What makes top brands so valuable? It’s not
just that they sell a lot of volume. The most valuable consumer brands
are successful because of the relationships they form with their
customers.
And while ‘relationship’ is the promise of the social Web, most brands
have missed the boat when it comes to their social marketing
initiatives. Instead of investing in relationships, brands have largely
invested in a token presence on Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace. It’s no
wonder they haven’t seen an ROI.
Don’t get me wrong, plenty of people go to Facebook or MySpace for
plenty of reasons; your brand just isn’t one of them. My company
recently completed a study of the entertainment sector, for example.
What we found was that while there were plenty of fan pages for TV
shows & movies, and they had thousands or even hundreds of
thousands of ‘friends’, these members did not actually engage. In fact,
we didn’t find a single brand that had even close to one engagement
action (comment, photo, video, etc.) per fan. Let’s face it: people are
on social networks to do just that, socialize with their friends.
Forcing yourself into those conversations puts you in the same class as
telemarketers calling during dinnertime. You’re interrupting and out of
context.
So how can your brand benefit from its fans online? The solution is not
to barnacle onto existing social networks, but to create your own —
either building it yourself or using any of the various solutions in
the marketplace. By doing this, you’ll attract your brand superfans —
the people who will actually want to interact with your brand. These
superfans will do more than you ever imagined, without a dollar of
marketing spend. Your fans will find you and stick with you if you let
them do what they want to do: celebrate and go crazy with your brand.
Take, for example, how fans of FOX’s popular show Dollhouse recently
played an integral part in the show’s renewal by orchestrating
campaigns on the Official Dollhouse Fansite and creating fansites like
www.SaveTheDollhouse.com. FOX’s ownership of the fansite allowed the
network to interact with the show’s supporters and gain greater insight
into the show’s popularity, eventually influencing their strategic
decision to bring the property back.
It’s clear why this matters to brands and should matter to you: your
biggest fans are your most valuable and authentic social marketing
vehicle. If you invest in a true relationship with them, you’ll be able
to move and react quickly to their ever-changing needs, and even ask
them for help. It doesn’t take much to keep them happy – just creating
a special and honored place and engaging in honest dialogue. When you
invite them in, you unleash their willingness and desire to recruit
other fans that will gush and rave online with them. Just look at
Starbucks’ MY Starbucks Idea campaign from last year, which by the way,
is still going strong with the coffee community. Starbucks built an
environment where their fans and customers could come together and
discuss ways to improve the already immensely popular café experience.
Starbucks fans have submitted, discussed, and voted on somewhere around
more than 60,000 ideas since the site went up. That’s impressive online
engagement, to say the least, for a company who hasn’t been top of mind
when it comes to successful internet campaigns. No matter what industry
you’re in, when fans beget fans, you’ve got a recipe for continued
success.
To take the next big step in monetizing fans’ passion online,
you have to go beyond having a page on the social nets. Build an
environment where fans can connect with other fans as well as your
brand because they love it, not because it’s there. This is an
environment where you’re not just one among thousands of brands. It’s
an environment where your brand is the destination.
(Image source: fastforwardblog.com)
