“You can’t buy homegrown tomatoes,” as the old saying goes. You also can’t buy a “brand evangelist.” To understand why, you have to go back to the word “evangelist” and its ecclesiastical roots. The word comes from the Greek words eu and angellus, meaning “messenger with good news.”

At the most basic level, that’s what a brand evangelist is: someone who’s discovered something truly great, and is so excited that he or she is compelled to share it with the world. That’s why you can’t “hire” a brand evangelist. But you can find them, empower them, and reward them.

The first step is being legitimately great news to your customers, clients or patrons. If you don’t offer something truly exceptional, you simply can’t expect to pay people to pretend that you are. That kind of thinking goes directly against the principles of authenticity and genuine word-of-mouth value that brand evangelism embodies.

Paid endorsement is not brand evangelism, no matter how hard some marketers may try to spin it that way. Have businesses used paid endorsement models successfully to promote their brands in the past? Absolutely. In that sense, it’s no different than paying an athlete to star in your commercial, or doing product placement in a movie. Paid endorsement still has a place in 21st century marketing (although I personally believe its power is waning in favor of updated forms of word-of-mouth from ordinary consumers).

That said, paid endorsement is still traditional advertising. The jury is still out on whether or not paying bloggers to endorse your business has demonstrable value. But calling that “brand evangelism” is like spray-painting a horse and buggy and calling it an automobile.