Overall Satisfaction with AdvocateHub
Our AdvocateHub is used by the Software Evangelism team as a means to promote software developer advocates for our product. We began by selecting the topmost contributors to forums, technical articles and code, and expanded the program later. As an open source offering, our goal was to get developers to talk about the software with other developers and then expose them to our commercial products when they download software and visit our web properties.
- AdvocateHub is easy to administer and monitor. Bringing new advocates on board is also made simple with AdvocateHub and people generally get up to speed and become productive advocates quite quickly.
- Advocates choose engaging challenges to complete which provide "points" typically based on the time and effort required. These points are then used for recognition and rewards. The challenges can take the form of anything from providing referrals, reading or commenting on articles, providing feedback on new products, or just fun stuff.
- The gamification element is very well engineered. Earned points, leaderboards, badges, rewards, perks and ample opportunities for feedback make AdvocateHub an enjoyable experience for administrate and advocate alike.
- The support staff is incredible. They often respond within an hour or two after I ask a question or report a problem; and they are always ready to help me find a workaround when an issue comes up that isn't easily fixable.
- The field of Advocacy Marketing is relatively new and its application is still being explored. Influitive listens to its customers and often incorporates their ideas into their frequent product update releases. Sometimes a feature may take a while to be completed and it may not be in exactly the form one desires -- but I've always been impressed with the care and thought that goes into each release.
- I'm a programmer at heart and I would love to see more complexity in how badges, challenges, and groups (of advocates) can be manipulated and displayed. The good news is that Influitive has made great strides lately in this area and created user interface logic that should be straightforward for almost any administrator. I'm pleased.
- In spite of the fact that AdvocateHub does a lot of the heavy lifting, I find that the personal touch via an e-mail or phone call often helps in moving advocates along. Being a successful advocate administrator is not a part-time job. My biggest frustration is not having the time to keep on top of all the things I want to do for the advocates.
- You need a steady supply of new advocates coming into your program because people occasionally get overwhelmed with other things in life and may disengage for periods of time, or their interest wanes due to passions in other things. Constant recruitment of exciting new advocates is an important and necessary job. Without new blood, an AdvocateHub can become rather lifeless.
- I have received a lot of feedback and insights for our product and services from AdvocateHub. Plus advocates tend to become great leaders in encouraging others to contribute to the product knowledge base and spread the word about the company.