Study: Firms Struggle to Develop Social Brand Ambassadors

If you’re finding your audience is engaged and pushing for your association’s interests, consider yourself one of the lucky ones.

Fewer than 5 percent of satisfied customers become passionate advocates for brands on social media  (opens in a new tab), according to a new study by Ogilvy & Mather, an international advertising agency.

The company looked at 7 million mentions of more than 20 brands and eight feature films across China, Brazil, United Kingdom, and the United States.

True brand passion from social media users is hard to come by, according to the study. Only 15 percent of all brand mentions were actively promoting a brand; the rest of the mentions were either negative or neutral. In the United States, only two brands (Kiehl’s and Kimpton Hotels) had more than 50 percent of mentions falling in the most enthusiastic advocacy category.

Social@Ogilvy suggested the following tips to help brands create more avid brand ambassadors on social media:

• Know your fans’ true advocacy inspirations.
• Identify and use your brand’s differentiated advocacy drivers.
• Emphasize product features for global relevance.
• Move beyond the blunt metric of “sentiment” to tracking advocacy levels.
• Encourage and enable advocacy everywhere.

Associations might find this information useful in the light of another recent study that shows where associations are focusing their social approaches.

How are you working to build brand ambassadors on your social platforms? Let us know your take in the comments.

(iStockphoto/Thinkstock)