How Advocates and Influencers Create Growth Using Social Media Presented by: Mick Twomey, Co-founder of PointBurst

What’s the difference and why do you care?

Brands now have to pay to reach their fans

Influencers and advocates are powerful because of what they inherently offer  Exponential Reach  The average employee has over 500 connections on social media  The average influencer has far more  Unrivaled Trust  81% of U.S. online consumers’ purchase decisions are influenced by their friends’ social media posts (Market Force)  84% of people trust recommendations from people they know, while only 15% trust recommendations from brands (Gartner).  A word-of-mouth recommendation is the primary factor behind 20% - 50% of all purchase decisions (Modern Comment)

How do you build a stable of influencers?  Identify your influencer goals  Find the appropriate influencers  Services like Brander ( will find and vet them for youwww.branderapp.com  Install a plugin on Chrome to add Klout to Twitter  Give to receive  Add them to lists on Twitter and begin to track their posts to find things you can retweet or comment on to build a genuine connection  Find commonalities and identify ways to reach out with a more personal connection

Consider the power of an army of advocates  Your best advocates will exist in the field  They have the power to increase the reach for your social media content exponentially  Mobilize to delivery a flurry of positive information during a time of negative press  Deploy the right content at the right time to drive messaging around a new product release or announcement

A peek at the Facebook fans for major direct selling brands

But how many are they actually reaching?

But YOU are in a good spot!  Direct Selling is the perfect industry for social advocates  Army of volunteer sales people who WANT to get the word out about you  Gary Vaynerchuk refers to each of the reps as their own media company

Advocates DRIVE brand awareness  Large direct selling organizations may only be reaching less than 10% of their fans organically. Corporate posts from…  Ambit, Mannatech or Rodan + Fields could reach less than 5,000 fans  WorldVentures could reach less than 10,000 fans  Imagine the impact of a trusted and brand pure message coming from your field to their 300 friends on Facebook alone  100 reps would yield a potential reach of 30,000  1,000 reps would yield a potential reach of 300,000  10,000 reps would yield a potential reach of 3,000,000  Where would you want to focus your efforts?

Tips for a successful social advocate program  Dedicated Resources – great content is critical for success and that takes time, effort and expertise  Advocacy Champion – identify someone to own this process  Process Support – pilot first, employ technology or proven process to enable the field from the beginning  Analyze and Improve – track results, provide incentives, gamification

In Summary  Building and nurturing your influencers and advocates can be a tremendous boost to your brand’s growth  “But whether our social media platforms reach thousands with our brand message or a single person who needs our assistance, social media is relevant for direct sellers, so we need to manage it well. After all, social media, like direct selling, is all about relationships.” – Direct Selling News

Mick Twomey