Acts of advocacy take many shapes and forms and can be qualified as things that fundamentally contribute to the community (within or beyond your company).
Whether you’re a seasoned vet or an aspiring IBM Champion, not only is it an opportunity for you to grow your personal brand as a subject matter expert (SME), but also you are voluntarily sharing your expertise to make fellow product users successful.
As we enter IBM Champion nomination season, this is your friendly reminder of the importance of advocacy and some content ideas by some of the IBM Champions that we can learn from and use as inspiration.
Advocacy is a two-way street; we love to hear about your personal experiences and stories using IBM technologies. User advocates like you can play the role of trusted advisors, providing genuine and unbiased feedback about products or finding unique ways to curate the technology to your company’s needs. This enhances your credibility and builds trust with potential customers and your audience.
Acts of Advocacy: The Basics
There are 12 primary categories we use to identify/qualify acts of advocacy, some of which you’re probably already doing in your day-to-day routine. We want to help you gain recognition for your contributions to the technical community by providing examples of ways you can convert your knowledge transfer and leadership in to qualified acts.
Important: Your nomination for the IBM Champions program should typically include 9 or more contributions over the course of the past 12 months. The selection committee reviews all contributions, looking for consistent or exceptional activity, beyond the scope of your job. You can have multiple acts within the same category, just make sure you report them accordingly here. Remember: advocacy badges are available on the way to IBM Champion status, even with fewer acts of advocacy.
1. Mentor: Mentoring for students, those new to the technology or industry, community members, or folks who are new to advocacy.
2. Event Speaker: Host, organize or speak at events, workshops, meetups, webinars, etc. (3-4 recommended). You may count or report the volunteer work that goes into creating an event even beyond the date of the event.
3. Feedback: Active participant, providing feedback to IBM in Focus Groups, Customer Advisory Councils or Beta programs; OR provide feedback on developer journeys. If you are consistently contributing to the Ideas portal at https://ideas.ibm.com/, that can count as well!
4. Product Reviews: When writing a good review, focus on the features that stood out, any challenges encountered, and the overall value provided.
Product reviews are helpful in two ways: 1) you help other ‘would-be’ buyers in their decision-making, and 2) you help send a message to product developers and managers about what’s great and what needs improvement.
Generally, the top three websites for software product reviews are TrustRadius, G2, and Gartner Peer Insights– and most product reviews take no more than 10 minutes of your time.
5. Technical or developer contributions: Regularly share your expertise with others by responding to questions on community forums (1-2 times a week); OR contribute code regularly (recommend every 1-2 weeks) on developer channels.
Tip: Can’t post or share content externally? No need to worry. If you’re an advocate to your company internally, your commitment to going above and beyond the scope of your role to answer forums or support on an intranet count in our eyes. Just submit a clear description and perhaps send a screenshot when you record your activity.
6. Social media: Post regularly (recommend every 1-2 weeks); OR Tweet regularly (recommend daily). Social media contributions should be more than just re-posts to count as advocacy; it should include your thoughts or creativity as well.
7. Blogs, books, articles, podcasts: Users can create and share valuable technical content related to your product or industry, such as blog posts, videos, articles, podcasts or infographics. This not only showcases their expertise but also adds value to your target audience.
8. Community Engagement: Participating in the forums and discussions or answering questions in communities such as Common, virtual groups like Cognoise, local User Groups, IBM TechXchange Community, StackOverflow, Open Source. These spaces allow users to share their expertise and insights with a broader audience. This not only helps establish credibility but also exposes the user to new opportunities and connections.
9. User Group Volunteer: Actively run, moderate or play a leadership role in a User Group. This may include holding the role of a board member or leader of a worldwide or local user group; OR Volunteer for user group committees or teams to support user group initiatives or conferences.
10. Teaching and Research: This may include educators adding technical content to their curriculum, completing research on IBM Products and publishing white papers.
11. Sales Support: Acting as a reference in a sales situation, whether you’re volunteering to perform a demo or providing guidance to sales or product marketing teams, it challenges your skillset beyond the scope of your role. This can also include creating formal customer reference stories – or supporting a customer to do so, if you’re a partner Champion.
12. Participate with analyst relations: Contribute or participate in interviews by an industry analyst for a report; this report could be internal or external but provide as many details as possible.
Pssst... Nominations for the IBM Champions Class of 2025 are opening soon! Now is the time to get your activities recorded, or if you are planning to self-nominate, do some reflection on how you advocated this year.
/ Morgan McKeen