This week has been a reckoning.

We’ve intentionally paused our content here to listen, learn, and allow space.

The truth is that we’re a budding brand, but advocacy has always been an important part of who we are and who we hope to be. This week has given us a gift that we are in no way deserving of. It has given us the opportunity to observe, reevaluate, and implement some intention on how we plan to grow our business in accordance with our values. We’ve created intention around building an equitable space for our own team and the clients we serve. We’re working on a public commitment to diversity, inclusion, and belonging that we hope to share with you soon.

As for you… 

Whether you’ve identified it yet or not, your brand speaks for something. It is taking a stance in the world. It has chosen a side and is promoting a belief. 

If you own a tea shop that sources its product from small producers around the world, you are taking the side of international business and connecting on a global scale. If you’re a mommy blogger who promotes whole eating and chemical-free cleaning products, you are making a stance for natural living. If you are a fitness coach you’ve likely established some sort of voice with regards to body image. 

Woven into the fibers of your business are many messages, but are you owning those narratives and educating your audience? 

Here are some key strategies for building advocacy into your business and brand.

 

Look Inward First

This week, we’ve watched as brands big and small posted black squares on their feeds in hope of standing in solidarity with the Black community. Some have been called out because, at the core, public advocacy doesn’t mean anything if the words you speak, the culture you create, and the person you are previous to this week don’t line up.

It’s important that your advocacy messages are authentic and are a representation of your actual brand values and not an effort to jump on a bandwagon. Audiences will be quick to mark your advocacy efforts as disingenuine if your business practices and products don’t align with your outward stance on a particular issue. It’s vital that you practice what you preach in every area of your business.

So before you’re quick to proclaim solidarity, be diligent to do an internal review of your own business operations, culture, and staff. If you’ve fallen short of your brand’s values, now is not the time to sweep that under the rug. If you’ve noticed inconsistencies, now is the time to look inward, reevaluate, and decide how you will realign.

If you decide it’s best to come clean to your audience about how you’ve fallen short, be sure that you approach them with a posture of humility. Be ready to listen, understand the hurt you may have caused, and take accountability. Then comes the hard work of actually making change.

 

Identifying Your Key Points of Advocacy

Even if your business isn’t built with the intent to advocate it’s important to know what it is you are saying to the world as you build out and grow your platforms. 

Competitive Research

What sort of positions are others in your industry taking? Are they outspoken about it or is it a subtle backdrop to what they do? How often do they mention the issues at stake?

Read Reviews and Comments

Feedback, both positive and negative, can be very illuminating for a business owner. While sometimes hard to absorb, in your reviews lies the truth about what you’re advocating. 

What makes your customer agitated? Why do bad reviews occur? Does someone feel left out or like your product wasn’t for them? Does a certain positive message pop up again and again? 

One bad review doesn’t mean you have to change your whole business model, but if you’re finding patterns in your audience’s reaction to your brand, it’s worth considering if it has something to do with a stance you’ve taken. 

Your Feelings

Tap into the why of what you do and your feelings behind it. If you own a restaurant that only uses ingredients from local farmers, that’s you making a choice to support neighboring businesses and perhaps provide unmatched quality of food. You may not be shouting it from the rooftops that you’re doing this, but if it’s a choice that you believe in and makes you feel good, why not share it?

Add the name of the farmer to your menu items or feature their pictures on your wall. If you feel strongly about something as it pertains to your business then your true loyal customers will likely enjoy hearing about it too. And perhaps adapt their own habits. 

Why Advocacy Matters

When you advocate for something you’re not only establishing your voice, you’re operating as a voice for your customers. Not everyone has a platform or a brand to spread information from and when your fans choose your product or service, they are also choosing to propagate your message and beliefs. 

This is a BIG responsibility. 

You’ll not only be speaking for a large audience, but you’ll also be speaking to a large audience. You may have the power to convert people to a particular way of thinking and if you’re not being mindful of what that is, you may be mishandling the responsibility. 

On a more positive note, you could change thousands of lives if you are clear on your purpose and the larger scope it represents. 

Unfocused or Undeclared Advocacy

A real danger of avoiding the conversation around advocacy is the possibility that you will convey an unintended message. 

Let’s return to the fitness instructor example. Frequently, fitness experts post a lot of pictures of very fit people (themselves or others). Now this makes a lot of sense for the brand, but there could be some unintended messaging in those visuals.

Those at the beginning of their fitness journey might think the program isn’t for them, or that the brand believes “skinny” is the only way to be healthy. Now those could be far from what you believe, but if you aren’t making it clear that transformation is for anyone and beauty can be any size, you may scare off potential customers or worse, get a bad rep for alienating a group of people unintentionally. 

It Shapes Content

Mmmmhmmm that’s right, we’re gonna talk content some more. With a clear picture of what you advocate for you can develop poignant content that may have otherwise been lost. 

If you work with a small lab to develop affordable and ethical beauty products, your customer HAS to know about that. Not only will it make a case for your product, but it could also have the ability to change the whole industry. 

If you aren’t educating your audience on the importance of quality control, the deception of big beauty brands, and the intention of your own revolution, how will they know your lipstick is any different from the one at Walmart? 

Do us a favor… brainstorm ten advocacy-related content topics. We’re willing to bet you come up with way more than ten, but how do you feel about that subject as you’re developing these ideas? We bet it gets you excited. We also bet that in those ideas are some crucial topics your customers may not be fully aware of yet. 

Check out three more reasons why giving back should be a part of your brand here. Where we talk about how:

• Being a Purpose-Driven Company Can Attract New Customers
• Cause-based Marketing Can Secure Your Brand Reputation and Offer Great Publicity
• Being a Purpose-Driven Company Can Attract New Customers

Implementing advocacy within your brand can be challenging, but using your collective voice to champion a cause is worth the work.