The seedy underbelly of advocate marketing

Advocate marketing is getting a bit … prickly.

While there are undoubtedly some wonderful programs out there, and many brands are doing it well, there is a rising tide of weird stuff going on in the influencer space, as we explore on the latest episode of The Marketing Companion.

The ability for anybody to publish content and gain an active audience has transformed the media world and democratized influence. Many companies are becoming aaware of these “citizen influencers” and how they might be impacting the attitudes and buying behaviors of a target audience.

Connecting to these trusted influencers and advocates and their engaged audience can provide an effective and rapid opportunity for content transmission.

In this edition of our Internet radio show, Tom Webster and I crack open a case of advocate marketing topics such as:

• How companies are gaming influence and cheating brands blind.
• The advantages of advocate marketing
• Influence marketing done right — What make an effective campaign?
• Examples of brands using influencers to successfully connect to new audiences and new platforms
• Why influence marketing is becoming a gamble
• The burned-out influencer
• Becoming a human NASCAR jacket
• Authentic Advocacy versus celebrity endorsement
• The model for influence marketing, Bethany Mota

Pretty amazing discussion, right? Let’s do this thing!

If you can’t access the podcast above, click on this link to listen to Episode 55

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Resources mentioned in this podcast

The book on influence marketing, Return On Influence

Crowdly

The book The Content Code: Six essential strategies to ignite your content, your marketing, and your business

Augustine Fou’s Slideshare channel on ad corruption

New York Times article on why brands and influencers are getting picky