At Blog World, Matt Ridings and Chuck Hemann led a great discussion on Online Influence. At one point, Chuck made the point that if he wanted to reach gardeners, it would probably make more sense to reach out to his mom, who is a gardener, vs Michael Brito, who has a much larger online reach, but isn’t a gardener.
That makes sense to most of us. But I asked what if Michael WAS a gardener. Then it becomes a more apples to apples comparison, but what if Michael was a ‘casual’ gardener, whereas Chuck’s mom absolutely LOVED gardening? At what point does the fact that Chuck’s mom has more passion for gardening outweigh the fact that Michael has a much larger online reach?
Another example: Let’s say you are In N Out Burger and you’re trying to develop a Social Media Outreach campaign for the brand. You aren’t sure if you should appeal to Influencers, or your Fans. Let’s also assume that the Influencers have an average Twitter following of 50,000, whereas your Fans have an average Twitter following of 1,000.
But let’s also assume that your Fans are the people on this video:
Who has a more vested interest in promoting your product, the Influencer with 50,000 Twitter followers that you sent a free gift card, or the woman at the 1:20 mark of the video that is literally crying because she loves your brand that much?
In my opinion, this is the one area of the Influencer vs Fan debate that we miss: The passion of your most loyal customers. If I was creating an outreach campaign for In-N-Out Burgers, I wouldn’t need to know what the online reach was for the customers in the above video. All I would need to see was that they literally love this brand, so much so that they are willing to drive for hours and then stand in line for hours just to be one of the first people to order your product when the store opens.
And then they cry with joy when they get it. If you think it’s better to connect with ‘Influencers’ over Fans like this, then you’re probably in the wrong line of work.
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Hi Mack,
When people mistakenly think it’s about “Klout” (or what makes up that number and others like it), they completely miss the point that influence is about who can help you attain YOUR goal (e.g., selling burgers). We call these passionate fans “brand evangelists” for a reason.
Thank you Daria. It’s all about having a strategy and understanding how and why to appeal to each group. And reaching out to influencers does have a role, if you want to build buzz/awareness for a new product, for example.
But if you want to build long-term relationships and growth, you connect with your biggest fans. They have the passion to help you get where you want to be.
Hi Mack, you truly hit the mark! There is so much focus on perceived clout and numbers that we miss the heart of our engagement strategies. I don’t need 100 million eyeballs on my site, or hundreds of thousands of passive listeners. I want to connect and deliver to those that I truly serve and who are passionate about the value that I bring. Those people may not have perceived influence online but they are the ones that tell others and that has quite frankly kept me in business for almost 8 years!
Thank you Karen for the comment! That’s what I think most brands especially are missing: Is it better to have 100,000 eyeballs on your site that 99% have little to no interest, or 1,000 people that are extremely interested? The thing is, the 1,000 that are extremely interested will likely go out and tell their friends about your site.
I think in the race to get awareness and bigger numbers, we sometimes forget the motivation of the people that represent those numbers.
Wow. As a business we can only hope that our efforts will someday pay off with fans a passionate as that! Truly that should be the goal of every brand and business.
Thanks Mack for posting this video. I now have a very clear goal in my head of the feelings I want my business to create in my customers.
Love the video…not sure that the burger personally brings tears, but I have waited in the drive thru line up for a long time, and it is worth the wait! I would count as a fan!