Archive for the ‘Exclusivity’ Category

How to Really Get “Liked” on Facebook

By Dr. Angela Hausman, Associate Professor at Howard University

“Likes” have replaced “fans” on business Facebook pages. Having more likes is a good thing, and Starbucks is the leading company, with more than 16 million likes. Starbucks is followed closely by Coca Cola, with more than 15 million likes. You can see the rest of the top 25 companies on the TNW Web site. As the average Facebook user has 80 friends, Starbucks’ message reaches more than 1.26 billion people!

How to Avoid the Top Three Facebook Faux Pas

Getting likes involves more than building a Facebook business page and waiting for people to find it. And if you use your business page as just another outlet for your press releases, as many businesses on Facebook do, you’re not likely to generate much interest or get many likes. Similarly, using your Facebook fan page to echo your tweets is a bad idea. Certainly, putting some good tweets on Facebook is fine, but don’t link them so all your tweets are automatically sent to your Facebook page. Buying Facebook fans or engaging in Facebook exchanges (where businesses agree to like each other) are similarly bad ideas, as they deliver fans who are not truly engaged with the brand.

Getting Likes

The key to getting Facebook likes is to give people a reason for liking your brand. Here are some great examples of ways to drive Facebook likes:

  • Support a cause. Pedigree recently launched a campaign to encourage dog owners to like its brand. For every Facebook user who did so, Pedigree donated a bowl of dog food to an adoption center. To date, more than a million bowls of food have been donated—which means Pedigree has added a million new likes. As part of the strategy, Pedigree also encourages sharing the program across about a dozen other social media platforms.
  • Give exclusive content. People want to feel special and love having access to information and products before anyone else. Having this access encourages them to like your brand and increases the likelihood they’ll pass along your information to their friends. Movie producers, book authors, and musical performers use this extensively. For instance, Taylor Swift often gives fans advance access to her music tracks or music videos before they reach the public. And companies are starting to use this tool. For example, Procter & Gamble offered advance access to Pantene for its fans before the product was sold in stores.
  • Host a contest. The Albuquerque Convention & Visitors Bureau hosts a contest on its Facebook page. People who like the page are entered into the contest and have a chance to win two tickets for a hot air balloon ride during the famous Balloon Festival. And Dunkin’ Donuts is using its contest not only to build its fan base, but to attract other fans. Contestants upload a video showing how much Dunkin’ Donuts’ coffee means to them. Winners get a trip to Costa Rica or a year’s supply of the coffee delivered to their homes. The contest encourages Facebook users to like Dunkin’ Donuts, and the contestants encourage their friends to like the brand to be able to vote for their videos and win the contest.

Simply said, likes on Facebook encourage meaningful engagement with your brand. Just make sure you understand how to generate them appropriately.

Posted in Angela Hausman, Branding, Contests, Engagement, Exclusive Content, Exclusivity, Facebook, Promotions | Comments Off on How to Really Get “Liked” on Facebook

Creating Luxury Tribes with Communication and Social Networks

By Berenice Ring, Professor at Fundação Getulio Vargas

Aston Martin has a dealership at São Paulo’s trendy Avenida Europa. Lamborghini has one as well. Office space in that avenue does not come cheap, and the rent per square foot is almost nonsensical. Yet these stores are neither small nor modest.

Since October 2009, 17 Lamborghinis have been sold in Brazil for an average price of R$1.6 million (± US$950,000). Surely, to sell 17 units of a vehicle aimed at such a select audience, none of these brands would need to invest in a showroom. They could easily locate their prospective clients and contact them directly.

Why then does Lamborghini keep this amazing store and engage in social media to interact with its fans? And why is it always present at exhibitions like the São Paulo Auto Show, where visitors come in all sizes and shapes except that of buyers of their cars? Why does it invest in communication?

To win a special place in the minds and hearts of their audiences, luxury brands must be admired by their customers and potential buyers. But they also must be desired and have their value acknowledged by those who cannot buy their products—the brand fans who visit the store at night and covet the car through the store window, who create communities on Facebook and post comments on Twitter, and who form long queues at the Auto Show to see the brand’s latest model. These fans help to establish the throne from where brands such as Lamborghini will reign for the few. This is the principle of exclusivity.

Through communication and social networks, luxury brands like Lamborghini disseminate their dream and their magic—and create aspirations. They enable the “sense of belonging,” brokering relationships between people who would never meet otherwise and making it possible for them to feel connected.

This dynamic engenders very clear perceptions. Buying a Lamborghini gives the owner much more than the thrill of accelerating from 0 to 100 km/h in 3.4 seconds. The machine comes bundled with a whole set of meanings. Prestige is the first item in the package. The buyer becomes part of an extremely select tribe, recognized not only by their peers but also by those will never be part of it.

A taste for speed, sporty style, and bold design is ingrained in the imagination of the brand’s ambassadors, whether they are owners who take their machines for a ride on weekends or fans who collect photos on the walls of their homes. Lamborghini’s brand manager understands that well. Aston Martin’s does, too. And so do most well-managed luxury brands.

Posted in Berenice Ring, Brand Ambassadors, Branding, Exclusivity, Facebook, Luxury, Marketing, Tribes, Twitter | Comments Off on Creating Luxury Tribes with Communication and Social Networks