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fans are the future of digital marketing

April 29th, 2009 • posts i've written

Thanks to everyone that commented and shared my posts last week. I hope I sparked a few thoughts.

Now here it is, my fan week round-up…

Today, brands must learn how to earn fans. This begins with courting existing communities to earn (not fabricate) credibility. After that, brands must provide the means to connect fans and give them something to do. After all, a dollar spent on fans is a dollar spent on R&D, retention, recruitment, loyalty and longevity.

- a week dedicated to fans and the future of marketing

here’s my rule of thumb for the question, “is it worthy of earning fans?” How many existing communities can you identify as being ‘courtable’ and demonstrate fandom? As Henry puts it, communities aren’t created, they’re courted. And if everything new is constructed from bits and pieces of pre-existing stuff (as Faris says), then you should be able to measure anything new by investigating which communities could be courted based on the stuff inside your new product or show.

- fans: will we earn any?

The mantra of web 2.0 has always been, “ask not what your users can do for you, ask what you can do for your users.” Mike Arauz, a fellow Strategist at Undercurrent, likes to say, “if I choose to tell my friend about your brand, it’s not because I like your brand, but rather because I like my friend.” So the mantra of our brave new world might be, “ask not what people can do for you, ask what you can do for their friends.”

- fans: will they go along for the ride?

When I urge clients to look more closely at niche fan communities, I’m urging them to study the actions and social norms within these groups in order to identify any lead user behaviors that could go mainstream. Fans are creating unanticipated connections between technology, social groups, and media that will reward our attention. And the pace of the web demands we stay focused on centers of innovation, and more often, fan communities represent the undersea chimneys which give life to the next evolution of species.

- fans: lead users

Fan communities are indeed “self-organizing groups focused around the collective production, debate, and circulation of meanings, interpretations, and fantasies in response to various artifacts of contemporary popular culture.” Moreover, fan communities mobilize around unanswered questions.

Advertising is made for people who care… to pay attention. Fans care. Fans pay attention. But most messaging doesn’t create the tension that activates full fan communities. We’re still stuck on saturating a crowd of unwilling participants instead of mobilizing a community to create and spread a conversation.

- fans: mobilize a conversation

Images from my posts: (click the image to read the full post)

Quotes from more brilliant women and men: (click the image to read the full post)

And finally, if you’re interested in more fandom, get to know Joshua Green:

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7 Responses (add your comment)

Julia Roy April 29, 2009
at 9:45 pm

“a dollar spent on fans is a dollar spent on R&D, retention, recruitment, loyalty and longevity” – nicely put Bud. And great post!
Mikej April 30, 2009
at 1:11 am

great rap up mate

here is a little rundown on co-creation thats been doing the rounds from a management consultancy in amsterdam

http://tinyurl.com/ctg9fm
petpand November 20, 2009
at 5:24 pm

great summary of many important ideas! love the “ask not what people can do for you, ask what you can do for their friends.” it’s so true.
awesome work Bud, very inspiring.
Mark Boles February 8, 2010
at 2:51 pm

Here’s my favorite example of “fans”…

bit.ly/4w0hdJ