For nearly three decades, Referential has excelled in providing premier customer advocacy and marketing services. Our commitment to leveraging cutting-edge technologies for client growth and relationship building inspired the creation of our Partner Platform Overview series, the previous of which you can find here discussion Deeto.

In this, the eighth and final edition, we highlight Influitive, a platform with a significant history and impact in customer advocacy.  

—-A Brief History 

Founded in 2010 by Marc Organ, this platform – known as an AdvocateHub – was marketed as a gamified way to prioritize the activities of advocates across a variety of segments.  It went through numerous iterations, regularly gathering the feedback of its users, and eventually expanded to become not just a gamified hub, but a customer community platform, website embeddable widgets, asset management tool, lead gen device, and more. I always compared it to a Swiss army knife; if there was something to be done, and it was customer advocacy focused, Influitive probably had a way to go about it. 

The most recent news, which most  practitioners in our space are aware of, is that in December of 2023, Influitive was purchased by Jigsaw Interactive.  

It’s important to note that I’ve worked with this technology in depth since roughly 2013, and Referential has partnered with this organization since roughly the same time. I have spoken at Advocamp several times, am a BAMMIE finalist, and was for the last few years a top ten member of Influitive’s community, VIP. With that as a backdrop, I’d like to walk you all through my top three favorite features of this unique platform.

—-Targeting Capabilities 

Influitive's robust targeting features enable administrators to create detailed customer groups based on various attributes. These groups – a form of meta tagging – can be assigned automatically through mechanisms such as invitation join codes or completion of hub activities ("Challenges"). This dynamic grouping system enables highly personalized experiences, supporting multiple, parallel communities within the same hub. 

This group addition can also create a domino effect. For example, if someone identifies themselves as being a part of a “NYC” group in terms of their location, then with the right rules in place, this can add them to the NY state group, which adds them to the USA group. In addition, maybe there are sales territories; by being a customer in NYC, they’re automatically added to the pre-determined sales territory. The same effect can exist for product lines, and so on.  

Via groups, with the right oversight and admin diligence, multiple communities can be run within the same hub, with users having no awareness of one another. Only group X sees certain challenges, group Y and Z see other challenges. Extrapolate this across a mature advocacy program, and in parallel you can have an employee advocacy program running beside a partner program running beside a North American customer program and so on. Each of them with their own unique branding and tone! 

Administrators also can use "custom profile fields" to further refine advocate targeting, enhancing the overall user experience. This segmentation capability is fundamental to the effective administration of the platform. Targeting within a hub sets the tone for everything else to follow, in terms of overall administration.  

—-The AdvocateHub Experience 

An administrator has relative carte blanche over; the activities in which advocates are being asked to participate, how they are communicated and how they appear. Embeddable images and videos within the challenges are extremely common and important; the best hubs contain a wide variety. Challenges are assigned points that admins can vary depending on the level of importance or difficulty of completing each challenge. The immediacy of challenge participation often surprises and delights users. In a healthy hub, some users will complete challenges as soon as they are launched!

In addition, the "Discussions" feature encourages thread-based communication among users and administrators, akin to platforms like Reddit. This feature can be tailored to specific groups, ensuring relevant participation. 

—-Dashboards 

In our experience, justifying the impact of advocacy programs – and in the supporting software stack – is becoming an imperative. 

Influitive provides a comprehensive suite of responsive dashboards, enabling administrators to justify their efforts and time investment. These dashboards allow data segmentation by various criteria, offering insights into member activities, group dynamics, and challenge performance. Administrators also can export data in real-time, facilitating quick responses to specific needs, such as Analyst Relations requests. 

—-Conclusion 

Influitive has proven to be a valuable asset for customer advocacy programs, offering robust targeting capabilities, flexible challenge design, and comprehensive analytics. Its multifaceted features support the creation of personalized advocate experiences, driving engagement and community vibrancy.

As an agency with extensive experience, we understand the complexities and nuances of these tools because we work with them on a daily basis across a variety of industries and company sizes. Our platform-agnostic approach ensures that we provide unbiased guidance tailored to your unique needs, helping you make informed decisions that best support your customer advocacy initiatives.

Reach out to hello@referentialinc.com, today, for a free 30-minute consultation with industry professionals with expertise navigating the CMP /RMS /CAP landscape!