Brands have recognised the power of advocates for years but this combined with the digital comms landscape gives us the opportunity to build ‘brand fans’. The concept of Brand Fans is the way of organisng our thinking around how you socialise your brand and encourage consumers to be a part of it. Brands need fans today more than ever and if gathered and activated in the right way they can be very powerful. At its most basic a brand fan will join your fan page on facebook at its most extreme they will join you on your mission, contribute to your brand and marketing and more. Here are 3 ways you have to behave as a brand if you want fans:
- A fan should be able to affect your story – your marketing should allow consumers to contribute and be a part of what you say and do, a genuine openess is required. For example Walkers Do Us a Flavour – 2 million flavours were submitted and thousands of votes were received. Winner Builders Breakfast – 50,000 quid and 1% profits…
- A Fan should have absolute access to your brand world – This is about inviting people to talk to you and share your interests – Compare the Market with Compare the Meerkat – making a low engagement category interesting and compelling enough to have over 500,000 fans on facebook.
- A fan should see you have a perspective or POV. This not about talking about your product but engaging your consumers on topics that interest and affect them. Essentially it is being relevant to them and their world – A great example of this is the Obama campaign – he clearing set out a belief and POV on hope and change and then invited the nation to be a part of this, it was not about him but about them. The campaign created tools and content that allowed information and opinion to be shared and amplified. They then used this content from the digital campaign to populate their the ATL paid for media, namely outdoor with ‘Early voting has begun’ that articulated the support he already had to a much bigger audience.
Joanna Lyall's Blog 