• by Aaron Baar , May 5, 2011

Brand advocates -- those who habitually review products and share their opinions with others -- aren't doing it out of some material gain or glory. They're doing it because they want to help (and because it helps them relax).

According to research conducted by social marketing company BzzAgent and Kathleen R. Ferris-Costa, now a professor of marketing at Roger Williams University, brand advocates are 83% more likely to share information about a product than typical web users. And they're doing it because they want to be seen as thought leaders and reliable sources of information. And they truly believe they're helping others with their recommendations.

"They want to help people. One of the key drivers [of brand advocacy] is altruism," Malcolm Faulds, senior vice president of marketing for BzzAgent, tells Marketing Daily. "A common theme among all of these advocates is they want to help people."

Along those lines, those advocates also have a particular view of their own abilities to influence purchase decisions as well. According to the research, these brand advocates are 50% more likely to influence a purchase than typical web users. They also tend to believe they're providing information because people want them to provide it: 65% of brand advocates agreed with the statement that people ask them for information vs. 39% of typical web users.

Brand advocates are also twice as likely to use online social networks to share products and information, three times more likely to blog and share information with people they don't' know, and are four times more likely to use discussion boards to provide feedback than typical web users. When asked why they do it, the brand advocates cited reasons such as wanting to be seen as a thought leader, be seen as a good resource by a brand they value and, in a strange finding, 54% said they do it to relax.

"Intuitively, it's hard to imagine going online to write product reviews to relax, but that is what they do," Faulds says.

The products these advocates are not just talking up products that garner a lot of attention, either. According to the research, they are two times more likely to discuss household products and children's products (and three times more likely to talk about personal care products) than typical web users.

With the research, BzzAgent has worked up some recommendations for cultivating and understanding brand advocates. Some of the tips:

1. Do appropriate advocate research. "You want to reach out in places they're already congregating; then you need to do background and see how influential they really are," Faulds says.

2. Give them special treatment. "Advocates generally like being recognized for their efforts," he says. "If they're going to advocate for you, they should jump to the head of the line, and they should know that's happening."

3. Update content often. Advocates are constantly looking for new information to pass along, Faulds says. Continually updating information and making it easy to share (via like and "Tweet this" buttons) makes it easier for the advocates to do what they like to do.