Convert your customers into brand ambassadors!

Are you looking for an authentic way to promote your brand? This influencer marketing strategy is for you! Let us take you through the whole process of converting customers into brand ambassadors!

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The best marketing strategy to gain ✨brand ambassadors✨

Your customers' content are your best assets 🤩

Let's define the User Generated Content concept!

User-Generated Content refers to an unpaid user's contribution to a brand by publishing content on social media. A UGC is considered a picture, video, mention, tag, hashtag, or any format informing the audience about the brand.

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Why? 🤔

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A post related to the brand can go from minimal impact to worldwide movement! A small tag can inform an audience of the brad's existence, thus boosting the awareness stage of the customer experience map. A hashtag can give birth to a whole campaign, resulting in huge visibility. Therefore User Generated Content can impact the brand's image, visibility, sales, and so on.

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Examples of UGC successful strategies 🥇

Starbucks ☕️

The first example of a brand that uses UGC as a marketing strategy to gain popularity and visibility would be Starbucks! We all remember when we went to the coffee shop and received our cup on the go with a surprise: a misspelled name. We laugh, take a picture and share this minor incident on our social media, because why not! It's funny how they don't do it on purpose, right? Not quite.

Every time a customer posts about their misspelled name, it results in views, likes, visibility, and awareness. It's a win-win for the American brand: additional advertising, with no extra costs, genius! 👏

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Starbucks has also launched a few trends and contests like the "white cup" and "red cup" contests, which created a massive movement of users/customers joining the game and using the famous hashtag #starbucksredcup. A marvelous way to gain visibility and engagement simultaneously for special events or holidays like Christmas. What about the brand image and message? They created a fun concept of living a unique and authentic experience when visiting their coffee shop, and writing their customers' names on their cups has become the brand's signature.

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GoPro 📸

GoPro is also one of the most known brands for its incredible user-generated content! However, specific audience niches stand out in this case: travel vloggers, adventurers, and excitement and adventure seekers. Need an example? 👇

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Even if influencers don't tag the brand or use any hashtag, the camera model is so specific that users immediately recognize the product. Thus when users post pictures or videos taken with a GoPro camera, the logo always shows. Their image? A resistant and indestructible camera that all travelers can bring with them to film their adventures. Travel vloggers, snowboarders, surfers, bikers, adrenaline junkies, etc., are the type of niche audience that will most likely provide UGC.

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Your own customers are the key to authenticity 🎯

These few examples have shown other brands how important it is to be present on social media and build a community. A brand can build strong engagement with a specific audience, boost its visibility, and work on its brand image. But most importantly, most of your followers are already customers. Thus you get an idea of the people who use your service/product, and those are your most precious users!

Why convert consumers into brand ambassadors rather than converting new influencers that match your brand expectations and need?

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Two words: authenticity and loyalty! 🤝

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Your customers have chosen your brand for one reason only: they like your products/service, meaning they prefer you to your competitors. Thus, you don't need to convince them to purchase your products or choose you instead of another company. They are loyal and committed to your brand; they know why they chose it, why they like it and why they prefer it. This behavior is the key to authenticity!

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You'll save time and have an influencer motivated to do a good job promoting your brand, and your audience will notice this authentic behavior. 🌈

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When contacting an influencer that has never used your product, you'll be spending time explaining your brand's values, concept, development, etc. Once they are aware, they can also do a good job at sharing your product on their feed, yet it might appear more staged than a user who already knew the brand.

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All in all, having an influencer represent your brand is all about aligned values and a perfect fit. Turning your influencer customers into brand ambassadors is the ideal way of being represented by an influencer that is truly committed to your brand.

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Converting customers into brand ambassadors

Do it yourself! 💪

Ready to reach out to your influencer customers and convert them into brand ambassadors? Here are a few steps to get started!

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First things first, you need to find your customers, and with Favikon you'll do it in a flash! When doing your search, there are two ways to find users that have tagged your brand or used your products:

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N°1: Search by Hashtags and Keywords ✅

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Enter your brand's name in the "hashtags or keywords" section of the search. The algorithm will be looking for all accounts that have used your hashtags or brand's name in their caption or descriptions. Thus if a user posted on their Instagram account wearing your brand, they might have used your brand's hashtag. In this case, the user either used the hashtag to boost their post and gain visibility (similar to tagging your brand) or participate in a movement. It could be a contest, like the #starbucksredcup, or a campaign, like the #AEjeans or the #myAEambassador.

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N°2: Search by mention ✅

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In this case, the user mentions your brand's name in their caption to describe the product they are using in their post. This example fits all kinds of activities from fashion and makeup by listing the clothes worn and cosmetics used to the cooking and foodies accounts that either specified their equipment and ingredients or the restaurant they visited, etc. And so it works with travel vlogs, art accounts, fitness, apps, deliveries, etc.

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Tip: to better find the right influencer, you can also fill up other filters such as the influencer tier, the country you are targeting, the language spoken by the influencer, the minimum engagement rate, and finally, the minimum Favikon score you want your influencers to have. By specifying these few needs or preferences, your search will be more specific and better fit your needs.

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Once you find the influencer that best fits your needs and wants, take a look at their account feed, are they ambassador material? Yes? Then let’s contact your influencer! Need a hand on how to plan a collab/campaign with an influencer? Check out our article Influencer Campaign: Getting organized before the launch!

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Our example: The Daniel Wellington strategy 🔥

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Toi illustrate this strategy, let's have a look at the most successful and popular example of brands converting their customer influencers into brand ambassadors: the Daniel Wellington social media strategy.

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Daniel Wellington's social media strategy was entirely based on converting small influencer customers into their brand ambassadors. How? By reaching out to all micro-influencers, who already purchased their watches, and creating long-term partnerships, thus asking these small influencers to showcase their product in their post.

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By contacting all nano and micro-influencers, the brand didn't go overboard with the budget and created a massive community of brand ambassadors who have access to various niche audiences. They gained visibility in no time, raising the popularity of their watches and building a specific brand image and reputation. The Daniel Wellington watch became a product that was automatically linked to influence in users' minds. All influencers wore these watches and tagged, mentioned, or used the brand's hashtag. It became an immense movement that initially started with the snowball effect. ⚡️

This influencer marketing strategy was successful due to various reasons:

💡 Profitability: contacting nano to micro-influencers doesn't cost much, but it raises the brand's engagement and visibility by spreading its name through social media.

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💡 Efficiency: turning users/customers into brand ambassadors is synonyms of long-term partnerships. Daniel Wellington didn't need to acquire new influencers, or constantly generate new content, etc. The rules are clear with a long-term partnership with brand ambassadors: the influencer has several posts to share per period, showcasing the product.

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💡 Authenticity: working with small creators can be tricky since most haven't done collaborations yet and lack experience. Yet, setting a few notions on how to partner with a brand can go a long way. Daniel Wellington's ambassadors had a considerable advantage; they already used the product. They had to tag the brand, use a few hashtags, and eventually work on a promotional description.

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💡 Loyalty: by turning users into brand ambassadors, small creators feel involved and part of an entity. This feeling of belonging impacted their commitment to the brand, which was a great weapon against competition.

All in all, by targeting small influencer customers, Daniel Wellington raised engagement, created content, boosted its visibility, and created an empire of brand ambassadors to build a long-lasting and solid brand image. What a master plan!

Now that we’ve been through a new influencer marketing strategy, are you ready to contact your customers and convert them into loyal brand ambassadors and authentic content creators? Let’s go!