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At first glance, the phrases “brand advocate” and “brand ambassador” differ by about half a word – yet that half a word can put them a world apart.
First of all, the biggest difference between the two is that while an ambassador is hired by the company and generally paid, an advocate is a consumer, operating on a purely voluntary basis.
While an ambassador’s platform can range from adverts to organized meetings with the public (or as wide as the company is willing to support), an advocate’s is often only by word-of-mouth or by reviews on the Internet. However, this doesn’t mean the advocate is less powerful: though the ambassador has a wider potential sphere of influence, the advocate’s words preserve more of the credibility that the uninitiated are looking for, and have been shown to have a higher success rate than the ambassador.
The one and largest exception to the advocates’ traditional platform of word-of-mouth and reviews is, of course, social media. The advent of social media gave consumers the power formerly only large organizations had – the power of mass communication.
Advocates now often tweet about positive experiences they’ve had with a certain brand, and be heard all over the Internet. On the flip side, a particularly scathing review can permanently cripple a brand’s reputation. Social media is also a way to convert an ambivalent customer into a return one, into an advocate. With personalized interactions on the Internet, the brand builds a clearer identity, and at the same time portrays itself as open and approachable by the public. These elements all help to reinforce a positive impression of the brand in the mind of the consumer, leading to a larger pool of advocates.
If companies learn to identify and better take advantage of the resources they already have in brand advocates (for instance, by offering them official recognition or incentives from the company), brand advocates may eventually hold more sway than the brand ambassador.
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