Best Brand Advocacy Software

Brand Advocacy Software Guide

Brand advocacy software helps companies identify, engage, and empower their most loyal customers, employees, and partners to promote their brand authentically. It provides tools to manage relationships with advocates, track their activity, and measure the impact of advocacy campaigns. By turning satisfied customers into vocal supporters, businesses can increase brand awareness, credibility, and organic reach through trusted, word-of-mouth promotion.

These platforms often integrate with social media, CRM, and marketing automation tools to streamline communication and performance tracking. Features typically include content sharing, gamification, rewards programs, and analytics dashboards that monitor engagement and conversions. This allows marketing teams to understand which advocates are most active, which messages resonate best, and how advocacy efforts contribute to broader marketing goals.

Beyond customer promotion, brand advocacy software can strengthen internal culture and employee engagement by encouraging staff to share brand messages and company values. When used effectively, it fosters authentic relationships between the brand and its community, amplifying trust and loyalty. Ultimately, advocacy software turns enthusiasm into measurable business growth by making it easy for supporters to spread the word and for brands to recognize and reward their efforts.

Features Provided by Brand Advocacy Software

• Advocate Identification and Recruitment: Helps businesses discover their most loyal customers, employees, or followers who are enthusiastic about the brand. The software uses engagement data, social interactions, and purchase behavior to identify top advocates and streamline the onboarding process through invitations or automated workflows.
• Advocate Segmentation: Allows companies to group advocates based on shared characteristics like demographics, behavior, or engagement level. This segmentation makes it easier to deliver personalized campaigns, ensuring each advocate receives relevant content and incentives tailored to their motivations.
• Campaign and Challenge Creation: Provides tools to design and manage advocacy campaigns or challenges that encourage specific actions, such as sharing posts, referring friends, or writing reviews. These campaigns are often built using easy-to-use templates and track progress and participation in real time.
• Gamification and Incentives: Uses game-like elements such as points, badges, leaderboards, and levels to keep advocates motivated. Rewards like discounts, gift cards, or exclusive access encourage consistent participation and make advocacy feel fun and rewarding.
• Social Media Integration: Connects directly with social platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and TikTok so advocates can easily share branded content. It also tracks engagement, impressions, and conversions to measure the social impact of advocacy activities.
• Content Library and Sharing Tools: Offers a centralized space where brands can upload approved marketing materials for advocates to share. These libraries ensure consistent messaging and make it easy for advocates to post or schedule content across multiple channels.
• Referral Management: Enables the creation and tracking of referral campaigns that reward advocates for bringing in new customers. The feature includes personalized referral links, real-time tracking, and automated reward fulfillment to make the process seamless and transparent.
• Analytics and Reporting: Delivers insights into campaign performance, engagement, and ROI through intuitive dashboards. These analytics help marketers identify which advocacy efforts drive the best results and optimize future strategies based on real data.
• Feedback and Sentiment Collection: Allows brands to gather feedback from advocates using surveys, polls, or direct input. Built-in sentiment analysis tools can help detect positive and negative trends in advocate opinions, offering valuable insights for product and service improvement.
• Employee Advocacy Tools: Extends advocacy capabilities to employees, encouraging them to share company content on their own networks. This expands reach, boosts credibility, and strengthens the internal culture by turning employees into brand ambassadors.
• Mobile Accessibility: Ensures advocates can engage on the go through mobile apps or responsive dashboards. Push notifications and mobile-friendly interfaces help keep advocates informed and active wherever they are.
• Compliance and Brand Safety: Protects the brand by enforcing approval workflows, moderation, and compliance checks. This ensures that all shared materials adhere to brand guidelines and meet legal and regulatory requirements.
• Integration with CRM and Marketing Platforms: Seamlessly connects with tools like CRM systems, email marketing software, and automation platforms. This integration helps synchronize customer data, coordinate campaigns, and align advocacy programs with broader marketing goals.
• Community Building and Communication Channels: Fosters stronger relationships by creating spaces for advocates to interact with one another and with the brand. Discussion boards, private groups, and messaging tools enhance engagement and build loyalty through shared experiences.
• Automated Workflows: Simplifies routine tasks like reward distribution, campaign scheduling, and reporting. Automation ensures consistent communication with advocates while saving time for marketing teams.
• Customizable Dashboards and Branding: Allows companies to design branded dashboards that reflect their identity. Customization options like logos, colors, and tailored messaging provide a cohesive and professional advocate experience.
• User-Generated Content (UGC) Management: Encourages advocates to create and share authentic content like photos, testimonials, and videos. The platform helps brands collect, manage, and repurpose this content while handling rights and permissions appropriately.

Different Types of Brand Advocacy Software

• Employee Advocacy Platforms: These tools empower employees to share company-approved content on social media. They centralize marketing materials and campaign assets, making it easier for staff to promote the brand consistently while maintaining authenticity. Most include engagement tracking, gamified leaderboards, and reward systems to encourage participation and measure the overall impact of employee advocacy.
• Customer Advocacy Platforms: Focused on engaging satisfied customers, these platforms help turn loyal users into brand champions. They allow customers to share testimonials, join online communities, and participate in referral or review programs. Through analytics and engagement tracking, marketing teams can identify top advocates and nurture long-term relationships.
• Influencer Advocacy Tools: These solutions help brands collaborate with influencers who align naturally with their values. They simplify influencer discovery, outreach, and campaign management, often providing data on reach, engagement, and ROI. Their goal is to support authentic advocacy through trusted voices who genuinely use and endorse the brand’s products.
• Affiliate and Referral Marketing Software: Built to reward customers for promoting a brand, this type of software structures and manages referral or affiliate programs. It generates tracking links or codes, automates incentives, and monitors conversions. Such tools turn word-of-mouth marketing into measurable performance data while strengthening customer trust and loyalty.
• Social Advocacy and Engagement Platforms: These focus on amplifying brand visibility across social media. They allow employees, customers, or partners to share curated posts easily, often with built-in scheduling and analytics tools. By combining personalized storytelling with consistent messaging, they enhance engagement and drive organic brand growth.
• Community Advocacy Platforms: Designed to foster active communities around a brand, these platforms host discussion forums, events, and user groups where advocates can interact. They encourage peer-to-peer engagement, feedback sharing, and brand storytelling, helping businesses identify passionate users for beta programs or testimonials while deepening long-term loyalty.
• Review and Testimonial Management Tools: These tools simplify the process of collecting and showcasing authentic customer feedback. They integrate with ecommerce or CRM systems to request reviews, filter genuine submissions, and display testimonials across digital touchpoints. By highlighting real experiences, they strengthen trust and influence purchase decisions.
• Partner and Channel Advocacy Platforms: These systems support collaboration with external business partners such as distributors or resellers. They provide access to marketing materials, co-branding resources, and joint campaign tools. With performance tracking and incentives, they encourage partners to actively promote the brand while maintaining consistency across all channels.
• Advocacy Gamification and Reward Systems: Focused on motivation and engagement, these platforms use challenges, points, badges, and leaderboards to make advocacy fun. They reward users for completing specific activities like referrals, reviews, or shares. This gamified approach builds momentum and fosters an enthusiastic community of advocates.
• Analytics and Advocacy Intelligence Platforms: These solutions specialize in tracking and measuring advocacy performance across multiple channels. They gather insights from social media, CRM data, and community interactions, providing dashboards that visualize ROI, engagement, and sentiment. Their main purpose is to help refine strategy and identify areas for stronger advocate engagement.

Advantages of Using Brand Advocacy Software

• Enhanced brand awareness: Brand advocacy software helps expand a company’s visibility by motivating loyal customers, employees, and partners to share content about the brand. These authentic shares reach new audiences, boosting recognition and awareness without relying heavily on paid advertising.
• Improved credibility and trust: People trust personal recommendations more than corporate ads. With brand advocacy software, genuine advocates share real experiences, increasing the company’s authenticity and establishing a reputation grounded in trust.
• Increased customer engagement: These platforms make it easier to connect with passionate supporters. By offering updates, campaigns, and rewards, brands can keep advocates involved and excited, strengthening their long-term loyalty.
• Cost-effective marketing: Encouraging advocates to spread brand messages reduces reliance on expensive ad campaigns. Since advocacy relies on real enthusiasm, companies can achieve strong marketing results at a much lower cost.
• Boosted employee advocacy: Employee engagement is a major benefit of advocacy software. When employees proudly share company news and culture, it humanizes the brand, attracts talent, and builds internal unity.
• Higher customer retention rates: Recognizing and rewarding advocates makes them feel appreciated. This sense of belonging encourages repeat purchases and long-term loyalty, which helps reduce churn.
• Detailed performance tracking: Advocacy platforms provide analytics that track engagement, conversions, and content performance. These insights guide marketing teams to refine strategies and identify top-performing advocates.
• Better lead generation and conversion rates: Leads that come from advocates are typically higher quality. Their trust in the recommender shortens the sales cycle, making referrals more likely to convert into paying customers.
• Reputation management and positive sentiment: In times of negative publicity, a strong community of advocates can help balance public opinion. Their positive stories and experiences counteract criticism and protect the brand’s image.
• Scalable community building: Advocacy software helps brands build communities where customers and employees can connect over shared enthusiasm. These networks generate valuable content and strengthen brand loyalty.
• Improved content distribution: The platform streamlines content sharing by providing advocates with ready-to-post materials. This ensures consistent messaging and wider reach while maintaining control over brand voice.
• Enhanced feedback and insights: Advocates provide direct input on products and campaigns. Collecting their opinions through the software helps companies make data-driven improvements and align offerings with customer expectations.

Who Uses Brand Advocacy Software?

• Marketing Managers: These professionals use brand advocacy software to boost brand visibility through authentic customer and employee voices. They track engagement metrics, measure campaign reach, and identify top-performing advocates to refine marketing strategies and improve ROI.
• Social Media Managers: They rely on advocacy tools to distribute content efficiently across platforms, encourage shares, and monitor engagement trends. The software helps them amplify brand presence while ensuring consistent messaging across all social channels.
• Public Relations (PR) Professionals: PR teams use advocacy software to strengthen brand reputation and credibility. By mobilizing advocates to share positive stories or testimonials, they create trust and manage brand image during both normal and crisis situations.
• Customer Success Teams: These teams use advocacy platforms to identify happy customers who can serve as brand promoters. They run campaigns that encourage reviews, case studies, or referrals, linking advocacy efforts directly to retention and customer satisfaction.
• Employee Engagement or HR Teams: Internal teams leverage advocacy software to empower employees as brand ambassadors. By sharing company updates or achievements, employees help humanize the brand while boosting workplace engagement and morale.
• Sales Teams: Sales representatives benefit from advocacy platforms by using advocate-generated content and referrals to build credibility with prospects. The tools help shorten sales cycles by providing social proof from trusted voices.
• Brand Managers: They focus on maintaining consistent, authentic brand representation. Advocacy software allows them to oversee how advocates present the brand, ensuring that all shared content aligns with tone, values, and messaging guidelines.
• Influencer Marketing Specialists: These users manage collaborations with influencers through advocacy software, tracking performance metrics like engagement, reach, and conversions. The data helps refine influencer selection and campaign strategies for maximum impact.
• Content Marketing Teams: Advocacy platforms enable content marketers to distribute blogs, videos, and other creative assets through advocates. They monitor which pieces perform best and adjust future campaigns based on engagement analytics.
• Franchise or Partner Managers: Managers use advocacy software to maintain consistent branding across franchises, partners, or resellers. It helps ensure all participants share approved content and uphold the company’s image while extending market reach.
• Community Managers: They use advocacy software to nurture loyal brand communities. By identifying and rewarding top contributors, they foster meaningful engagement and encourage ongoing participation in brand storytelling.
• Product Managers: These users leverage advocacy insights to gather feedback on new or existing products. Advocates often provide early input on features and share authentic reviews that help inform product development decisions.
• Customer Advocates or Brand Ambassadors: These are passionate customers or employees who voluntarily promote the brand. They use advocacy programs to share experiences, earn rewards, and strengthen their personal connection to the company.
• Executives and Business Owners: Leadership teams rely on advocacy software analytics to assess the business impact of advocacy initiatives. They review data on engagement, referrals, and conversions to align brand advocacy with broader strategic goals.
• Channel or Affiliate Managers: These managers oversee relationships with affiliates or partners using advocacy platforms to track campaign performance. They ensure partner-driven messaging stays on-brand and optimize incentive structures to drive stronger results.

How Much Does Brand Advocacy Software Cost?

The cost of brand advocacy software varies widely depending on the features, number of users or advocates supported, deployment scale, and level of customization. Entry-level plans for smaller businesses often start at around a few hundred dollars per month; one industry source cites a range of $99–$1,700 per month for typical customer advocacy solutions.

For more advanced or enterprise-grade deployments — which include extensive integrations, high volumes of advocates, custom workflows, extensive analytics, and possibly onboarding/training fees — vendors frequently require you to request a quote rather than list a flat price.

When budgeting for a brand advocacy program, you should also factor in other cost drivers beyond the software license itself. These include setup/implementation costs, training your staff or advocates, ongoing content production or reward-program management, and potentially additional fees for premium support or advanced modules. Because pricing often scales with the number of users or advocates and level of activity, the cost per unit can drop as you grow — but the total investment nevertheless rises. 

What Software Does Brand Advocacy Software Integrate With?

Brand advocacy software can integrate with various types of software that help streamline marketing, communication, and data management efforts. It can connect with customer relationship management systems such as Salesforce or HubSpot to sync customer data and identify potential brand advocates based on engagement and loyalty metrics.

Integration with social media management platforms like Hootsuite or Sprout Social enables companies to automate social sharing, track campaign performance, and measure advocacy impact across networks. Marketing automation tools such as Marketo or Mailchimp can also work alongside brand advocacy platforms to nurture advocates through personalized email campaigns and track conversions resulting from advocacy activities.

In addition, analytics and business intelligence tools like Google Analytics or Tableau can be integrated to monitor performance metrics and demonstrate the ROI of advocacy programs. Collaboration and communication tools, including Slack and Microsoft Teams, can facilitate internal engagement, making it easier for employees to participate in advocacy initiatives.

Content management systems such as WordPress can connect with brand advocacy software to simplify the distribution of brand-approved content and ensure consistent messaging across all channels.

What Are the Trends Relating to Brand Advocacy Software?

• Integrated growth lever: Brand advocacy software is evolving from simple sharing tools into platforms that connect marketing, sales, and HR. These integrations help companies manage cross-departmental workflows and use unified analytics for tracking the impact of advocacy on business growth.
• AI-powered optimization: Artificial intelligence is deeply embedded in advocacy tools to automate content recommendations, generate captions, summarize articles, and predict which posts will perform best. This makes programs easier to manage and helps employees participate with less effort.
• CRM and revenue system integration: Modern platforms link directly to systems like Salesforce, allowing sales teams to share advocacy content, nurture leads, and measure results without leaving their CRM dashboards.
• Focus on LinkedIn and B2B social selling: Since LinkedIn remains dominant for professional networking, advocacy programs are increasingly built around it. They prioritize strategies that align with LinkedIn’s algorithms and best practices for employee engagement.
• Advanced measurement and analytics: Instead of focusing on vanity metrics like shares or impressions, newer advocacy software connects engagement data to pipeline performance, conversions, and assisted revenue.
• Compliance and governance features: With stricter FTC rules and global regulations, software now includes approval workflows, audit trails, and automatic disclosure labels to ensure posts meet legal and brand standards.
• Regulated industry adoption: Financial, healthcare, and public-sector organizations are investing in tools with built-in compliance, permissions, and pre-approved content libraries to protect sensitive information.
• Simplified program management: Platforms are becoming more intuitive, offering AI-assisted content creation, campaign templates, and easy dashboards so smaller teams can manage advocacy efficiently.
• Broader advocate inclusion: The definition of an “advocate” is expanding beyond employees to include partners, customers, and alumni. This shift allows companies to use a single platform for multiple types of brand promotion.
• Collaboration tool integration: Advocacy is meeting employees where they already communicate—inside Slack, Microsoft Teams, and mobile apps—boosting participation and ease of sharing.
• Localized and personalized content: Companies are moving toward modular content strategies that allow for regional and language-based customization while maintaining global brand consistency.
• Smarter incentive systems: Rather than relying solely on leaderboards, programs use badges, tiered goals, and role-based recognition to sustain engagement without creating competition fatigue.
• Privacy and data transparency: Vendors are prioritizing consent management, secure authentication, and clear data-handling policies to ensure user trust and compliance with data protection laws.
• Expanded KPIs: Advocacy metrics now include employer branding, talent acquisition, and employee retention, showing how advocacy supports multiple parts of the business.
• Diversified content formats: Platforms encourage a mix of native videos, carousels, commentary posts, and curated third-party content, which typically perform better than automated reposts.
• Authentic voice emphasis: Instead of templated messaging, employees are encouraged to personalize their posts to improve credibility and audience engagement.
• Transparency and rights management: Built-in disclosure prompts and auto-tagging ensure posts clearly communicate sponsorship or affiliation, reducing legal risk.
• Consolidating vendor landscape: The market is narrowing to two main models: specialized advocacy providers and comprehensive social suites that include publishing, listening, and influencer management.
• Standardized onboarding and playbooks: Implementation best practices now focus on leadership support, structured onboarding, and consistent weekly content to keep advocates active.
• Support for private sharing: Programs now account for “dark social” activity by enabling sharing through private messages and emails, while maintaining link tracking and analytics.
• Localization and cultural nuance: Global organizations are adapting advocacy programs to local languages, time zones, and posting habits to increase engagement and respect cultural differences.
• Content intelligence insights: Advocacy data helps marketers identify trending topics and audience interests, informing broader content and influencer strategies.
• ROI transparency: Modern tools feature calculators and dashboards that estimate earned media value and ROI, helping teams justify budget allocation.
• Future outlook: The next wave of brand advocacy software will focus on AI copilots for program managers, advanced revenue tracking, and automated compliance aligned with evolving regulations.

How To Pick the Right Brand Advocacy Software

Choosing the right brand advocacy software begins with understanding your organization’s goals and how you want to engage your advocates. Start by identifying whether your focus is on employee advocacy, customer referrals, influencer partnerships, or community-driven brand promotion. This helps narrow down software options designed for your specific advocacy needs.

Next, evaluate the platform’s ease of use and integration capabilities. The ideal software should fit seamlessly into your existing marketing stack, such as social media management tools, CRM systems, and analytics platforms. A user-friendly interface is also essential, as it encourages higher participation and makes it easier for advocates to share content and track their impact. Data and reporting are key factors in making an informed decision. The software should provide detailed analytics that measure engagement, reach, and conversions driven by advocacy efforts. These insights allow you to refine your strategy and demonstrate return on investment.

Consider customization and scalability as well. As your advocacy program grows, the software should be flexible enough to accommodate new campaigns, audiences, and workflows without compromising performance. Security and compliance are equally important, especially when managing advocate data and social accounts.

Finally, assess the level of customer support and training the vendor offers. The right partner will not only provide the software but also guide you in setting up, optimizing, and scaling your advocacy initiatives effectively. Selecting a solution that aligns with your goals, integrates smoothly, and supports long-term growth ensures a strong foundation for sustainable brand advocacy success.

Compare brand advocacy software according to cost, capabilities, integrations, user feedback, and more using the resources available on this page.