this area for a number of years, our customer advocacy program knowledge has shown that not every social media share or like is equal. The who is sharing it is as essential. As big believers in “advocacy marketing”, we’re making it easy for Sage to engage with their best customers to share content and marketing to amplify our reach through our work on Sage Champions, and it has taught us some lessons:

1. Customers who add their comments add authenticity

Clicking the share button is easy, but adding a comment offers a layer of personal experience, making it more relevant, more trust-worthy and higher impact. That personal endorsement or mini customer success story adds a new dimension to the content being shared.

2. Your best customers are similar

In our analysis of the profile of our client’s best customers, we see similar characteristics. Beyond demographics, the best customers have an emotional attachment to the brand built over time based on good customer experiences. This brand affiliation comes from an alignment of our product, brand, and content directly talking to their pain points. Typically, their networks contain others who are similar, and so igniting their networks can be an incredible source of lead generation.

3. Customers trust similar customers

Covid has undeniably accelerated buyer behaviour changes with significantly more online research going into a purchase before any contact with your organisation happens. Buying units tend to be between 6-10 people (source: Gartner), and their decision making can be accelerated 2.8 times faster with the correct information. Levering customers to retell your stories to their networks has a real business impact. In a world where customer experience impacts business choices so much, harnessing your best customers is a strategy every B2B marketer should be adopting. Interested in exploring the work we’ve done in customer advocacy? Learn more here: https://www.velo-b2b.com/skills/customer-experience-advocacy/