This step comes from overall market sentiments, competition and our implementations.
Mumbai: In a rapidly evolving media and marketing landscape, advocacy is no longer just a buzzword — it’s a brand imperative. Leading this charge is Socxo, a pioneer in the advocacy marketing space, which has recently repositioned its platform under the S.M.A.R.T framework — Simple, Measurable, Achievable, Rewarding, and Tactical.
With this move, Socxo aims to redefine how brands engage employees, customers, and partners as advocates in a more structured and outcome-driven manner. The repositioning comes at a time when performance metrics, ROI-driven engagement, and platform usability are crucial in the martech ecosystem.
Since its inception, Socxo has been used by leading brands in India, North America, and Europe to drive their content amplification and engagement on social media, through trusted stakeholders/influencers like Brand Advocates/Ambassadors.
.Ajit is a veteran with over three decades of experience in the CRM, Marketing Services, Tech, and Advertising. Ajit believes in the power of ideas. And how they are central to any strategy.
For example, a simple and clear 5 slide idea deck communicates the strategy better than a 100 slide deck. Add to that a strong flavour of execution. Ideas are only as good as they are executed. He come with a deep experience in brands, CRM and experiential marketing in companies like Jwt, OgilvyOne, Wunderman and Bates CHI and Sercon amongst others.
Ajit has a clear understanding on practical and implementation, as well as the big picture, strategy and ideas. He began his journey in the traditional marketing space and has the rigour and understanding of what makes brands. Coupled with hands on exposure to digital branding, performance marketing. Social media and analytics.
Ajit believes that leadership comes from empowering the right people to do the right jobs and guiding them to be successful. Brands are built through building great teams. And helping them influence the trajectory of the business. Employees, partners and communities should be the core of one’s successful business.
While technology & innovation helps brands to power up one’s creative ideas on scale. Brand Advocacy a niche marketing discipline. At its core is Employer Branding. Which is growing rapidly in the US, Europe, now catching up in India.
In this exclusive conversation with MadeInMedia.in, Ajit Narayan, CMO, Socxo shares the thinking behind the shift, what it means for brands and users, and how the company is staying ahead of the curve in a noisy digital world.
What prompted the decision to reposition Socxo under the S.M.A.R.T framework? How does the new identity align with the evolving needs of your clients and the market?
We started with broad targeting on our platform as the tool for multiple use cases; e.g Employee Advocacy, Social Selling, Nano-Influencer Marketing, Employer Branding, Partner Advocacy. These were all relevant uses but were fragmented across need states for different organisations. And this was similar to what other platforms were communicating and positioning themselves as too. Over the next few years, the market started consolidating and we started seeing focussed re-positionings and product play and development for specific areas and initiatives.
Our own experiences in the market gave us insights on which segments were actually using our platform and well. This gave us the fodder to re-think and also align with our own product development as we had invested in new products as well. Which gave us the idea to merge specific areas of our new products with Socxo and out came three clear directions:
a) Our product was smart. Had more than just the usual collect, collate and share model. It had ways to bring back traffic from third party links, ability to share files and create referrals and more
b) Employee were the core of our platform. And making them great at voicing their opinions of the corporate brand was more than just sharing content
c) No other player in the market had thought about these powerful additional features to boost the content marketing game through advocacy.
We converted this into the acronym S.M.A.R.T and targeted for Employer branding and Advocacy.
Is this shift driven by user behaviour, technological evolution, or competitive trends?
This step comes from overall market sentiments, competition and our implementations. It is a mix of signals, which I explained above.
Could you elaborate on how each element of S.M.A.R.T (Simple, Measurable, Achievable, Rewarding, Tactical) translates into platform features?
The real complication is in making complicated ideas and process into simple usable bit.
Simple: Advocacy is about content Collection, Collation, Dissemination, Tracking, Measuring process are complex. But in our platform it is simplified into a few clicks. Additionally the entire system for the users runs on mobile as well as desktop.
Ease of use… the primary focus for users through our application.
Measurable: Tracking actions of users on the system gives access to user and content metrics better than even social media channels for users. And more powerful measurement and rewards mechanisms for the admins. This is one of the core pillars of creating an advocacy program in the first place.
Achievable: There is no point setting grandiose goals if they cannot be achieved. So as part of our advisory services we help our clients set up simple clear goals which can be met by the admins and users. With bursts of gamification to make it more interesting.
Rewarding: Gamification engine is backed by fulfilment on a global scale depending on location of the users. Our partnerships allow smooth fulfilment of rewards.
Tactical: Marketing through employees is not linear. It requires tactical interventions and most importantly education and training to help employees succeed in business social media. This is not about sharing selfies but about quality content sharing and engagement in business platforms. On going tactical interventions with our clients helps them achieve their goals.
Are you targeting a broader advocacy ecosystem now – beyond employees? Which sectors or client types are most aligned with the new platform direction?
As of now no plans. The target is B2B. And will remain so as it is most useful for this segment.
What is Socxo’s USP and how is it different from other players in the advocacy marketing or employee engagement space?
Socxo’s USP is that we are a SMART. Our new positioning is what breaks us from the clutter and allows us to grow in the market
Can you share success stories or early case studies under the S.M.A.R.T positioning?
We have moved to this model recently, and it is too early to comment on this. We will have case studies next year.
The future roadmap look like for Socxo in terms of product evolution or geographic expansion?
We are already present in the US market which is one of our core markets. And also English speaking markets across EU.
Are there plans to integrate AI or automation to further enhance tactical execution?
AI integration is already in process and we will be using it smartly over the coming months. AI is powerful if used properly. Product development in that area specifically for ease of use, context of use is being developed.
How do you envision the role of advocacy evolving in a world moving toward decentralized, community-led brand engagement?
Advocacy is nothing new. It has always been around. And it will always be there. Social media is not going away anytime soon. Till it is around Advocacy marketing will co-exist with other tools and models.
