Terminate the Turf War between Advocacy & Community | BTTBS Webinar

Terminate the Turf War.  Amplify the Impact.

If your customer advocacy program and customer community are still operating in separate lanes, you’re not just missing opportunities—you’re wasting them.

This session cuts through the noise with a practical, no-fluff guide to uniting these two powerful engines of engagement.

Learn how to:

• Build smarter, more meaningful customer connections
• Identify advocates without the scavenger hunt
• Scale your program’s impact and prove measurable results

If you’re a customer marketing or advocacy professional ready to move from maintenance mode to momentum, this is your blueprint. The time to act is now—because in today’s environment, siloed efforts don’t just slow you down—they hold you back.

Featuring special guest:
Dave Hansen, Global Customer Advocacy Program Manager, Siemens

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Why the “Turf War” Happens

Despite shared objectives — stronger customer relationships, higher retention, and increased lifetime value — customer advocacy and customer community initiatives often function as separate entities:

• Customer Advocacy programs focus on identifying and activating passionate customers who can serve as references, case study contributors, testimonials, beta users, or product champions.
• Customer Community efforts center on building a space (online portal, forum, social group) where users can interact with one another, share knowledge, and strengthen brand loyalty through peer engagement.

This siloed approach limits visibility into who customers truly are, what drives their engagement, and how best to activate them strategically.

Key Strategies for Community Alignment

The webinar provides a no-fluff, tactical framework for uniting advocacy and community functions. While the original webinar itself is concise, its core insights are strategic and highly actionable:

1. Shared Goals and Alignment

Rather than running parallel programs that barely intersect, organizations should create shared objectives for advocacy and community teams. These might include:

• Improving Net Promoter Score (NPS)
• Increasing participation in community discussions and advocacy programs
• Driving product feedback loops
• Enhancing peer knowledge sharing

Setting measurable goals that tie to broader business outcomes (e.g., revenue impact, customer retention) encourages collaboration rather than competition.

2. Use Community as a Talent Pool for Advocates

One practical way teams can work together is by using community engagement signals to identify potential advocates. Instead of searching high and low for customers who might be willing to participate in case studies or testimonials, teams can identify individuals already active and vocal in community forums. These individuals:

• Demonstrate commitment
• Engage peers
• Offer valuable feedback
• Act as natural advocates

By treating the community as a pipeline for advocacy, both teams benefit — community gets recognition and growth, while advocacy gains vetted, enthusiastic participants.

3. Cross-Functional Processes and Workflows

Aligning teams means more than simply agreeing to collaborate; it means creating workflows that operationalize collaboration. Examples include:

• Joint planning sessions
• Shared dashboards and metrics
• Coordinated campaigns
• Cross-functional playbooks

When both teams understand when and how to collaborate — and how success will be measured — it becomes easier to break down internal barriers and accelerate impact.

Who Should Watch

This webinar is especially relevant for:

• Customer advocacy leaders
• Community managers
• Customer success professionals
• Marketing strategists
• Product teams looking to increase customer engagement
• Business leaders looking to improve ROI on customer programs

If your organization wants to move beyond operationally maintaining customer programs to strategically growing them, this kind of alignment is essential.