This guest post is by Jeremy Epstein, founder and chief marketing navigator at Never Stop Marketing. It is adapted from his free e-book, “10 Ways to Cultivate Your Community: How to Create Genuine Fans for the Long-Term.”
Community. Advocates. Raving Fans.
It’s almost accepted marketing gospel these days that you want passionate people to evangelize your brand. If you have that, your network will do the targeting for you.
It’s also pretty widely accepted that the way you create these dedicated fans is to “be remarkable” (Seth Godin) or “put dent in the universe” (Steve Jobs).
But, once you have these fans, what the hell do you actually do with them?
You know, of course, that you shouldn’t be spamming them relentlessly, asking them to fill out 25-minute surveys or giving them incentives that reward the wrong behaviors.
Here are 10 things you can do:
- Provide personalized acknowledgment. It’s not social media; it’s social media. The individual, no matter how “influential” (or not), deserves to be respected as a human being with value. If you do that, good things happen.
- Connect like-minded folks. Evangelists are fueled by meeting other believers. If you connect them with each other, the value of your network grows. There’s actually a mathematical formula that backs this up. It’s called Reed’s Law.
- Understand the core motivation. They aren’t connecting to you because of what you do. As Simon Sinek brilliantly put it, “people don’t buy what you do, people buy why you do it.” Figure that out and you’ll be able to give them more of what they want.
- Offer the opportunity to participate. Don’t just offer simple contests; offer real involvement. Dell’s Ideastorm is a classic example here.
- Curate content. Clay Shirky said, “It’s not information overload, it’s filter failure.” Be the filter for your community about what’s relevant to them and they won’t have to go other places.
- Participate in a relevant way. Going all the way back to the Cluetrain Manifesto, “Markets are conversations.” If you’re at my house and I’m talking about football, you wouldn’t just say, “Hey, when will you buy my product?”
- Offer social proof. Robert Cialdini in his book “Influence” (review) tells us how much we value the opinions of others and how we look for clues in their behavior as to what we should do. Let your community know what others such as them find valuable.
- Provide exclusive experiences. If everybody can do it, it’s not special. When you give your community special access, that builds loyalty, word of mouth and excitement.
- Create unexpected moments. You want your “message” to be remembered, right? Well, the single biggest determinant of whether we recall something later is determined by emotion. And (positive) surprises create emotion … opening the door to help you secure your position in the mind of your community.
- Act with “no strings attached.” Tim Sanders wrote a great book called “Love is the Killer App,” and he is right. What feels better? “I’ll give you X, if you do Y for me” or “here’s X … just because we appreciate you?”
And yes, there’s return on investment in this approach … but you’ll have to check out page 2 of the e-book for that.
Hint: it’s not about “monetizing fans.”
Programmatically and consistently use these genuine community cultivation activities and you’ll soon grow an asset so valuable that the IRS will probably start taxing it.
Your turn: What’s worked for you?
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Thanks for the insight. I think #5 is especially relevant to more niche market companies.
Nice read. I found it really useful as a biomedical evangelist.
My recent post Breakthrough Technology for 12-Lead Diagnostic ECG Recording
Really glad that it was helpful for you.
Thanks for the tips, Jeremy! Getting fans is the easy part, but keeping them informed and entertained enough to stay is the tricky part. I love receiving personalized responses on business pages' Facebook walls – it's a personal touch that only takes a few seconds but means a lot. I'm much more likely to remain a fan of a page if I know I'll be missed!
My recent post Extreme Couponing for Lazy People
So true. Thanks for the validation.
Excellent post Jeremy! I'm adding your article to our newspaper and tweeting it out. Many of our clients need to read your stuff. Thanks!
Glad you liked it! Thanks for reading. Feel free to send them the eBook as well..
http://bit.ly/growfanspdf
Thanks, Jeremy!
Always nice to get reminders about #10. It can become frustrating after a while when the effort keeps going out and doesn't get returned. . but that's our own impatience getting in the way. The pendulum does have a way of swinging back, usually when we stop paying attention or expecting it to do so.
Your analysis is spot on. My company is called Never Stop Marketing b/c I believe that those who do that are the ones who WIN in the end. It's a marathon, not a sprint.
Excellent post. I've cited you and reposted it at http://www.loyalnation.com/blog/
Love it! and will check it out. thanks.
This is a great roundup! The Cluetrain Manifesto is the gift that keeps on giving, isn't it? I'd definitely add that patience is needed (you're so right, Craig)…you have to get in there and do all of those things every single day, for a long time before you start seeing consistent results. So stay with it! It's worth it in the end.
Yep, the art of the Long View. Thanks!
Thanks for sharing this awesome information. It has been very helpful. I shared it with my Facebook and Twitter followers.
My recent post Google Panda
Enjoyed the post Jeremy! Your top 10 is a great resource for building advocacy and community engagement. We have integrated a lot of these strategies and themes into our product, and would love to get your feedback. Please check our top fans leaderboard and analysis tool here: http://www.booshaka.com (link at the bottom for Facebook Page Owners)
I believe that utilizing (as opposed to using, lol) some of the talents of one's followers can greatly enhance a social dynamic; an implied hierarchical presentation can lend itself out nicely to soap opera-like theatrics–while simultaneously offering the common followers a variety of well-established perspectives to resonate with.
Social media has taken face to face networking online. The strategy becomes very similar, what you should do in social media is very close to the same guidelines for face to face networking. Develop relationships, be a good listener, provide friendly advice. If you can master these concepts online you are at least handling the basics.