In November 2007, Facebook launched Pages, stating, “Now, there is a place for them and you can become a fan of whatever pages you choose in order to interact with your passions in new ways.” Eight years later, with the largest active base of users, sharers, and brand fans in the digital world, Facebook Pages are no longer just one of a few channels to connect with customers, it has become the channel to do so.
Yet, many brands crave a simpler time before the existence of News Feed, like-gating, and influencer campaigns, when the eagerness and excitement of brands on Facebook was unmistakable. The ability for brands to connect to consumers through unpaid outreach, and driven by optimism and openness that had previously been unavailable on any other channels. Brands began connecting to a small core of people, a regular audience whose willingness to engage on the channel created a more aspirational look at how these brands wanted to be perceived by their fans, and what they wanted out of social.
Today, the desire for users to connect in a raw and real way with brands on social channels hasn’t changed, it’s just become more difficult to do so. And still, brands are finding ways to leverage this small base of passionate customers to help them grow word of mouth, build loyalty, and drive advocacy across digital channels. The Crowdly platform exists to help brands get back to the basics of identifying, engaging, and leveraging their core base of advocates, and connect with them with the same intentions they created their brand Page for in the first place.
In order to truly appreciate these aspirations, we took a look back at the humble beginnings of some of our favorite brands.
From Levi’s to Taco Bell, and Ford to Charmin, here’s a look at the posts that started it all.