What Happens When You Bring Advocacy Into Your Community
Online communities and customer advocacy programs share a common goal: turning customers into loyal, vocal champions. Yet inside many organizations, they’ve been built and managed as entirely separate functions.
That separation is starting to break down. As companies look to their customer communities for more than just support cost savings, the push is on to generate revenue, deepen loyalty, and drive growth. The customers most active in your community are often the same people who become your strongest advocates, and industry-wide, the lines between these programs are blurring more and more.
“I’ve predicted for years we’re on a collision course between community and customer advocacy,” says Jeff Ernst, CEO of SlapFive. “And it’s happening. More titles now combine both responsibilities.”
Advocacy and customer marketing teams—often small, scrappy groups—are looking for lightweight, repeatable ways to spark advocacy acts. At the same time, community managers are under pressure to show bottom-line impact. Merging efforts solves both problems.
In a recent webinar, Nicole Saunders, Sr. Director of CX Strategy at Higher Logic, and Jeff Ernst shared why the convergence of community and advocacy is happening now. Both have spent years leading these programs and have seen firsthand the friction that comes from keeping them siloed.
“In my last few communities, about 80% of our most active members were also our top customer advocates,” says Nicole. “But as a community manager, I had to run two separate spaces that covered many of the same conversations. It was frustrating to constantly redirect people: ‘That’s a support question, go here. That’s an advocacy question, go there.’ The platforms had separate logins and looked different. I just wanted my advocates in my community.”
The Case for Integration
When community and advocacy live in the same place, the benefits compound.
For customers, it means a smoother, more consistent experience. No jumping between platforms. No remembering separate logins. No wondering which space to post in.
For the teams running these programs, it means less duplication and more visibility. You can spot engaged members and activate them as advocates without chasing them across systems. “It’s a better customer experience to keep them in one place,” Nicole says. “And now all my advocates—my most active, passionate people—are right in the community. It’s going to increase my community engagement and it’s going to increase community members’ interest in the advocacy program. It’s a win-win.”
In practice, with the Higher Logic Vanilla–SlapFive integration, that can mean something as simple as adding an “Advocacy” tab in the community navigation or embedding it as a module on an existing page. Members can opt in, update their profile, or respond to advocacy opportunities directly in the platform. “Evergreen” actions like referring a peer, sharing a testimonial, or providing product feedback stay visible and easy to complete in the flow of participation.
The operational upside is just as important. Instead of juggling two moderation workflows, two content calendars, and two engagement strategies, teams can focus their energy on one shared space, making every conversation, piece of content, and recognition effort go further.
Jeff has seen this shift firsthand as companies move away from standalone “advocate hubs” and into integrated community environments.
“The old paradigm was a separate space for advocates and a separate space for the community,” he says. “That approach has run its course. Now, more companies want to mobilize customers as advocates within the community they already know and trust.”
Integration also opens up new ways to recognize and reward participation. In the Higher Logic Vanilla–SlapFive setup, completed advocacy activities—like sharing feedback or providing a testimonial—feed directly into community reputation scores, badges, and gamified recognition, reinforcing participation on both sides.
Common Misconceptions and Fears
Despite the clear benefits, some community managers worry that folding advocacy into the community will change its tone, and not for the better.
From the community side, there’s a fear that marketing will take over and turn every conversation into a transaction. From the marketing side, there’s a fear of losing control over the advocacy program’s focus and standards.
Jeff hears this tension often, especially from teams who need to collaborate closely but come from different cultures.
“The concern is you’re going to make it feel like you’re begging for favors,” he says. “And it’s a legitimate concern. You don’t want to overly commercialize it. You have to create a win–win exchange of value.”
That exchange of value is the key. The best advocacy opportunities benefit the member as much as they benefit the company. They make the customer feel smart, successful, and heard.
This means expanding what counts as advocacy beyond sales references or testimonial requests. For some members, advocacy might mean co-hosting a webinar. For others, it could be answering questions in the community, sharing a use case, or writing a how-to guide.
“Ideally, your program has enough variety that people can find the right option for them,” Nicole says. “Some members love posting on social media but don’t want to speak at events. Others really wanted to help out in the community, but their organization won’t let them participate in marketing.”
When the program offers diverse, member-first opportunities, it stops feeling like a promotion tool and starts feeling like an extension of the community itself.
Finding and Activating Advocates
When people picture a customer advocate, they often imagine someone outspoken, like a superfan eager to sing a brand’s praises in public. While those champions are valuable, they’re only part of the picture.
Both Nicole and Jeff stress the importance of spotting less obvious signals.
Some of the most reliable advocates start by simply helping others. They answer questions in the community, point people toward resources, or share their own experiences. They may not see themselves as advocates yet, but they’re already demonstrating the behaviors you want to nurture.
Event participation is another clue. Frequent attendance, whether at in-person gatherings or virtual sessions, often indicates a deeper connection to the company and the community. “When I ran my program at Forrester, the number of events someone attended was a big predictor of advocacy,” Jeff says.
Even constructive criticism can be a sign. Members who take the time to submit thoughtful product feedback are engaged enough to care and, if you listen and respond, they can become some of your strongest supporters.
With the Higher Logic Vanilla–SlapFive integration, these signals don’t get lost. Actions like posting an idea, contributing feedback, or starting a discussion can automatically trigger a webhook to SlapFive, adding that activity to the member’s profile. As shown in the demo portion of the webinar, this allows teams to see, without manual tracking, who’s showing positive sentiment or interest and invite them into targeted campaigns.
The other key is building a rich profile of each advocate:
- What they enjoy doing
- What they don’t want to do
- Topics they’re interested in
- Past contributions and their impact
With that information, teams can match opportunities to the right people and avoid overloading the same few members. And now, AI and automation can accelerate this process.
The Role of AI and Personalization
Advocacy works best when it’s timely and relevant. AI ensures you never miss that window.
By listening to community conversations, AI can flag potential advocates based on their behavior and the topics they engage with. It can identify members who mention value outcomes, offer detailed use cases, or respond positively to product updates. And it can do this at scale, without relying on a manager to manually read every post.
In the integrated setup, Higher Logic Vanilla’s sentiment analysis scans posts for tone, scoring them against a threshold you set—say, 80 out of 100. When a contribution clears that bar, the member can be automatically added to a relevant campaign in SlapFive. From there, they might receive a personalized prompt to record feedback, share a testimonial, or refer a colleague.
Personalization adds another layer. When members have indicated what they like to do—and what they’d rather avoid—you can target opportunities that fit their preferences. Someone who loves sharing knowledge might be invited to answer a peer’s question; someone who hates public speaking won’t be asked to present at an event.
“The more personalized you can make the targeting of opportunities, the higher the uptake,” Jeff explains. “If you ask someone to do something they’ve told you they don’t enjoy, you’re just tone-deaf.”
Personalization also prevents advocate burnout. By spreading requests across a wider pool of advocates and aligning them with each member’s strengths, you protect your most active contributors while bringing new voices into the mix.
What’s Next
Integrating community and advocacy is a cultural shift. It asks marketing, CX, and community teams to share ownership of customer relationships and value creation.
It also asks companies to see advocacy as more than a list of favors. Relevance, recognition, and professional growth opportunities matter just as much as rewards.
The specifics will vary by organization, but the principle holds: when advocacy and community live in one connected space, recognition and engagement flow more naturally.
If you’re ready to go deeper into the tactics and timing of advocacy, watch our on-demand webinar:
How to Turn Happy Customers into Your Biggest Advocates (Without Being Pushy).