Social networks such as Facebook have wised up to brands leveraging their platforms to market themselves for free. Long gone are the days when marketers could post updates to their millions of followers and have their messages seen by all of them—social networks are limiting the reach of free posts and presenting paid ads as the only way for brands to reach larger audiences.
But savvy brands are leveraging social advocates, or super fans, to spread the word organically. 
These social influencers are already big supporters of a brand, service or product, and marketers are learning to lean on these folks to supplement their paid ad campaigns.
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Social networks are intended to be places where people talk and interact with friends and family, so paid ads on social are intrusive by nature.
“Social networks are cashing in on paid ads by taking the same old ad models and forcing them on people. In a way, it’s paying to be disliked because consumers go to social networks to interact with people—not to see advertising. The analogy I use is going to a dinner party, and a friend of a friend that you don’t know breaks out a steak knife set and tries to sell it to you. That’s the last thing you want on a social network,” says Dave Hawley, a vp with SocialChorus, which specializes in maximizing social advocates for brands.
While paid advertising drives revenue for the social networks, consumers are often ignoring ads on social networks.
“Our research shows that social advertising is even more ignored that TV and digital advertising, but brands feel like they don’t have any choice. As marketers, we should be exploring options for getting in front of your audience in a way that doesn’t feel like broadcasting at an audience,” Hawley says.
One way to generate buzz about your brand on social platforms without paid social ads is by turning to current customers, employees, business partners and industry colleagues to share their positive experiences with their circles in a non-intrusive way.
The idea is to have marketers engage these brand advocates in an authentic way, and make it easy for them to share what they love about the brand. By incentivizing the relationship and making it more of an exclusive club, these influencers feel more connected to the brand, like an insider and they’re more likely to share that with their social network.
“When the audience sees messages from people in their network, they immediately know who that person is and they see that it’s genuine. In the next five to 10 years, most successful marketing will be pull marketing. It will be a conscious decision by the consumer to interact with an ad or a review about a brand. It’s much more effective when they hear about it from someone they know and trust, and that is what gets them to click and buy,” Hawley says.
The big change when leveraging social advocates is on of distribution, he says. The old distribution is broadcast on TV or through traditional digital ads, while the new distribution is through advocates, fans or super fans.
“You’re genuinely connecting with people that want to interact with you. If you can get your message through people who can genuinely convey it to their audiences, your innovating in the distribution of the content you want them to see,” Hawley says.
Building a super-fan team
Finding these brand advocates online is the first trick, and getting them on board as content generators is the next challenge. Some marketing teams are seeking them out themselves, while others team with partners who specialize in cultivating these types of social network influencers.
“The challenge is connecting authentic content generators with brands and targeting people who have high net-promoter scores to consume, share create content on your behalf,” Hawley says.
Another way to spread the word about your brand on social media platforms is by socializing your enterprise. Get your employees on board with the concept of talking up the brand to their networks and you can reach new audiences.
“Companies that have thousands of employees can leverage that army to be brand advocates and spread the word organically across social media. Mobilize your employees to share with their audiences that they like about the brand, and you can reach out to a giant new audience through your employees,” Hawley says. Sounds like a winning strategy.
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