How Dingo got 6,000 Facebook Likes in just 3 Days

Brian Heil with Social Wildfire

This blog post is guest-written by Brian Heil, Social Media Consultant at Social Wildfire. We asked Brian to share the story of the social media success of his client, Dingo Brand.

Dingo is a leading dog treat brand that has lately also become a rapidly growing interactive organization by connecting and resonating with savvy, articulate consumers. In addition to partnering with Bazaarvoice to capture, display and amplify consumer contributions, Dingo also aimed to increase its interactive footprint by engaging Facebook users. To do so, they decided to run a promotion through the social website that just surpassed 500 million users. In just 3 days, Dingo went from 330 Facebook Likes to over 6,000. How were they able to foster such success so quickly? Simple: Dingo put the power in the hands of the consumer.

Just one of the 1,000+ posts from Dingo's Facebook fans

Their goals?

• Capture more Dingo users, adding to their existing database of power users.
• Find dog owners who haven’t tried Dingo and drive trial of their product.
• Utilize the power of Facebook to build a community in which Dingo could have easy, real-time interaction with consumers.

Facebook users love Dingo, too!

How? Dingo challenged their existing fan base of 330 people to help get their Like count to 5,000. The first 5,000 Likes who provided their e-mail address would receive a $20 coupon redeemable at Dingobrand.com. In order for anyone to get the $20 coupon, Dingo had to reach at least 5,000 Likes. Then, in order for the individual consumer to receive their coupon, they had to submit their e-mail in the “Join My List” tab (powered by a Constant Contact Facebook app) which added them to the list of emails that would be able to use the coupon.

What happened? The original 330 started posting the link on sites like My Pet Savings, Nana’s Deals and More, and the promotion spread virally. As the fan base grew, its rate of growth accelerated. Dingo exceeded their initial goal and surpassed 6,000 Likes within 3 days! They gave the consumers the task of finding Facebook Likes for them and that is exactly what happened.

Are there some users that signed up because they just want free stuff? Of course. Does that muddy the waters a bit? Definitely.

However, in one week there have been almost 1,000 posts and comments by Facebook users on the Dingo fan page, an amazing amount of user generated content. In addition, there have been almost 250 photos posted of users’ dogs, many of them enjoying Dingo products – priceless content. All the while, Dingo has kept up with the posts and has been using this as an opportunity to have a flowing conversation with what has become a living, breathing community.

Within 3 days, Dingo was able to significantly increase their database of prospective customers, have them try their brand, and create a rich community of dog owners who can be utilized as a learning lab as well as a medium to promote new products and programs.