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SRO is a new marketing category alongside social advertising and SEA (Search Engine Advertising), aiming to optimize organic reach by activating brand ambassadors on social media. Given the changing algorithms of social media platforms and rising advertising costs, companies are expected to invest billions of dollars in SRO in the coming years. This has created a new role within marketing and recruitment departments or agencies - the SRO Coach. As an SRO Coach, your primary objective is to help companies successfully implement a brand ambassador program based on SRO, which can be implemented in any type of organization.
As a certified SRO Coach, you are equipped to implement an SRO program that contributes to achieving sales, marketing, HR, and recruitment goals. The program is designed with comprehensive e-learning, handy templates, online kick-off sessions, and editorial sessions. Utilizing these tools, you can successfully roll out the program within basically any organization.
With the ready-made SRO program, you can guide organizations step-by-step in leveraging the social media channels of employees, dealers, or franchisees. As the SRO Coach, you act as the project manager for the brand ambassador project, creating content strategies and providing online training on brand ambassadorship. Your role also involves ensuring a smooth implementation and ensuring client satisfaction with their social media activities.
As the product owner of the program, you work closely with the Social Master, who is responsible for strategically disseminating the content. Your role as the SRO Coach is to recruit as many participants as possible to maximize the organic reach on social media.
The recruitment and activation of a brand ambassador can be understood in relation to B.J. Fogg's model of behavioral change, known as the Fogg Behavior Model. This model suggests that three elements must converge at the same moment for a behavior to occur: motivation, ability, and prompts. The SRO Coach follows the SRO program, which is based on this assumption.
Motivation: Motivation refers to the willingness of the individual to promote and advocate for a particular brand. Research shows that on average 67% of engaged colleagues are open to becoming a brand ambassador for their organization or brand.
Ability: Ability refers to the individual's capability to perform the desired behavior. In the case of a brand ambassador, the SRO Coach provides brand ambassadors with the necessary training, tools and support to carry out their role successfully.
Prompts: With the Apostle platform, the SRO Coach provides the brand ambassador with visual cues to remind them to share work-related posts on social media.
To activate a brand ambassador effectively, you align these three elements: motivation, ability, and prompts during the implementation of the SRO program in an organization.
By following a strategic structure tailored to the organization, you initiate a pilot phase with the most motivated brand ambassadors who have an affinity for social media. Based on the pilot's success, you can then scale up the program and aim to include 67% of the total organization.
The SRO program consists of three phases: the strategy & structure phase, the pilot phase, and the scale-up phase. As the SRO Coach, you act as the product owner and coordinator throughout these phases. By gradually changing the behavior of brand ambassadors through small tasks and working with motivated participants, the program aims to achieve success.
E-Learning:
Motivated brand ambassadors often require additional knowledge about social media or tools. To address this, the SRO Coach offers short courses to activate them. You will get access to all SRO courses and can invite participants to take them.
SRO Management & Advocacy Tool:
As the SRO Coach, you have access to the Apostle platform, which facilitates the completion of the program’s steps. The platform allows you to invite participants to e-learning courses and recruit individuals and large groups.
More importantly, the employee advocacy module allows the Social Master to create ready-to-share social media posts for brand ambassadors. These posts can be shared to their personal accounts with the Apostle app or by email in just a few clicks. The Apostle platform’s power lies in making it as easy as possible for colleagues to share company related content to their own accounts, and maximizing the company’s reach and engagement in doing so. You can monitor the distribution of these posts according to the chosen content strategy and structure.
Affinity:
Main tasks:
Key qualities:
With knowledge transfer available through online lessons, the SRO Coach can focus on providing advice and coaching. The Social Master role performs tasks under the guidance of the SRO Coach.
Generally, an SRO program takes around 6 months to complete. Depending on the company size and the amount of brand ambassadors to include in the program, a full program can take up to a year. You will remain involved with the program after the implementation phase by doing regular editorial meetings, management updates and new training. In the image below, we have created an example timeline.
To become certified as an SRO Coach, you need to successfully finish the SRO Coach e-learning course. This comprehensive course will equip you with the necessary expertise to implement SRO programs within your organization or for clients. You will gain a deep understanding of the Apostle platform's features and how to utilize it to benefit your clients. With step-by-step guidance provided throughout the course, you can confidently embark on your new venture. After obtaining certification, you can begin your first implementations right away.
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