A few months ago, I wrote about the 4 Pillars of a Customer Advocate Program - infrastructure, technology, content planning and measurement. One thing I hear from many clients is "how do we scale a program with hundreds of advocates?" or "what kind if technology can scale as we grow our program and increase the number of advocates?"
Before an advocate program is launched, a decision very early in the planning process needs to be made about which technology platform to use in order to manage and communicate with advocates. Many companies use private LinkedIn and/or Facebook groups to manage back and forth communication. This option is free but brands have to work within the technical capabilities of such platforms and customization is a non factor. Others use private communities built with very scalable applications like Jive or Lithium. This option give more flexibility to match the look/feel of a corporate website as well as integration with other sCRM or online monitoring technology suites.
One company that I have been keeping a close eye on is Fancorps. Fancorps is a customer advocacy platform which enables organizations to activate and reward customers for word of mouth recommendations and reviews. - essentially transforming them from a friend, fan or follower to an advocate.
Here is a quick review of their back end platform:
The dashboard is a quick snapshot or representation of the community environment. It allows brands to quickly gauge the "who, what, where" of the program.
With all the hype about gamification and how it drives engagement, Fancorps has built a significant gaming experience within their platform via a leaderboard and advocate tracking interface.
The Fancorps platform can gauge how involved and influential each advocate is with Activity Points, Store Credits and Klout Score; and then rewarding the advocates based on these currencies for their time and effort.
Fancorps allows brands to manage and assign tasks to advocates.
Sort/Assign tasks based on demographics and Klout score