Let’s face it; keeping up with the changing trends behind social media and online advertising can be a headache to say the least, especially for event marketing professionals. It seems that every year new technologies and marketing strategies appear out of the woodwork that change how businesses can interact with their potential customers and expand their brand. Just like Remarketing was the marketing buzzword of 2014/15, 2016 is shaping up to be the year of Social Media Ambassador Software programs.  Haven’t heard about it yet? Don’t worry, you’re not alone. Read on to find out how companies are incentivizing and tracking their top influencers on social media with this game-changing new software.

The What: What is Social Media Ambassador Software?

In a world where we’re constantly being bombarded by aggressive advertising, the reality is that consumers have gotten smart and are outthinking traditional marketing methods. After all, over ninety percent of customers around the world now turn first to suggestions from their own contacts on social media when spending their hard-earned money, and instead ignore paid advertisements. Luckily, using a Social Media Ambassador platform, you can transform an entire community overnight into a social marketing team to build credibility with customers and connect in a more organic setting. The concept is simple: instead of trying to force your customers into a purchase, you can use their trusted Facebook friends to do the talking, and selling, for you.

The How: How Does it Work?

Getting confused? Check out this short video from PromoHP that explains how you can instantly recruit your contacts as Social Media Ambassadors to spread the word about your products or services to hundreds of people’s social media channels. With simply the click of a button, you can write, edit and schedule posts that real people, such as your fans, customers or employees will promote to their online communities. Wondering how you’d track and measure the performance of these online ‘ambassadors’? These sites have got you covered. The entire reach of your ambassadors posts can be analyzed so that you know exactly which of your contacts are the most influential, and what the results of their communications are. Anytime an Ambassador posts about your content, you can track the clicks, likes, shares, conversions, and dollar value behind the impact they have generated, leaving no room for ambiguity.

The Who: Who Are the Big Players?

While some companies still choose to manage their social media presences by more traditional methods, fast-moving companies are reaping huge rewards by harnessing the power of their influencers on social media and leaving everyone else in the dust. Though a variety of competing Social Media Ambassador platforms exist online, each has its own niche industry that it caters to, and is priced accordingly.  Event marketing companies, including clubs, restaurants and festivals are turning to PromoHP for packages starting as low as $84 per month. SocialChorus, on the other hand, currently offers $5,000/mo packages for their clientele that are largely immersed in news communication. Similar priced packages that hover around $5,000/mo can be found at PostBeyond, which focuses on B2B clients. The more expensive alternative, DynamicSignal, focuses on Fortune 500 companies, and offers packages that start at $10,000/mo.

Unlike other companies, however, PromoHP is unique in that it’s currently the only platform designed specifically for the event marketing and nightlife industries and can integrate flawlessly into ticketing API systems like ticketZone.com to track conversion rates. Companies such as Climax Promotions, John Doe Group, Electric Adventure, and Wow Hospitality are leaning on PromoHP for a fool-proof, straightforward system to bridge the gap between their brands and their audiences. Besides, event marketing professionals have the added benefit of being able to leverage low-cost tools on these platforms like free tickets, backstage passes and other cost-efficient benefits to get crowds of passionate fans promoting their shows like never before on social media.

Still not convinced? The trend is clear when you consider that even large, multinational corporations like McDonald’s, Coca Cola, Walmart and Samsung have caught on and are choosing to capitalize on the online presences of their own employees, fans and customers by converting them into social media brand ambassadors.

The Why: Why Should I Care?

With the explosion of social media in recent years, the influence that your average person can have on a business’ reputation has exploded. Paid advertising, which suffered a $22 billion dollar loss in 2015, simply no longer cuts it when it comes to maintaining your brand’s online identity. After all, why sit back and rely on your own marketing efforts, when you can instead have actual users on social media expand your company’s presence?

Using a Social Media Ambassador platform isn’t just valuable for finding new customers, though; it’s also an easy way to better connect with existing ones. With sites like Facebook now rewarding viral content by increasing its rankings on the walls of existing followers, the immediate engagement that a post receives is crucial. Using a influential Social Media Ambassador to share one of your posts is a simple and quick way to amplify your content’s visibility and get your existing followers’ attention in a heartbeat.

The technology’s importance speaks for itself; if you aren’t identifying your top influencers on social media and properly motivating them, you’re missing out on a huge, low-cost marketing benefit and letting customers slip through your fingertips. 

Get Started: PromoHP Promo Code!

Ready to turn your employees, fans, and acquaintances into revenue generators? For an all-inclusive, multi-faceted platform designed for event marketing professionals, we recommend PromoHP. Their unique social media software for business also offers additional training sessions on optimized content development, and also content strategy consultancy to ensure that your reach and engagement hits the identified benchmarks and goals you’ve set. Ambassadors using their platform can also edit and customize content suggested by their managers, while managers can approve their ambassador’s posts. Visit PromoHP.com for a free web tutorial to better understand their services, and kickstart your very own social media ambassador program today.