Should You Engage Unpaid, Unaffiliated Brand Ambassadors?

Some may consider unpaid, unaffiliated ambassadors old fashion word-of-mouth marketing, but in today’s digital world word-of-mouth marketing takes on an entirely new meaning. Rather then telling three friends, you can easily tell 250 friends by posting on your Facebook or Twitter page. Or better yet, start a blog, Twitter or Facebook page dedicated solely to your favorite brand.

I recently came across an excellent example of this. A local Wilmington, NC resident started a Facebook page called “What’s Good at Trader Joe’s in Wilmington, NC” that currently boosts 681 likes.

According to the Facebook page, this individual is not associated or paid by Trader Joe’s.

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What I love about this Facebook page as a consumer is this is real. The posts are not excessive, and I have actually tried products suggested on this page.

What is even more fascinating about this is the local Trade Joe’s store page currently has 485 likes. And there hasn’t been a single post from the store!

While it might be tempting for Trade Joe’s corporate or the local store manager to start courting “What’s Good At Trader Joe’s in Wilmington, NC”, please resist the temptation. It remains more real, transparent and engaging for us followers if he is left alone. And recent research backs this up.

According to Adweek: We’re increasingly friending brands on Facebook—the average consumer has 29 brand friends on social networking sites, up from just seven a year ago. But that doesn’t necessarily mean we’re spending time with them. Less than half of us (39 percent) interact with brands regularly or all the time, with the rest doing so occasionally (33 percent) or hardly/never (28 percent), according to the latest edition of The Curve Report from NBCUniversal Integrated Media.

For all those marketers out there, weigh the pros and cons before you engage someone like my friend “What’s Good at Trader Joe’s in Wilmington, NC”. While you might consider your “unpaid” flag carries to be a gold mine, you don’t want to tarnish a good thing!

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Jennifer Manocchio
jennifer@sweeneypr.com
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