In a B2B SaaS company's 1:many customer advocacy programs, false advocates, or more specifically, transactional advocates, are individuals who may appear to be strong advocates from an engagement perspective, but who don't genuinely contribute to the program's symbiotic success unless they're directly being rewarded to do so, or their "advocacy" (used loosely here) is half-hearted -- surface-level broad -- or just outright vague to the point of not being at all useful. All just so they can get the reward...Going through the motions without emotion.

These the so-called are advocates gaming the system for their own gain vs. being intrinsically motivated to want to advocate on behalf of your product/brand/org because they get value from it, and also recognize how you/the org benefits (win, win).

But why do we have "transactional advocates?"

Because we created them by training our customers to approach our program that way with various reward item incentives, and a lack of explanation about how it's a mutually beneficial collaboration engine.

Having run these kinds of programs myself, I can tell you it gets exhausting to police false advocates, and it can get expensive for the org to the point that when budget planning comes around, this program is seen only as a line item expense and is potentially cut. (That's the wrong move IMHO, but without the right context and the opportunity to correct the problem, I absolutely understand why it happens).

Don't misunderstand me here, gamification, badges, and rewards all have their place in a well-oiled customer collaboration engine, but making the rewards a dominant central focus just to get participation will result in the significant expense of transactional advocates, which can cloud any ROI results.

We typically want our customer advocacy programs to bring outsized value to our customers (and thus to our organizations by their advocacy output from participating). In order to do that though, there needs to be internal and external transparency (i.e. clarity) about why the program exists, so all involved want to participate.
We need our own org, as well as our customers, to opt-in to the the concept that our advocacy program is positively symbiotic.

These programs work best when you are in collaboration with customers vs. "bribing" them like a lonely wealthy person paying for lavish parties to have people hang out with them (makes me think of the song, "Nobody knows you when you're down and out").

So, if your 1:many customer advocacy program is heavy on reward items, requires a large budget to operate (beyond the cost of the software platform and team to run the program), and the quality of advocacy you're deriving from that effort is lacking, then you may need to consider revamping your approach.

Here are some thoughts to start that process:Ask your customers. Find those good advocates in the program and start a virtual advisory board with them to find out what is working for them, and how you might double-down on those ideas.

Do the same with top customers who do not participate in your advocacy program to find out what might motivate them to participate in your program. This does two things: gives you diverse insight outside of the echo chamber of your program, and helps you recruit new, right-fit, members to your program.

Think about reserving rewards for surprise-and-delight kinds of gifting -- aka non-expected rewards that are not always tied to customers knowingly getting something for completing an action. (Plus, with rewards in general be aware of anti-trust laws and anti-bribery regulations in various countries/regions that may prohibit your ability to provides rewards to begin with). Surprise-and-delight can endear customers further to your program and brand because you create positive, unexpected moments they're grateful for.

Find more intrinsically valuable ways to reward your customer members with recognition, access, experiences, and career help.

For example, create a spotlight to showcase what individual customers are doing in their role that is a win for their success using your product that other members may have interest in, and/or could learn from. Not necessarily the mega big wins, either, but perhaps the day-to-day things that are little known unless you're a deep user of your product.

Here's another thought: reward advocates with access to your org's exec team so your exec's can participate in customer listening sessions. Many execs want to speak to more customers, and often executive level titles in customer orgs want access to your execs.

Or, have your exec do a short form interview with the customer to make that customer look great for choosing to use your org's product. This can help your customer's personal brand, and provides your org more content to use. This is also an example of the next one -- experiences -- this kind of exec interview with a customer could be a motivating experience for a customer who is a VP at their org looking to build their thought-leadership.

Give something that most professional individuals can use: help with their career in the form of teaching them how to build and use their personal brand for their own professional success in their current role with their current employer (your customer account). This is useful to the individual because as we all know, we as individuals are primarily responsible for our career paths. Personal brand help is one way to appeal to individual customer members in a way that can have positive rippling effects to their employer, and what ever future employer they may eventually move on to, as well as your org for providing the training and benefitting from some of their social posts about your product.
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A major intrinsic motivator and point of value that is actually a through-line with the above ideas is that they're mostly things that can be leveraged to facilitate customers connecting with, not only your org's staff, but more importantly, each other to grow their professional network and peer relationships, which has far-reaching benefit for all parties. ​

Knowing how to design 🍥or write ✍️ in marketing is one skill, but understanding and being able to apply and execute those designs and writing into various situations that drive your desired action 📈 elevates that skill from being in marketing to being a marketer (aka a creator).

BTW:
Marketers who came from a creator background — creatives in the arts who have spent any time pursuing their craft entrepreneurially 🎸💵 — is why, in my opinion, they are good marketers.

They understand what it takes to have an idea, realize it, and grow a following around it.

It takes a lot of work and time, it’s not easy. That’s why they’re professionals.

Customers in your advocacy program want to network with each other. They know that it helps their personal brand, accelerates their role success, and helps lead to future career opportunities when they can meaningfully expand their professional network.

That’s why it’s of value to your customers if your organization can help make it easy for them to find each other to make those connections.

Here’s a simple, and easy-lift, way to do it.

Use your customer community, advocacy platform, or even a private LinkedIn group you’ve set up just for customers…just some place online where your customers regularly gather.

Create a peer-to-peer networking post. 

In the post, ask customers who are interested in, and open to, networking to share their title, industry,  company name, and LinkedIn profile URL in a comment.

Then ensure the post instructs commenters to review the comments for people they would like to reach out to via LinkedIn to connect with, and/or set up an intro chat.
Those looking to network can use control F (find function) to search the comments for titles or other keywords as identifiers of peers with whom they would want to connect.

You can even go as far as providing a sentence or two script for those reaching out to their peers on LinkedIn to initiate a networking conversation, like:

We are both part of the XYZ company customer program and I found your LinkedIn profile from the networking post. I just wanted to reach out to connect and have an intro chat. 

Depending on the platform you may be using to gather and communicate with your customer advocacy program members, there are varying degrees of sophistication you can get into with peer-to-peer connections and even more direct recommendations and matching. 

At this level you can gain the ability to track that these connections are happening, which can help prove another great benefit of your advocacy program to the org — peer-to-peer references, peer-to-peer mentor/mentee relationships, and often cross-seek and up-sells come from such peer-to-peer connections.

Oh by the way, it’s also great for executive customers. How you ask?

Create a private, exclusive group online just for your customers who are executives (I recommend a private LinkedIn group for this one because most executives are on LinkedIn regularly). Offer a 1:1 personal introduction to the customer executives you want to invite to this LinkedIn group. Let me know know that by joining they will have access to other customer executives who join from your organization. It's an opportunity specifically designed for executives to find one another and network right on LinkedIn, where they are anyway. 

Then, the group can function like the peer-to-peer networking described earlier. The beauty of using a LinkedIn group is that if the executive has their LinkedIn notifications turned on they will be notified when there are posts to that group, which is the reminder to them to pop in and do some networking.

Remember, customers who participate in your advocacy program may be brand/product ambassadors, but they likely are more driven to participate because they care about their own careers, and how your program might help them in their role to get promoted, or to find their next role. Lean into that motivation and provide value. Doing so will endear trust and respect and more advocacy.​

Here's an audio clip of the sound quality direct from my Fender Acoustic Junior amp into my iPhone Voice Memo app. No tweaking of the sound other than how my amp was dialed in.

Ideally, we all have mentors and colleagues we can connect with to learn from, swap stories with, and share information to improve in our roles as customer marketers and advocacy practitioners.

In addition, in between IRL connections, or in lieu of having many of them, industry books and audio books are a useful source of information and inspiration.

While our kids are all getting back to school now, it reminds me that it's time for me to also get "back to school" to expand my knowledge.

I like to read, but also have come to enjoy audio books to be hands free and able to absorb knowledge while doing other things like cleaning the house or working out.

It's no longer a "I'll do it when I get to it" kind of thing to constantly being networking, building relationships and mentorships with others as you build your personal brand and strive to excel at your craft. The world moves quickly these days and we have to make our own luck by being prepared to recognize opportunities when they arise. Staying informed and sharp is a way to do that. Though, I do realize you have to do this in a way that feels somewhat comfortable to you (not too comfortable, slight discomfort is where growth lives 🙂).

The following are some thoughts to help you stay on top of your personal brand, networking and continuous personal and professional development:

1. Understand what you personally value. What are your non-negotiables? Operate from this North star. Even if you don't know exactly what you want in your next phase of life or career, that North star will provide a basic direction.
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2. Be a humble lifelong learner. Stay curious. No one is ever truly an expert, there is always something to learn or some way to improve. However, be confident that you can find answers to be of value. Imposter syndrome is real, but know that everyone else has to also deal with that.
   
   
3. Get social online and off. Learn about the people around you at school, work, in your local community, via social networks. Start to make connections and ask for intro meetings to simply get to know one another. Then continue to stay in touch and always try to be of service before asking for help. This is how you build a network that will help you when you need it.
   
   
4. Be true to yourself. This goes back to number 1, but it's worth stating in another way. Know yourself. Build a solid, ongoing, positive relationship with YOU, and be honest about it. If you lie to yourself, the rest of the world is going to seem like a lie to you. The metaphorical point is, put your own oxygen mask on first before helping others.

If you're in the customer advocacy, customer marketing, customer success, customer experience space, check out some of these titles for your professional development: https://amzn.to/3zcFV4j (affiliate)

Build trust with your customers over time via a community mechanism to grow an ever-widening moat of protection around your organization.

Read the following Forbes article to understand what I mean.

In part, this idea has been what every customer advocacy program I’ve been involved with has created as a byproduct of cultivating great customer advocates.

However, we often talk about customer advocacy as an effort that further’s the organization’s offensive strategy [voice-of-the-customer (VoC) sentiment helping attract and close new business, aid product improvement feedback loops, GTM messaging, and peer-to-peer insights that aid adoption] vs. a defensive one (VoC sentiment defending competitive nay sayers, or in crisis communications situations).

The article doesn’t explicitly come out and say that what it’s talking about is an organization’s community being a customer advocacy cultivation system, but that’s what it eludes to — and those approaching community well — are achieving that.