While driving to work this morning, a radio program was discussing the six degrees of separation theory. This theory proposes that anyone in the world is only six steps (or less) away from anyone else. This means that you could be connected to U2’s Bono, the Denver Broncos’ Peyton Manning, or Real Madrid’s Cristiano Ronaldo through a maximum of these six degrees.

This is hard to believe considering that the world’s population is over seven billion people. In 2008, researchers at Microsoft announced that the theory is right – or very close. They studied 30 billion email messages between 180 million people (in various countries) and discovered that any two strangers are on average 6.6 degrees away from each other. With the exponential growth of social networks, you have to wonder whether the distance between two people has shortened.

Content Marketing and the Six Degrees of Separation Theory

According to the Content Marketing Institute, content marketing is a marketing technique of creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and acquire a clearly defined audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer action.

The Definition of Content Marketing from 5 Leading Experts

By Israel Martinez

But wait, we’re missing something. Do you remember the philosophical thought that says: “if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” A successful content marketing strategy is not just about creating relevant content; it’s also about getting people to consume it. And according to the six degrees of separation theory, your content is only six steps away from reaching every single (connected) person in the world. The technologies to facilitate this global distribution (e.g. social networks, email, etc.) are already available and widely used. Isn’t that cool?

Content Marketing is not about likes, it’s about love.

Many marketers quantify their Facebook Likes and their Twitter followers religiously. Likes are great: they mean you’re accepted. But don’t you think a “Share” is more valuable than a “Like”? You need people (preferably customers) to love your brand and share your content with their friends and families. There is no better salesperson for your products or services than a happy customer.

A customer who promotes your products or services is called an advocate, and they can help you increase your reach and your credibility substantially.

Advocacy Marketing

The art of identifying happy customers and motivating them to share your content and their positive experiences with your company is called Advocacy Marketing.

Advocacy marketing is based on the principle that you are far more likely to be influenced by someone you trust than someone you don’t. What resources do you have to start your advocacy marketing strategy? Here are the three types of advocacy that your organization can turn to:

Paid Advocacy

Paid advocates are those that companies handsomely pay for, like actors or actresses, athletes, and any other industry influencer that receives compensation for supporting your brand or cause. While this sounds like traditional advertisement, it is significantly more subtle when using social media. That being said, U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) regulations state that if your tweets is sponsored, it must be disclosed.

Owned Advocacy

Turn your employees into advocates for your organization. You can also include business partners or suppliers, who would also benefit from increased credibility. They can share your content, but they could also add their own stories and opinions to make the message more powerful. You can attract not only more views of your content, but also the added credibility needed to convert prospects who are considering your products and services.

Earned Advocacy

These advocates are the most valuable and scalable, and they also have the highest level of credibility. They are customers of your product or admirers your brand. The way of earning these advocates is by creating great content, telling thought provoking stories, and showing leadership in your field.

Starting Your Advocacy Marketing Strategy

The easiest way to start an advocacy marketing program is by using your owned advocacy: you have control over it and you can implement policies and procedures. Employee advocacy can give your marketing team a great way of amplifying the reach of their message and increase the effectiveness of your overall marketing efforts.

Will it really make a difference if your employees share the content your marketing department is sharing? Absolutely. Organic reach of branded pages has been affected significantly by the amount of content available.

In 2012, Facebook curbed organic reach of content published by brand pages to 16%, and in 2013, they did it again. By February this year, according to Social@Ogilvy, organic reached decreased to nearly 6% for pages with over 500,000 likes, and 2% for smaller organizations. This means that your employees may have a much greater reach than your branded page even though your page may have many more followers.

Managing Your Employee Advocacy Program

Consider giving responsibility for your employee advocacy program to your content marketing managers. They can plan, execute, and measure both strategies, making the process more cost effective.

A key principle of content marketing is that you want to create content that is valuable to your potential market. If your audience feels like you’re advertising or selling to them, then your advocacy strategy will have the opposite effect you’re expecting. To avoid this, the content marketing manager can curate the posts to be shared, along with recommended messaging.

Aligning Content Marketing and Advocacy Marketing With Your Goals

To successfully introduce an advocacy marketing program, it is important that it motivates users to participate. For this, it is important that you align your strategy with the goals of your organization, such as: increased views, increase leads, etc. Just helping you do your job may not provide the right motivation to participate.

Another advantage of aligning your strategy with your organization’s goals is that your content and advocacy efforts will be measurable, which will provide your colleagues with feedback, and more motivation to keep helping.

As always, follow the nail it before you scale it principle. Start with small experiments: plan, execute, measure, learn and try again. And if you have already started please share your experiences in the comments area below.