Tag Archives: fans
Trying to increase your Facebook fans, Twitter following or even charitable donation numbers? Give something away.
Brands make a habit of promising that if YOU follow or like they’ll give things away to a varying number of followers. Life as a Community Moderator has by no means made me immune to this. In the past year, I’ve become a fan of Einstein Bagels—even though I don’t eat bread. I’ve voted on my favorite feature of a Ford Explorer and “liked” the page—even though I have no use for a car in the city, and I’ve followed Chicago Food Critic Steve Dolinsky for the chance to go to dinner with him (and won)—even though (I’m sorry, Steve) I had no idea who he was. Why? Because these brands were all giving stuff away and even though I didn’t necessarily need this stuff, I did what these brands and people asked for a chance to win. Was I bought or was I earned? Short answer: I was bought in all cases except for Steve Dolinksy, he’s great. I don’t fit the other brands’ profiles of a model community member, and I’m a useless fan.
Upon realizing my own affinity to follow the directions of those who will buy or give me things, I started to think through successful contests and giveaways for branded communities. Thus, my proposal for a SXSWi panel, Fans for Freebies, was born.
Aside from my own anecdotal evidence in Einstein Bros Bagels’ giveaway, the brand posted some solid fan numbers after it gave away coupons for free bagels to all who liked its page. In an interview with Spinsucks.com, the brand revealed that it increased its fan numbers from 4,700 to 613,703. Suspecting that many would have dropped off as fans after downloading their coupons, I checked the Facebook fan page’s current fan count: 613,413. That’s a 310 fan loss, out of 609,003 fans gained through the giveaway, that’s over a 99% retention rate. In college, we called that an A+. Because Einstein featured more deals and giveaways since their initial free-bagel offering, my conclusion is that these fans actually frequent Einstein Bagels enough to make use of the page’s coupons, thus they are valuable and active fans. Aside from those who gave their coupons away (me), these fans were earned.
Natalie Prout | Critical Mass London
Having the ability to identify your target market and market to them responsibly is an increasingly forgotten rule of thumb within online marketing. Far too often brands want to jump on the proverbial bandwagon and embrace the hottest, coolest techniques/technologies to gain praise by demonstrating how hip and happening they are. What they don’t realise however, is that most of the time in doing this, they end up damaging the opinion their existing fans have of them, or are missing them entirely.
The biggest hurdle you face in targeting your online efforts is honestly answering the following questions:
1. Who are our consumers?
2. Why do they love our brand?
3. Where do they congregate?
4. How can we communicate with them without irritating them?
The last thing most people want is to be constantly bombarded by irrelevant and overly enthusiastic brands bothering them in their online communities and safe havens. And I’m not just talking about social networks.
Picture this: you’re having a romantic meal for two in a dimly lit romantic restaurant with your significant other when all of a sudden a 10 piece brass band parades over to your table to loudly serenade you. Inappropriate? Yes. Intrusive? Absolutely. Kind of makes you hate 10 piece brass bands? Definitely.
Now, how is that any less annoying then flooding someone’s Twitter dashboard with 15-20 tweets all in quick succession of each other? It’s not really. It’s just as annoying. And on Twitter, you can simply ‘unfollow’ the perpetrator, which is a lot easier then chasing people away from your table in a restaurant.
You should already know the answers to Points 1 and 2 (as you should know your brand if you intent to market it). So skipping straight to the more misunderstood questions of 3 and 4 – let’s talk about the importance of understanding where our fans congregate and how we should communicate with them?
