Today exists many ways to unite the physical word with the virtual world. Nowadays neither brick and mortar companies that still think they must sell their products in a physical store can be foreign to the Internet. This is the reason why today many businesses are having a presence in web pages and social networks not only to inform of their products and services to potential clients but also creating communities that are united among their brand and interest topics.
With what I have stated above it is easy to understand how the relation between clients and companies have changed in the last decade. This relation that was limited to some clients that interacted with the company because they wanted to acquire their products or services today goes beyond as they share information, content, suggestions, among others. However many companies are still reluctant to this kind of relation with the community because being public the comments, a criticisms or problem with the company can travel among social media in just few minutes.
Fortunately many companies have been able to benefit from this new relation with clients. Besides the content they post in the different media they have and the direct relation with the community that follows them, they have also taken advantage of people known as Brand Evangelists. This type of client is a person that loves the brand and is very active is social media, helping the company to spread its message.
Brand Evangelists generally are born when they have had a great experience with the brand and want to share their experience with other users. Therefor is not the company who has to create them but they are born by themselves. What the company has to do is to contact them in order to provide them with information and that they share it in social media. Also the company must be clear who are these evangelists and follow what they are posting and measuring the impact this is having.
Before I finish this post I will like to comment two topics. In first place the importance of having this type of client talking about us resides in that it is not expensive because we don’t have to pay them when they talk about our brand or products. It is also important because for potential clients that have not decided if they should buy or not our products with good comments of other users they can decide to do it. The last topic I wanted to comment is that this strategy is complementary to our social media strategy and not a substitutive.
Image taken from Flickr.com