One way to create advocacy – enable fans to give to their friends

In digital marketing of any form there is a constant eye kept on what value we are adding to users and how we are incentivising them to engage with or participate with branded initiatives. The incentives can be many and in many social media initiatives takes the form of free stuff. In digital executions it involves positive user experience or entertainment. But an incentive that is central to the idea of social media is that of making kudos available to the initial user. If you can not just give someone something directly but allow them to derive social kudos as a result of participating in the brands initiative that is much stronger than rewarding them individually.

Viral video is a great way of doing this because it lets the initial user derive social kudos if they were the first one in their immediate social circle to break the viral. It is an act of giving by the initial user to their friends in return for social capital, kudos. So lets look for other ways to leverage this directly. One way I am increasingly a fan of is enabling advocacy in this way by letting fans give something to their friends instead of giving to the fan. It is something I have currently in development with a couple of clients and I think it could work very well. So for example instead of the fan getting something for free, they get a link that is Facebook connected through which they select a friend which will get something for free. Its earn social capital for the fan, the friend gets something for free, and in the case of Facebook communities might also earn the brand an additional fan.