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Ongoing peer networks are becoming one of the most powerful ways to modernize a brand in the digital era of marketing. But what does this mean, and what are some of the most popular methods? The method typically relates to including customers, industry experts, and marketing teams in ongoing strategies that provide the best for everyone involved. From creating ambassadors for your brand to hosting virtual events, here are some popular examples.
Cultivate Dedicated Digital Spaces
Public broadcasting has its place in marketing and branding, but there is a wider range of options available through modern means. Closed groups on platforms such as Facebook, Discord, and even dedicated custom solutions help you build your ideal community that allows loyal customers, followers, and brand advocates to engage in a safe space. This also allows teams to control the type of communication and shape the narrative from within.
Build Ongoing Peer Networks with Ambassadors
Within every industry, there are experts, power users, and thought leaders, any of whom can be an excellent addition to existing networks to drive innovation and change. So of course, celebrating these individuals as ambassadors can come with many advantages to a brand:
- Identify the greatest thought leaders within your chosen industry, sector, or niche.
- Use invites to formally bring these people together with the community as a whole.
- Integrate your and their peer networks to elevate your brand’s authority and reach.
Incentivize and Reward Loyal Customers
Loyal customers are the backbone of modern branding, even though many businesses seem to actually forget that without a select slice of the audience, they would probably struggle. However, a company can only treat its customers like an expendable commodity for so long before they stop engaging. Yet there are some ways you can retain loyal customers with rewards and incentives such as P2P celebration and recognition through tools like Workhuman.
Use Peers to Shape Products and Services
The customers a business already has are the best source for shaping products and services moving forward. They are the ones using the brand and as such are in the best position to provide opinions, experiences, and feedback. A customer advocacy program is a powerful way to keep customers engaged so long as they know their voices are being heard and time isn’t wasted. But of course, it also helps to reward them for their time with discounts and free stuff.
Encourage Ongoing Peer Networks to Create and Share
User-generated content (UGC) is a major part of modern branding since 79% of consumers cite it as a powerful motivator in making purchase decisions. But what is it? Instead of relying on traditional marketing such as studio shoots, encourage the network to share their experiences.
Integrate UGC within the customer journey
Rather than simple social media posts, customers can feel closer to a product with genuine customer photo galleries, reviews, and testimonials that can be shared in wider marketing.
Develop honest creator briefs instead of scripts
Brand-creator partnerships are common UGC methods today, and you can use methods such as hook ideas, solutions, and diversity to drive home the usefulness of your products/services.
Clarify the usage rights of creators
Usage rights are a critical part of negotiation when using UGC. It helps to define early on what organic, paid, or social content can be published, and for how long, before starting a campaign.
To use UGC effectively, it helps to treat it as a foundational trust engine for demonstrating the usefulness of a product or service to a niche audience. With audiences becoming skeptical of traditional media these days, UGC provides a healthy injection of organic online advertising.
Ask Passionate Followers to Promote the Brand
When your brand becomes a major player within an industry or niche, it is successful. But how can you measure this? Beyond traditional metrics, major signals that people love your brand include increased organic traffic, lower cost-per-click rates, and highly-rated genuine customer reviews. As such, it then becomes possible to shape the narrative using passionate followers of your brand who will be more than willing to act as ambassadors who will happily promote it.
Partner for a Reseller Network
There are many ways that a business can strengthen the value of a supply chain, and working with others within it is among the most powerful. Relationships in businesses extend far beyond typical networking and customers, and everyone can be engaged and brought into the fold for improved branding across the spectrum. Reseller networks that bring B2B partners, agencies, and vendors together for peer-to-peer discussion forge strong business links in the chain.
Include Ongoing Peer Networks in Virtual Events
Micro events and roundtables can be just as successful, if not more than, massive webinars for online engagement. Smaller groups can be effective for gaining key insights from the people who use your products and services rather than a wider audience that can water down views:
- Consider intimate and peer-led online or physical meetups of genuine customers.
- This kind of facilitation can position your brand as a key leader in your niche.
- When the brand is in this kind of placement, it becomes more than just a vendor.
Create a Collaborative Knowledge Base
An open and honest place for discussion, facts, and advice is a powerful tool that most businesses overlook when branding. When you create a collaborative space such as a wiki that allows everyone to contribute, it opens up your brand as more than something that just sells a product or service, and into something organic and flourishing. This also leverages the collective intelligence of your valued community for supporting new customers and onboarding new users.
Summary
Creating a dedicated digital platform for users to connect with each other over your brand is one of the most powerful methods of cultivating ongoing peer networks for brand modernization. Modern companies are also enhancing marketing efforts with user-generated content (UGC) such as testimonials from customers and promotions from content creators like influencers. However, you can also bring people together with online knowledge bases such as wikis.
