Recognizing long-time users

@danielle.leroux how much budget do you have? 🤣 But seriously, if you have any high flying members it really does show them (and others) how much you appreciate them by doing things that are public (ie mentioning them or what they are doing/getting publicly) and giving them something to show off about.

Gifts are great, but can you invite them to a sales kick off to speak? Can you fly them to an event that they may be interested in? At the very least, can you interview them and publish their story (connected to your services/application) on LinkedIn, your main website, etc. If their impact on your community can be shouted about, they can use that to show off and build their personal brand. That can be invaluable to a lot people.

Also, there are many people who are not your stereotypical extrovert that the tech world seems to demand you be in order to progress. They don’t blow their own trumpets at every opportunity. However, that doesn’t mean that they don’t want publicity. To them, having someone or some known entity blowing the trumpet for them is the greatest gift you could give them.

However you choose to do it, I think it is important that you give them something/do something for them that makes them proud. Recognition within the Community is great. But that is a limited audience. Recognise them publicly and give them something to add to their résumés.

This is interesting topic and I will follow this.

I dont have anything to give here but I can recommend that send personal email and congratulate them. Say something why you like him/her, let they feel they are special.

Send email, not PM. Email feels more personal and official as well.

Thanks @revote! I was thinking a personal email, card, and/or company swag. 

Dont just send swag, ask would they like to get it and then send it.

There is difference to receive something automatically than choosing to get something. If you send something, maybe something they dont appreciate, they might think “Am I not more worthy than this?!?” and your nice idea may backfire.

“I have some cool swags here and if you like I can send them for you as well...”.

@danielle.leroux I sent something about 30 mins ago, but it looks like it will be considered spam until Monday. Oh well. But essentially I was saying that I really do think it is a great idea to help your top users build their personal brand. Give them an opportunity to have you showing off about them for them. I go into more detail in my original post, I guess you’ll see on Monday…..

Good point, thanks @revote!

I like that idea @rhall! Look forward to seeing your original post.

We have an old community and some of our members have been members over 10 years 😍

A few things we’ve done:

• We do not generally give customer service via private messages, but we do help these trusted members - it’s a small thing and they rarely need anything, but this is a gesture.
• Sometimes we send out gifts - but as @revote mentioned, we first ask them if they want gifts and send only if they wish to receive them 😊

Great ideas, public recognition is definitely on my list! Thank you @rhall. 

It’s so true! Small gestures go a long way @Suvi Lehtovaara.