Anyone carry out simply take their pitchforks, register good posse, and shed the online down
Editor’s Mention: Guest contributor Catherine Get ready is the Vice president, Brand Strategy of MeetMe, Inc., a myspace and facebook to possess appointment new people, and you may co-originator regarding MeetMe’s predecessor myYearbook. She worked on this subject blog post with Geoff Plan () and you will Jeremy Zorn, both of MeetMe, Inc. Find out more at the weblog:
Think of the outcry if the Twitter would be to alter their term. One night as we chose to perform the unthinkable: rebrand a myspace and facebook used by more a million individuals twenty four hours. I altered title out of myYearbook, a social networking getting conference new people, in order to MeetMe.
Once i started myYearbook inside the high-school with my brothers, title noticed correct. But the service and the way people used it rapidly produced title outdated, while we gradually narrowed all of our appeal to 1 material: conference new-people. Our solution had become the fresh new re also-imagination of one’s club, an electronic digital coffeehouse, a social gathering place, but their title explained a senior school reunion. It actually was no surprise that individuals were commonly confused with Classmates from the the vital listeners – those who hadn’t entered united states yet.
Once last year’s merger on Quepasa Agency, we understood we had the ideal possible opportunity to prefer a reputation that really complement, as well as in the method would an individual around the globe brand name to own meeting new people. Shortly after an effective painstaking means of ideation, internal and external surveying when you look at the several dialects, logo invention, website name purchase of meetme and you will , Twitter-handle acquisition of to stop a pot-smoking Elmo incident, protecting the fresh new ticker beste geek dating sites Satisfy toward NYSE AMEX, and you may cautious mouse click-due to speed testing – let-alone you to night time working which have a Ouija panel and you can a rabbit’s foot – i compensated toward MeetMe.
Discover a single problem: we’d zero layout to have starting an effective rebrand correct – only headache stories of accomplishing they completely wrong. When NBCUniversal’s Sci-Fi Channel altered the identity so you’re able to a jargon name for syphilis, it was ridiculed. Whenever Netflix revealed they certainly were changing the Digital video disc-by-post provider so you’re able to Qwikster, societal outcry and you can good plummeting stock speed resulted in a-sudden changes of plans. If large billion-buck people consistently screw up rebrands so badly, how could we hope to obtain because of ours unscathed – especially having an allegedly volatile personal neighborhood.
Yet , that is precisely what we performed. Almost a month following rebrand, an important measuring sticks we used to gauge associate order and you may involvement have got all stayed steady, if not increased.
I took place so it path 1 / 2 of-looking to beat to twice-hand proportions of one’s affiliate foot; rather our very own audience grew
From the beginning, i contacted brand new rebrand significantly less than no delusion our users carry out approve of your alter. Everything we was indeed undertaking is actually seriously unpopular, and now we knew they. One to expertise colored all the decision i generated. Even though studies expressed our very own members extremely concerned myYearbook to meet new-people, it still considerably preferred title “myYearbook” – at all, this is the provider it made a decision to sign up!
I realized the latest stakes have been large, however, we had been indeed shocked you to definitely various other studies only 17% told you they’d never ever sign in once again whenever we altered our very own identity so you can MeetMe. Specific might have checked a comparable analysis and you may think double in the rebranding at all, but we had been pretty happy it wasn’t 80% to make that claim. I assumed the vast majority of those who generated such an excellent allege manage indeed stick around, as their family members and you can people is right here. We just must make sure i failed to incite a riot otherwise a rage who ignite an enthusiastic exodus.