Don’t just be in contact with your customers, embrace them!

This is the fifth post in a five-part series on What Rockstars Can Teach You About Kicking Ass With Social Media.  Part one is here, part two is here, part three is here, and part four is here.

Recently I blogged on The Daily Fix about how Amanda Palmer sold $11,000 worth of t-shirts in 2 hours via Twitter.  I think this ‘case study’ is a perfect example of how rockstars and companies differ in the way they view the people that buy their products.

For the most part, I think many companies see customers as people that they ‘have’ to connect with, and that having contact with these people is a ‘necessary evil’.

But rockstars such as Amanda seem to thrive on the interaction with their customers.  They don’t see it as something that HAS to be done, but they WANT that interaction, and crave it.  As a result, it makes it much easier for customers to become fans.

Another example, during my Rockstar presentation at Social South, I mentioned how Collective Soul is using Twitter to connect with their fans, and showed this tweet they had left:

Trey Pennington was in attendance during my session, and immediately tweeted to Collective Soul that I had mentioned them in my presentation.  Within minutes, the band left this tweet:

See what just happened?  Collective Soul noticed that both Trey and I were promoting them, so they went out of their way to ENCOURAGE that behavior from us, by interacting with both of us and thanking us.

Companies should be taking close notes on what rockstars such as Collective Soul and Amanda Palmer are doing.  They are openly embracing the people that are more passionate about them.  Basically, they are finding the people that are already singing their praises, and handing them a microphone.  Brilliant.

Look at what Cirque du Soleil is doing in using social media to embrace their brand ambassadors.  They are finding the people online that are passionate and vocal about their shows, and are embracing them to help promote them online.  And the results speak for themselves, Cirque’s Social Media Manager Jessica Berlin explains that “The ROI for our social media outreach has been better than for any other form of advertising for us.”

Find your most passionate customers, the ones that truly love you, and give them a microphone.  All of the lessons that we’ve covered this week (Interacting with your fans in their space, Getting out of their way, Tapping into the ‘Bigger Idea’) are about giving customers a reason to become fans, and then when they do, you turn them loose.

And the great irony is, many of the companies that would NEVER consider embracing their most passionate fans via social media, are the same ones that wouldn’t think twice about turning their ‘social media strategy’ over to an intern. (HT – @CC_Chapman)

Thanks for checking out this Rockstar series this week, I hope you’ve enjoyed it!  BTW if your company would like to learn how to use social media to better connect with your fans/evangelists, please email me.