How to recognize and reward your brand's top fans

I had just posted on the importance of segmenting your market into a smaller chunk that you can "own" in order to monetize your brand and then I ran into this article which talks about keeping and rewarding your top influencers. Good point! Thank you to Jon Siegal for this relevant post and please read on...

Pragmatic Mom

Type A Parenting for the Modern World

http:PragmaticMom.com

I blog on children's literature, education and parenting.

ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS:

• Your fans love deals, promotions, special privileges, access to inside information, and other perks
• Allow your top fans to collect "points" every time they engage with your brand
• Recognize the people who create or share the most content about your brand

Your brand's biggest influencers are the people who actively and continually talk about, comment on, and spread the word about your products and services. These people are crucial to your bottom-line sales, but they are few and far between. In fact, it's said that just 1 percent of a brand's fan base on Facebook and Twitter drives 20 percent of traffic to its website -- and these influencers can directly influence 30 percent or more of your sales just by recommending your products or services to their wider social network.

I recently wrote an article about the critical importance of finding and identifying this 1 percent, pointing out that most brands today have largely focused on amassing a large quantity of fans, instead of cultivating and engaging their highest quality fans. While it's great to have tens of thousands of people following or friending your brand, the majority of these "fans" will probably never visit your fan pages or company website -- or maybe once. You'll get a lot more impact out of directly engaging one influencer with exclusive opportunities and unique content because that person will indirectly promote your brand to thousands of others who are part of his or her social sphere.

To read the rest of the article, click here.