In today’s Social Media world growing your fan-base is a big deal, but what some brands forget, or rather what some brands have remembered, is that it’s always important to say “Thank you”. Some brands have now seen that minding your manners pays big dividends (I guess mom IS always right).  Here are a few ways that brands have said thanks to their fans.

Febreze has done an excellent job with saying thank you to their 1 Million fans. They turned saying thank you into an almost 31 hour live streamed event, rotating their employees into a room to say thank you once to each of their fans. Along the way, Febreze posted polls for fans to vote on smelly things to put in the room with them. Thankfully for the employees, they had all the Febreze they would need to “breathe happy no matter what”.

Not only did this event show off the power of Febreze, it also helped their page gain about 50,000 new fans and some positive press in the process. On top of increasing their earned reach, one of the most important things this event did was humanize Febreze. Showing the faces of a few dozen employees goofing off while saying thank you went a long way to remind viewers that regular people are working to make our world smell better. I even got a friendly response to one of my comments on their page, written just for me.  

Porsche is another great example of a brand saying thank you. Designers at Porsche used reaching 1 Million and 2 Million fans as opportunities to make awesome online, and also in this case, physical content. Porsche made two exclusive models of Porsche and covered them with thumbnail sized pictures of all of their Facebook fans. The Facebook page also features an app allowing fans to see the car in 360°. The end products were so flashy and unique, that they decided to place both cars in their Stuttgart, Germany museum.

Porsche took advantage of these milestones, and their beautiful content helped skyrocket them to 4.2 Million Facebook fans. This idea also resonated with me for two other reasons. The first is that by providing 360° app, fans were able to show their friends and have a great incentive to visit the museum to see the car in person. The other is that the brand embraced all of their fans, regardless if they actually owned a Porsche.

Being luxury brand usually creates a disparity between those who can and cannot afford the product, but here Porsche made everyone who is pictured on the car forever linked to the brand.

Last, but definitely not least, are our friends at Crowdtap. Crowdtap challenged their users to throw the best “The Smurfs” DVD release party possible. When Crowdtap saw how great a job some of their users did, they sent them surprise Smurf Swag bags filled with awesome Smurf merchandise to say thanks! Mothers who received the packs went right to Facebook to show off their thank you gifts.

By saying thank you to their users, Crowdtap spawned a whole new group of brand evangelists; a new group of moms who will keep returning to Crowdtap to take on future challenges. This was an excellent way for Crowdtap to not only grow awareness about the movie release for their client, but also to say thank you to their users by giving them exclusive merchandise.

Takeaways:

            So if you’ve reached this point, I must thank YOU for bearing with me. There are a few valuable lessons here to keep in mind for your fans:

1.     Thanking fans creates a great opportunity to create original content that drives new likes, press and followers.

2.     Reaching out to fans by saying thanks encourages future interactions with fans, allowing you to build on your consumer relationships.

3.     Saying thank you and humanizing your brand page reminds consumers that real people are behind the scenes of their favorite brands.

Thank you, thank you very much.

-Written by David Forman, Brand Development Intern