Home Customer Advocacy Creating Customer Advocacy Through Reciprocal Altruism
Creating Customer Advocacy Through Reciprocal Altruism
September 14, 2010 2 Comments

Creating Customer Advocacy Through Reciprocal Altruism

Reciprocal Altruism, as defined by Steve Knox, CEO of Proctor & Gamble’s word-of-mouth division Tremor is a concept “where you give to someone without no expectation of getting something in return.”

I have been pretty vocal lately about customer advocacy and how it relates to social media. I think it’s the most important issue for brands today; and unfortunately, broadly ignored by many. I would venture to say that most brands already have dormant advocates that are just waiting to be activated.

So, how do you activate your advocates? Watch this video for some tips from Steve (via Trey Pennington’s blog):

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About Michael Brito

Michael Brito is a Senior Vice President of Social Business Planning at Edelman Digital. He helps his clients transform their organizations to be more open, collaborative and socially proficient; with the end result of creating shared value with employees, partners and customers. Prior to Edelman, Michael worked for Intel and Hewlett Packard in various social media marketing roles. Opinions posted here are his own.

Feel free to follow him on Twitter, subscribe to this blog or read some more of his content on Social Business News.

  • http://www.mitash.com/blog/ Raj – SEO Australia

    Though businesses considered automating their updates via social networks, they need to have set certain time to interact with their audience. If you miss interacting with your audience you miss the whole point being on social networks! What say?

  • http://twitter.com/VincentAmmirato Vincent Ammirato

    Michael,

    I was at that conference (Brains on Fire's Firesessions – shown in the video) and had the privilege of sitting next to Steve during the round table / round robin sessions.

    Steve's ideas are huge. Reciprocal altruism runs counter to how most of us view companies and the products they push. Consumers are jaded. Marketing wont undo this unless we embrace the concepts of reciprocal altruism.

    One thing that was brought up during the sessions was how easily scalable (especially downward from P&G's $9B) this type of marketing can be.

    Since Steve is from Cincinnati, I used a neighboring company, Gorilla Glue as a great example of a smaller company that does it well. They don't run ads, they engage their community at the local level by sponsoring events and providing tips and showcasing the work of the professionals that use their product.