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Why Did Lady Gaga Spend One Million And Create a New Media Company Just to Launch a Fan Site?

Lady Gaga, little monsters, think like a rock starIn February of 2012, Lady Gaga launched LittleMonsters.com.  The community site was designed to be a place/hub for her most passionate fans to come together.  Gaga invested over one million of her own money into the site and even created a new company called Backplane to build out the exact site experience that she wanted for her fans.

While brands are spending millions on marketing to acquire new customers, and partnering with agencies or creating their own to help them better win new sales, Gaga is doing the same thing, in an effort to connect with the very people that are already giving her business.

Why would she go to all of this trouble to build something for the people that already love her?

Data.  Good old-fashioned customer data.

“Pretty much no artist up to this point has really known who their fan base is”, explains Gaga’s manager Troy Carter.  “Their fans specifically by name, age, where they live, what they do, what they like, who their friends are, which concerts they attended, which music they listen to, which songs they skip, where they skip them, just really understanding, having real data.

“And having that data helps you make better decisions as it relates to the music you release, where you tour, how big the venues are, who you invite, the price of the ticket, how much merch to carry with you. Everything. And these are all going to be data-driven decisions that we’re going to be making. It won’t be through Twitter. It won’t be through Facebook. It will be through your own sites that you build, your own communities that you build.

“This is going to be a very transparent thing that you have with your fans, and information that your fans are going to volunteer,” he said, “because they want a better experience.“

For how long have I been banging the drum of the importance of connecting directly with your most passionate customers?  Since at least 2007.  The reason why is simple:  Because the more connected you are to your fans, the better you understand them (and they you).  And the better you understand your most passionate customers, the more effectively you can market to them.

The best part?  Your fans want to share this information with you!  They want to connect directly with you and have a closer connection with you.  One of the things Lady Gaga has noticed on LittleMonsters.com is that fans have started sharing their artwork of the rock star.  Gaga then goes in and picks her favorite works, and then puts them on t-shirts and other merchandise and sells them back to her fans at concerts.

The result?  Merchandise sales at concerts are up 30%.  Hello!  I’m not harping on connecting with your fans and I didn’t write Think Like a Rock Star simply because I wanted you to embrace your fans (although you should, literally!).  I want you to connect directly with your fans because it will have a massive impact on the growth of your business if you do.    

Find your fans, connect with them and connect them to each other.  Watch your business grow.  This isn’t rocket science.  Don’t know how to get started?  I wrote the book that shows you exactly how to connect with your fans step-by-step.

But speaking of rocket scientists, next Monday I’ll be headed to the city that’s home to many rocket scientists.  I’ll be in Huntsville, Alabama presenting Think Like a Rock Star at the Alabama Governor’s Conference on Tourism.  You still have time to register and the event runs from Sunday, August 18th through Tuesday, August the 20th.  I’ll be on site signing copies of Think Like a Rock Star most of the day on the 19th.  Hope to see you there!

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Learn How to Video Blog Tonight at #Blogchat With Chris Yates!

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UPDATE: Here’s the transcript from tonight’s #Blogchat with Chris, click Transcript on the left!

Tonight (August 1th, 2013) at #Blogchat we’ll have Huddle Productions‘ Chris Yates join us to chat about video blogging!  Chris has been utilizing video along with blogging for years for his clients and himself.  He’s also extremely active on Plus and utilizes Hangouts effectively there as well.

Here’s the schedule for our chat, which starts at 8:00 pm Central:

8:00-8:10 – Chris will talk to us about how video blogging differs from regular blogging, different demands, etc
8:10-8:30 – Chris will tell us what types and styles of videos are best, what type of content we should focus on creating.
8:30-8:45 – Advice for shooting great videos
8:45-9:00 – Open Q&A on video blogging

 

So if you need help with video blogging, this is your chance!  Make SURE you are following Chris on Twitter and here’s your transcript.

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How to Decide if Your Business Should Invest in Using Social Media

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“Should we be using social media?‘ is a question being asked in many boardrooms and mom and pop stores around the country.  Yes, even today in 2013.  From the business’ perspective, it’s easy to see why they are hesitant to use social media.  Yes, you can throw all the stats at them about how Facebook has a billion users, Twitter has 200 million, Plus growing etc etc, but that’s not what they care about.  In order to start using social media they would need to take time and money from marketing sources that have (mostly) proven returns, and invest that time and money into social media, whose return is very difficult to measure.  If the local print shop starts running a radio ad today, they know they can count on seeing new customers come in the door as a result by this afternoon.  So if you want a business to invest in social media you are asking them to divert time and money from sources that they understand and know are working, and invest that time and money into a source that they don’t understand and can’t really measure the return on using.

So let’s start by explaining in very simple terms what ‘social media’ is.  Social media are online/mobile tools and sites that people use to create, share, collaborate with and distribute content.  That’s it.  Some of the ways that people frequently use social media include:

1 – Peer to peer communication.  Simply talking with friends and family.  This is by far the most popular way to use social media.

2 – As a way to share your opinions with the world.  Many people simply use social media as their way to share their thoughts and opinions on subjects that interest them, or to share what they do throughout the day.  Many people that social media frequently do this as well as use social media for talking with friends and family.

3 –  As a way to establish your expertise or build authority around a particular subject.  Now we are starting to get into a more professional or business use of social media.  Some people use social media as a way to create content that helps to establish a level of expertise around a particular topic.  Often, the goal is to establish that expertise so that the person can sell products or services related to their area of expertise.  This blog is a good example of creating content to establish expertise.

4 – By curating valuable content from other sources in order to build your own level of influence.  This area has begun to emerge in the last few years as the rise of Klout and other tools that attempt to measure influence came into the market.  The idea is that if a person can share valuable content around  particular topics, it will help to identify them as a ‘go-to’ source of information on those topics.  Which helps to establish their influence and expertise around these topics.

 

Those are some of the most popular ways for people to use social media.  Keep in mind that if your customers are using social media (and the odds says they are) the overwhelming majority of their usage will fall into the categories of communicating with friends and family, and using social media to share their opinions.

So if you think about it, social media is really digital word of mouth, in very simple terms.  This is a very simple yet incredibly profound distinction to make.  If we think about word of mouth in an analog sense, our ability to spread a message was typically restricted by the analog tools available to us at the time.  Such as a landline phone, snail-mail letters, or simply interacting with other people face-to-face.  So in general, if we wanted to spread a message in the pre-digital world of the internet and social media, our ability to do so was typically one person at a time.

Social media has changed that dynamic completely.  Instead of one-to-one communication, I now have tools that let me engage in one-to-many communication.  Every piece of content that I share publicly can be easily shared by others.  For example, this blog post will likely be read by around 1,000 people that visit this blog today from various sources, including social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook.  Another 1,200 or so people will have it delivered to their email inboxes that subscribe to this blog, and another 2,500 or so people that subscribe to this blog’s feed will see it.  All told, around 5,000 people will likely view this one piece of content over the next 24 hours.   

If we rolled back the clock to before the internet and social media, how would I be able to get this message in the hands of 5,000 people?  I’d likely have to pay someone to help me distribute this message.  But thanks to social media, I can distribute this message with the only real cost being my time in creating the message, and building the network to distribute it (which DID take a good amount of time).

So the biggest change that social media has made for your current and potential customers is their ability to more easily create, share and distribute content.  Plus, the huge advantage that social media offers your business is that the majority of that content is available publicly!  When word of mouth became digital via social media tools, it gave your business an incredible level of access to your customers that you really never had before.  Now you can not only easily see what your customers are saying about you, but you can interact with them.  This is a huge change in the customer/brand relationship, and it creates an enormous opportunity for your business as well.

So we’re back to the should my business use social media question.  If we approach answering this question from the standpoint of viewing how customers can easily create online content about and around your brand, then we need to consider what impact this content has on their decision to do business with you.  If your business is a fruit-stand that you run yourself in Houma, Louisiana, then investing in using social media to reach online customers might not make the most sense for you.  But if you work for a global brand that’s primarily a B2C company, then it’s all but a requirement that you invest serious resources into social media.

Then in very simple terms, your business should consider the role that online content created about your products and services influences your customers before they make a purchase.  This can be very difficult to track sometimes without sophisticated software and tools, so in general ask yourself one simple question:

1 – How likely is it that my current and potential customers are using social media to discuss my products and services before making a purchase?

If you can determine that social media content plays a role in influencing a customer’s intent to purchase, then it becomes much easier to justify investing money in social media.

In short, if your company derives any significant portion of its business from online sales, then it should be investing in social media.  Now the extent to which you invest in social media will depend greatly on understanding your own customer base and how they use these tools.

Not sure if you are ready to invest in social media or how to get started? Then fill out this contact form to connect with me and we can discuss your options!

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How Paper.li is Flipping the Role of a Brand Ambassador Program to Focus on Its Fans

KellyTweetLast Wednesday during #Rockstarchat we were joined by Paper.li’s Marketing Directory, Kelly Hungerford.  Kelly was joining the chat to talk about Paper.li’s Brand Ambassador program, which the company launched a few months ago.  Kelly talked about the program, how it was formed, and what the brand’s goals for the initiative were.

What struck me most from our chat was the focus of Paper.li’s brand ambassador program: The goal is to put the spotlight on the brand’s fans.  This is an interesting disconnect from most brand ambassador programs, where the main goal is to create a way to organize some of the brand’s biggest fans so they can better promote the brand.  Paper.li appears to have flipped this model, using the program to promote its fans, with the secondary goal being promotion of the brand itself.

Kelly told us that over the last couple of years, that Paper.li began to identify publishers that were independently helping others better use Paper.li.  So Kelly decided that a brand ambassador program would be a good way to bring together and acknowledge some of its community members that were going out of their way to help others.

So basically Paper.li is rewarding the behavior it wants to encourage.  As Paper.li promotes its brand ambassadors, that helps validate their love of the brand, and gives them more incentive to promote the brand to other people.  So Paper.li’s brand ambassador program is driving additional promotion of the brand, even though that’s not the primary objective.

KellyTweet2Another interesting aspect of Paper.li’s brand ambassador program is that members get early access to new product features and releases.  Kelly said this was a perk that members specifically asked for.  The benefit to the members is obvious and goes back to the idea of giving your fans ‘special access’ and helps them feel like the rock stars (because they are).

But giving brand ambassadors early access to new product features has two huge benefit for Paper.li.  First, it allows Paper.li’s power users to give the brand valuable feedback on the features.  This is done before being released to tbe public, so its possible the brand can still make changes based on feedback from its brand ambassadors.

The second key benefit for Paper.li is that when the new features are officially rolled out, the brand ambassadors will already be familiar with the features and how to use them.  So the brand ambassadors can become teachers and help teach other Paper.li members how to use the new features!  Again, this becomes a promotional tool for the brand, because when Paper.li rolls out new features, it immediately has its biggest fans telling other Paper.li users why these features are so awesome.

So ironically, by flipping the focus of its brand ambassador program to focus on spotlighting its fans, Paper.li has created a powerful promotional tool.  I think this is a very brave move by a brand to give its fans so much control over the direction of such a program.  But I think that willingness to embrace its fans came from how Kelly and team made great efforts to personally connect with its fans.  This lead to them having a better understanding of its fans and what they wanted from their relationship with the brand.  This is why many brands don’t launch a program such as this, because they don’t understand their fans and what motivates them.  As such, they fear ceding control of a program such as this.

So by creating direct benefits for its biggest fans, this program is indirectly creating big benefits for Paper.li!  If you want to view the transcript from last week’s #rockstarchat (which had a TON of key takeaways) then click here(click Transcript on the left).

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#Blogchat Topic For Sunday Aug 4th – Keeping Your Sh*t Straight on Your Blog!

UPDATE: Here’s the transcript!

You know those posts I write from time to time where I show you how I’ve screwed up something here in the hopes that you won’t repeat my mistakes? Yeah, we’re about to have another episode in that series…

So this has been a rough year for this blog.  In February the blog was hacked, and it took me about 3 months to finally get rid of all the gremlins, with the help of Sucuri.  Apparently, I had let hackers get access to this blog because I hadn’t kept my plugins and WordPress updated quickly enough.  Typically I would wait a week or two till I had several plugins that needed to be updated, then update them all at once.  BIG mistake, as I learned the hard way.  Often, one of the main reasons that a plugin updates is to address an existing vulnerability!  So always update your plugins as soon as possible!

Anyway, one of the things I did from Feb-May when we were dealing with the malware is I went apeshit getting security plugins.  Anything that promised to restrict this or block that, I got it.  At once time I think I had like 5 different security plugins.

So on Wednesday, July 23st I noticed that traffic fell about 30% over the previous day.  Now this isn’t a huge deal and happens from time to time.  I was traveling then from Y’all Connect and hadn’t been posting as much over the last few days, so I assumed that was the reason for the decline in traffic.  I should have dug into Google Analytics at this point to figure out what the problem was, but I just assumed there wasn’t a problem.

Then the next day on Thursday the 24th, traffic fell another 20%, then another 20% on Friday.  Something was definitely wrong.

On Friday the 25th I finally dug into Google Analytics and found the problem.  My search traffic was falling like a rock:

SearchTrafficBadSearchSearch traffic on Monday, July the 22nd was 543 visitors, but by Saturday, July 26th that number had fallen to a lowly 34 visitors.

What the hell happened?

It seems that one of those many security plugins I had added that I wanted to block and restrict everything was actually blocking Google from crawling my site!  During #Blogchat on July 21st, a few members had mentioned the advantages of creating a Sitemap for your blog, and how that would help you with search.  So I did that on Sunday night via a plugin, and apparently, that somehow triggered the security plugin to start blocking Google from crawling the site (I am assuming here, this started happening almost immediately after I added the Sitemap).

I discovered this by going into my Google Webmaster Tools dashboard and I discovered the crawl errors (BTW you should set up an account for your site as well.  It might seem like overkill but it’s worth it).  I also started digging into my crawl stats and realized that while there was a huge spike in errors right after I added the Sitemap, that there had been a smaller amount that had consistently been there for months.  Apparently, since I had started adding all those security plugins.

Sooooo….what I did was I started disabling plugins one by one and attempting to ‘Fetch as Google’ after each one.  After disabling the first security plugin, suddenly the crawl errors disappeared!  I did this on Saturday, July 27th.  I immediately noticed that search traffic began to bounce back.  By last Friday (Aug 2nd), search traffic was all the way up to 471 visitors for the day, the most search visitors ever for here on a Friday.  I saw good search traffic yesterday as well, and I am hoping this continues from here out!

But the point to all of this is that:

1 – You need to be careful about adding plugins.  Sometimes they can actually hurt your blog’s performance, so you need to understand exactly what they are doing.  It’s tempting to just add a bunch of plugins to get access to cool new features, but they can sometimes cause more problems than they fix.  And if you do add them make sure you keep them updated.

2 – Keep a close eye on your blog’s traffic and understand why changes are happening.  If you don’t have it already, add Google Analytics to your blog.  This will help you understand the traffic on your blog and track changes.

So tonight at #Blogchat we are going to discuss how to keep your blog clean and less cluttered.  I am a digital packrat (and real-life one too), but I have learned the hard way this year to streamline everything as much as possible.  You can follow #Blogchat tonight on Twitter starting at 8pm Central!  And here’s the transcript so go ahead and save this for later!

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Don’t Worry When People Leave You…

UnsubscribeLet’s be honest: No one likes to see that someone has left you.  And I’m not talking about your offline relationships, I’m talking about when someone stops reading your blog, or your newsletter, or unfollows you on Twitter.  Sometimes it’s because of something you did or said.

But sometimes it’s not about you, it’s about them.

I started the Think Like a Rock Star newsletter back in February(You can sign up HERE).  It’s had slow and steady growth, and now has over 500 subscribers.

I have two goals for this newsletter:

1 – Give subscribers information on how they can begin to create closer connections with their biggest fans

2 – Give subscribers information on how they can work with me

Now to help with that first goal, every newsletter has original content that you don’t see here.  Well you will occasionally see me talk about something here that’s already been in the newsletter.  But the newsletter subscribers will get that information first.  It’s honestly a LOT of work and I often wonder if I am putting TOO MUCH into the content I share there.

To help with that second goal (telling subscribers how they can work with me), once or twice a month I will publish an additional issue of my newsletter highlighting one or two services that I offer that I think they would be interested in learning more about.

Every time after I send one of these ‘work with me’ emails, I immediately see a spike in unsubscribers.

Is that a bad thing?  Not in my eyes, because by unsubscribing, these people are telling me that they have zero interest in working with me.  So much so that if I even mention the possibility, they are gone.  So if one of the main goals for my newsletter is to drive new business and they don’t want to work with me, then we are wasting both of our times, so them leaving is a good thing for both of us.

The people that unsubscribe have typically already made the decision a long time ago that your content wasn’t valuable to them, they just haven’t gotten around to officially ‘cutting ties’.  I’ll get a few unsubscribers from this post, I know because every day when I get an email saying my latest blog post has gone out, within 5 mins I will get a few notices of unsubscribes.

So don’t worry if people leave you online, that just makes it easier for you to find the people you are supposed to be connected to!

PS: And if you want to leave me after reading this post, I won’t hold it against you 🙂

 

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Learn How Paper.li Created its Brand Ambassador Program Today at #Rockstarchat!

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UPDATE: Here’s the transcript from this chat!

I’m thrilled to announce that Paper.li’s Marketing Director Kelly Hungerford will be joining #Rockstarchat today at 1pm Central on Twitter to discuss how the brand created and launched its brand ambassador program!  This is a great opportunity to learn from Paper.li because I know so many of you work or brands that either have or are considering launching such a program.  Kelly will help you understand how the process has gone for Paper.li, and will be happy to answer any questions you might have.

Here’s the points we’ll cover:

1 – What prompted Paper.li to want to launch a brand ambassador program?

2 – What are Paper.li’s goals for the program?

3 – How are members selected?  Is there a cap or can anyone join?

4 – How does Paper.li measure if the program is working?  What metrics do you track?

5 – What have been some of your A-Ha! moments from launching this program?

 

And if you would like to get a bit more background on Paper.li’s brand ambassador program, check out this guest post that Kelly wrote here a few months ago.

So if you want to join in on the fun, check out the #Rockstarchat happening on Twitter today at 1pm Central!  You can follow the tweets here(Click the All tab at the top to see all the tweets), and here’s the transcript!

BTW, if you subscribe to my Think Like a Rock Star newsletter then you got a heads-up about this yesterday.  Click here if you want to subscribe!

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You Want to Have a Fan-Centric Brand

KathyQuoteI wanted to talk in very broad strokes today about why it pays to have a fan-centric brand.  And what I mean by that is a brand that places a premium on connecting more closely with its most passionate customers.

But before we get into this post, I want to start with a very simple and profound truth: When your brand participates in a conversation it changes that conversation.  Think about the online (and offline) conversation that your customers are having about and around your brand.  When you take an active role in that conversation, it changes.  When you interact with your customers and they with you, both groups have a higher level of understanding of the other’s POV.  This is why it floors me to see so many companies that are scared to death of engaging with their customers online.  Yes. it can be scary if you’ve never done so, but the opportunities are enormous.

This is why cultivating more interaction with your customers is so important:  Because interaction leads to understanding.  And without understanding there cannot be trust.  Think about the people that you trust.  Can you think of anyone that you trust even though you don’t understand who they are or what they stand for and believe in?  I bet you can’t, I know I can’t.

You want more interaction with your customers because that can lead to trust.  And without trust, you cannot have advocacy.

Then the process is: Interactions > Understanding > Trust > Advocacy

So then the starting point is to focus on having more interactions and engagement with your customers.  Social media helps with this as it gives you a constant way to monitor online conversations and respond.

But it has to be your focus to want to engage your customers.  Which is why I laid out this process because that level of engagement is the starting point for cultivating advocates/fans.

Now, if we are saying that you need to engage with your customers in order to eventually create advocates, then how do you explain the fact that Apple has such devoted fans?

This was truly the beauty of Steve Jobs and why he was such a visionary CEO.  Jobs had the ability to understand today, what products customers would want tomorrow.  For example, roll back the clock to 1999 or so when Napster was about to forever change the music industry.  Many artists, such as Metallica, saw Napster and peer to peer file-sharing as a huge threat to their business and a lost of income.  Jobs understood that Napster had changed our behavior, and as a result, we wouldn’t want to buy $17.99 CDs anymore just to get the 2-3 songs we wanted to hear.  We wanted a way to buy songs individually.

Enter iTunes.  And of course, we needed a way to store all these digital files and take them with us.

Enter the iPod.  Where the music industry saw the threat posed by file-sharing, Jobs saw the opportunity, and capitalized on it.  Because Jobs was the rare visionary CEO that had an uncanny understanding of his customers and what they wanted.

When did everyone decide that they wanted a smartphone with a scrolling interface? 2 seconds after they saw Jobs debut it on the iPhone in 2007.  Jobs understood Apple’s customers and what they wanted in his products.  Which is why his customers trusted Apple to create the products they wanted, and this is why the brand had such devoted advocates.

The odds are that your brand does not have a visionary CEO like Jobs.  So you do need to interact with your customers so they can understand you, and vice versa.  But that just means you have one extra step to take to create a truly fan-centric brand.

Oh and PS: Guess who’s blogging again? 😉

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Five Tips For Sharing Content Like a Pro on Twitter

TweetI’ve blogged before about how sharing content on Twitter can drive big traffic back to your blog.  It’s also a great way to network with others, and to find and share content that makes you and your network smarter.  I am a big believer in sharing content on Twitter and here’s five of my best tips:

1 – Share content from sources that people trust, and identify those sources.  I am constantly looking to see what CopyBlogger, Spin Sucks and Convince and Convert are writing because I know they consistently produce good content that helps other people solve their content marketing and social media problems.  I also let people know that the share is coming from these sites, because that makes them more likely to click the link.

2 – Tell people why they should click the link.  This one is sometimes tough with just 140 characters, but if at all possible I like to add why the link is worth clicking on.  A personal endorsement along with a link drives more clicks.

3 – Identify the author of the article or post.  You want to do this to let others know who wrote this awesome piece, but to also ping the author to let them know you are sharing their content.  Add via @username to your tweet.  BTW that also makes it more likely that this person will want to share YOUR content (Pro Tip).

4 – Participate in the conversations around the content you share.  Many people miss this but sharing content on Twitter is a GREAT way to network with others.  I purposely try to schedule most of the links I share with HootSuite ahead of time so I can be on Twitter and interact with people that comment on the links I share.

5 – Share your own stuff.   Self-promotion?  Oh the horrors!  Relax, if you are sharing useful content then you have every right to share some of your own stuff as well.  In fact, this is one of the biggest benefits from sharing OTHER people’s awesome stuff, it drives more clicks to YOUR content when you share links.  I’ve tested this but when I am sharing other people’s content and THEN share a link to my latest post, it drives more traffic here versus only sharing my post.  Try it for yourself and see what happens!

BONUS: Share content from the people that share your content.  Look for ways to put the spotlight on the people that are promoting you and your content.  Remember, reward the behavior you want to encourage.  Besides, saying ‘Thank you!’ is the right thing to do.

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Race your winners, stable your losers

SocialGraph“Own Your Network”

I heard that phrase several times this week in Birmingham at Y’all Connect.  It’s something I have been thinking a lot about recently.

Are we stretching ourselves too thin when it comes to social media, and are we spending too much time trying to cultivate new networks instead of maximizing the potential of our existing networks?

For example, I keep hearing that I need to be on Google Plus.  That I need to build a network there.  The obvious problem is, that takes time and energy.  Which also means that the time I take to build a new network on Plus is going to mean less time I spend on cultivating my established network on Twitter.

Networks are like gardens, they need to be cultivated and tended to.  One of the biggest mistakes you can make is to try to plant too many gardens.

We are always being told that we need to ‘be everywhere’ when it comes to social media.  I disagree.  I think you need to pick fewer social media sites to be active on.  But if you are active there, you need to be all-in.

For the next week, I am going to focus on my network on Twitter.  I won’t be on Plus, I won’t be on Facebook.  You will find me on Twitter or here (or possibly commenting on another blog), and that’s it.

Where will you be spending your time next week?