How LEGO Fuels Their Network Of Fans

Written by Igor Beuker on June 7th, 2010 | 7 comments

In his Word of Mouth Supergenius class, “Diving into LEGO’s strategy behind connecting their amazing network of fans,” Jason Falls shared how LEGO found and supported their biggest fans. Jake McKee covered how to look beyond your target customers, support your existing fan bases, and replicate what’s working for your other fan bases.

Interested in some of Jake’s ideas? I suggest you read along…

1. Look beyond your target customers
2. Support existing fans
3. Find what works and replicate

1. Look beyond your target customers
Your target market isn’t always your biggest group of talkers. For years, LEGO was focused on kids — that is, until they realized adults had created their own community of enthusiasts. When LEGO started connecting these talkers, not only did they increase their word of mouth, they immediately helped their bottom line. Whereas kids were spending $20 a year on LEGOs, these adults were spending around $1,000.

2. Support existing fans
Without LEGO’s knowledge, adult fans had already created an online LEGO community and marketplace. LEGO approached this group by offering support and resources in the form of an ambassador program. By offering to support what these fans were already doing so well -instead of demanding ownership and control -LEGO was welcomed into the community.

3. Find what works and replicate
The enthusiasm of the adult fans helped teach LEGO how to gain more participation from their other fans- including kids. Jake says that when you find something that works with one fan group, try applying it to other groups of talkers. Because the fundamentals of great communities are the same, strategies behind one fan community can often generate similar success for another community.

If you liked the presentation, you might want to join the Word of Mouth Supergenius event on July 20, 2010 in New York by GasPedal.

Who do I believe in engaging your brand with influencers and fans? Because you can pull them gently through your funnel, towards preference, loyalty and advocacy. Discover your VSPOT or explore some of the social media marketing programs here at SocialMedia8.

If you know more great fans programs like Adidas Originals on Facebook (close to 3 million engaged and loyal fans!!) please share the links below with our audience. We would love to ignite peer learnings.

Follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, sign up for our weekly e-mail or watch the ViralTracker social video metrics demo.