MackCollier.com

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How Do We Create a Fan-Centric Company?

Brand advocates, fans, brand advocacy

Last year, my friend Liz Strauss challenged me to think about how companies could better connect with their fans, and vice-versa.  I wanted to think about how this process would actually take place inside a company.  How would a company identify and connect with its brand advocates?  How would it create and continue a connection with that group?  How would it facilitate a flow of communication from the company to its advocates, and vice-versa?  How would it act on that information internally, and who would handle it?

Some of these same questions have been rolled up into the thought-process of what a ‘Social Business’ could be and we talked about it yesterday, although not in the detail I was hoping for.  But last year when I started trying to wrap my head around what this framework could look like, I realized with the events I would be speaking at and attending in 2011, I would have plenty of opportunities to talk to some pretty big brands and companies about how they are connecting with their fans.

So that’s what I did.  At almost every stop in 2011, I made it a point to set up meetings to talk with companies about how they were connecting with their brand advocates.  We’re talking VERY large companies, and usually the people I talked to were CEOs or CMOs.  After probably a dozens or so interviews in 2011 with big companies about how they were systematically connecting with their brand advocates, I came up with this answer:

They weren’t.  The closest would probably be Dell’s DellCAP program (Disclosure – I had a very limited role in helping Dell flesh out some of the initial ideas behind it and executing them), which I obviously think is a fabulous program, but I don’t think it’s accurate to say it’s solely based on connecting with Dell’s brand advocates.  All the companies I talked to saw the importance of its brand advocates, and several were doing things like monitoring for positive brand mentions and responding, or maybe highlighting fans on a Facebook page, but for the most part there wasn’t a formal process in place where the company regularly connected with its advocates.  Several expressed to me an interest in taking that next step, but they wanted to know what that process would look like.  This is why I kept harping on the need for more detail around ‘Social Business’ for the same reason in yesterday’s post.

But perhaps the biggest roadblock to companies adopting a formal process for connecting with their fans is they don’t understand who they are.  My friends at Brains on Fire call this figuring out the identity of your advocates, but I think of it as asking ‘What’s the heartbeat of your fans?’  Whats the one thing that binds them together in a love of your brand?  Even at the DellCAP reunion last year, at one point I was talking to a Dell exec and we were looking at the attendees and going around the room and we realized that they all loved Dell, but for very different reasons.  Some loved the product, some loved the people, some loved the service.  But they were different people.  You had the hard-core gamer that professionally competes in contests over here with his Alienware laptop, and the mom who writes a blog on tech for other moms over here.

Yet understanding who your fans are and why they love you is a step that cannot be overlooked and skipped.  I honestly think this is why Brains on Fire is so successful because they invest the time and energy for their clients in helping them understand who their fans are and what their identity/heartbeat is.  We all love the Fiskars/Fiskateers case study, but remember that it was made possible by Brains on Fire doing a LOT of research and figuring out how Fiskars’ customers were using its product, and realizing that a passionate scrapbooking community existed that loved the brand.  Without investing that time and energy in research, the resulting movement wouldn’t have happened.

I’ll wrap this post up now cause I see it’s starting to resemble a thesis, and we haven’t even gotten into what the formal process would/could look like.  I’ll dig into that in the next post on this topic.

But for now, if your company wants to really connect with its fans, make the starting point understanding who they are.  What’s their heartbeat?  What’s the ONE thing that unites them in a love of your brand?  To put this in music terms to help you understand, Lady Gaga doesn’t have fans, she has Little Monsters.  The Grateful Dead has Dead Heads.  You need to find that one thing, because that’s their passion point.  And in doing your research to better understand your fans, don’t rely solely on online research.  Look for ways to get feedback from your fans in an offline setting.  If you only hear from your fans that are online, you are getting an incomplete view of who they are and why they love you.

What are some examples of brands that you think do a great job of connecting with their fans?  Which ones do you think have found the heartbeat of their advocates?

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Subscribe to My Social Media Marketing Newsletter!

Social Media Marketing Newsletter

Starting next Wednesday, I’ll be running a weekly newsletter in addition to (almost) daily posts here.  The content focus will be slightly different, however.

Here, I cover Social Media primarily, but a blend of content that can benefit the individual, as well as those that are using Social Media for their company.  But this newsletter will be aimed solely at marketers and anyone using Social Media within their company or organization.  Each week the newsletter will feature original content that’s designed to do 3 things:

1 – Help you solve an existing Social Media Marketing issue you are having.  One week we might talk about building a better blogger outreach program, the next look at getting a better handle on our blog’s analytics to increase leads.  A case study here and there will be examined.

2 – Give you tips and advice for improving your day-to-day tasks and routines as well as managing your workflow.

3 – Keep you up-to-date on where I will be speaking/appearing, and giving you information on how we can work together.

I cannot stress this enough, the content in this newsletter will be original content.  Some of it may eventually make its way here to the blog, but it won’t be that often.

So if you’re working for a company or organization that wants to learn more about how to better use Social Media to connect with your customers and/or activate your brand advocates, please do subscribe to my newletter by filling out the quick form below.  You’ll input your email address then be sent an email to confirm your subscription.

Thank you so much, see you next Wednesday!


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We Need to Stop Marketing ‘Social Business’ If We Want to Start Selling It

social business, blueprint

You ever get the feeling you need to just drop a topic?  I am completely there when it comes to  ‘Social Business’.  Even to the point that I’m pretty sure I’ve started pissing off friends and people I respect in this space.

To set the record straight, I like what I think is the generally accepted definition of a ‘Social Business’.  Most all definitions seem to be build around the need for an increased flow of information.  External information from the customer being utilized and distributed internally so smarter business decisions can be made, and more communication from the company back to the customer.  I am a HUGE believer in the benefits that businesses will gain as a result, and I’ve been blogging about these concepts here for a while now.

But the majority of the discussion around the concept of a ‘Social Business’ has frustrated me for a while now, and I couldn’t quite place my finger on why exactly.  Then it hit me: This doesn’t feel like a discussion, it feels like marketing.  Almost every time I read a post/article about Social Business, I feel like I am reading a brochure at a car dealership.

A far more interesting discussion in my mind is to talk about exactly how a business would transition to becoming a ‘social business’.  Let’s talk about the specifics:

What happens internally?  Do we need to hire new people for newly-created positions?  If so, which ones, and what would their roles be?  How will we better connect with our customers?  Do we need to create a new infrastructure to better facilitate the flow of information internally about our customers?  And what information do we need to distribute and which departments need to get what?  Then how do we create a way to get information back to our customers?  Do we create an internal and external committee to facilitate that information flow in both directions?  How many people do we need to staff for that?

Those are the type of discussions I want to see, because I think we need more blueprints and fewer brochures if we want to speed business adoption of this process.  And granted, there’s obviously no ‘one size fits all’ solution, but we should at least have plenty of scenarios in place where we can determine more definite numbers based on a given business reality.

I think at this point the discussion is still a bit vague around Social Business because we are ‘selling’ a concept that’s not often seen ‘in the wild’.  But I think if we want to speed adoption of the concept, we need to move the discussion away from wordy definitions and more toward actual business realities.  Even if it means we need to at some point add ‘I think’ to our explanations cause we don’t have real-world examples of what our ideas being executed would look like.

And to be fair, we are seeing bits and pieces of what the larger picture could look like.  A community ideation site here, an internal socnet for employees there, a brand ambassador program in the corner, but we really don’t seem to have a view of what the whole picture could look like for an organization.

We need that.  Or at the very least we need a discussion around what it looks like.  And if we aren’t sure what it looks like, then we definitely need to have that discussion.

One of the things I loved about the blogosphere when I first joined it in 2005 was that many of us adopted a habit of asking ‘what if?’ when it came to our discussions about how companies could utilize and benefit from social media.  We threw stuff against the wall, some of it stuck, some of it didn’t.  But we all learned in the process.  We helped each other flesh out the concepts of how businesses could utilize social media, and even some of the concepts that have now been rolled into the idea of what a ‘Social Business’ is.

But I think we skipped the ‘what if?’ stage with Social Business.  It’s like we adopted our own definitions for what the concept is, then immediately started trying to sell it to companies.  Literally.

If we want to speed up understanding and adoption of the concept of a Social Business, I think we need to back up a bit and stop selling the concept, and start debating it more.  We need to stop saying ‘here’s what it is’, and instead say ‘here’s what I *think* it could look like’.

And to clear the air:  I keep railing about this topic because I believe in the concept of a ‘Social Business’.  Granted, I’m not crazy about the label, but I like the thinking.  If I didn’t, if I thought this was all bullshit soaked in snake oil, I wouldn’t waste my time.

I think we need to elevate the conversation and dialogue around the concept.  And I think in this case, we can start by offering fewer definitions for what a Social Business is, and instead more discussion of how we recognize one when we see one.  Fewer buzzwords, and more questions.

Understanding speeds adoption, and understanding comes from asking questions you don’t know the answers to.  I don’t know what the exact framework for a Social Business is.  I know what the definitions say it is at 30,000 feet, but I want to know what it looks like on the ground, in practice.  So do the companies that are being sold the concept.

What do you think a Social Business would look like?  If your company was going to start today on the road to becoming a Social Business, what changes would need to happen?

 

UPDATE: As long-time readers know, I am pretty obsessive about my blog’s stats.  ‘Social Business’ isn’t a topic I write about often, in fact this is only the 2nd post I’ve ever written about it, the 1st coming a month ago.  In the last month, search engines have sent 6,617 visitors to this blog, and 3 of them have looking for information on ‘Social Business’.

Pic via Flickr User Will Scullin

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Case Study: How Fed-Ex Responded to a Customer’s Viral Video…With Its Own Video

It really is the doomsday scenario for a big brand, in this case, Fed-Ex.  One customer has a horrible experience with a delivery.  A computer monitor is ‘delivered’ when the Fed-Ex driver casually tosses the monitor over the customer’s gate.

Even though the customer was at home.

And the front door was wide open.

And the customer filmed the delivery.

And yes, he posted it on YouTube.

The video has been viewed over 8 million times by now, and was seen on numerous TV stations and shows.  Now if this was your company, how would you respond?  Would you respond?

To its credit, Fed-Ex responded 2 days later with its own video.

Here’s what I love about the video and the post on Fed-Ex’s blog:

1 – Fed-Ex admitted the problem and apologized for it immediately in the video.

2 – Fed-Ex detailed what was done to correct this problem.

3 – Fed-Ex detailed what will happen moving forward.

4 – Fed-Ex responded to the customer video with its own video.  Using the same tool as its customer.

 

Now, the original customer video and Fed-Ex’s response has been dissected on many other blogs in the last 3 months.  But I wanted to focus on the comments this post has generated.  A big reason why many companies do NOT want to use social media to make a response such as what Fed-Ex did here is because they are scared to death that it will simply draw attention to the company and make them a lightning-rod for detractors.

So far, Fed-Ex’s apology post has 181 comments, almost 120 comments more than the 2nd most commented-on post.

Here’s what I thought was interesting about the comments (and I read every freaking one to get these stats):

57% of the comments were positive.

25% of the comments were neutral.

But only 18% of the comments on this post were negative.

Does that surprise you?  It shouldn’t.  As often happens when a company responds appropriately in a crisis situation, Fed-Ex galvanized its employees and brand advocates with this post.  Remember that The Red Cross had a similar episode this time last year with its ‘rogue tweet’ about #gettingslizzard, and the organization’s timely and appropriate response rallied its brand advocates and actually sparked a rise in blood donations.

There is a very salient lesson here for companies about using social media: Participating in a conversation changes that conversation.  By creating a video response to the customer video, apologizing, and detailing exactly how the problem would be fixed, Fed-Ex changed the conversation that was currently happening around its brand.  Prior to this video, the conversation around the brand was decidedly negative and dominated by the customer’s video, because Fed-Ex hadn’t responded.

When they did, the conversation changed.  The company’s response was fast and appropriate, and that not only changed the opinion of the company from some observers, but it also served as motivation for customers and employees to come to defense of the brand.

Always remember this:  Social Media backlashes aren’t created by the initial trigger event (such as the customer’s video above), they are created by HOW the company responds.

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The Value of Clearing Paths in Marketing

“Oh we’re in constant contact with our customers, we ride with them all the time.” – Harley-Davidson CSO Willie Davidson when asked if HD does market research to better understand their customers.

For years, brands have had it beaten over their heads that ‘The Customer’s in charge now’ and that they need to ‘Give up control and get the hell out of the way!’

Horrible advice, at best.  Customers don’t want to take complete control from brands, they want to love brands that they see themselves in.  We gravitate to brands that are smart enough to understand us, and what we want.

We want companies to make it easier for us to engage in the activities we are already doing.  We want companies to understand where we are headed, and to clear a path to make it easier for us to arrive at our destination.  And we’ll pay good money to the companies that can do this.

Apple understood this with iTunes.  They took the concept of Napster (music located in a central place that was accessible to others) and greatly improved on the stability of the service, and we were willing to pay for it as a result.  The popularity of Napster (In its original form circa 2000) proved that we wanted the ability to log into a service and download songs.  But anyone that used Napster in those early days knows that the quality of the songs was often horrible, and you were at the mercy of whoever was online when you were as to what songs you could get.

Apple understood that we would pay 99 cents a song for a stable download, and a high-quality song.  Plus, they also removed the guilt we may have had over downloading music without paying for it.

They took an activity we were already engaging in, and cleared a path for us to more effectively and efficiently get there, and we are quite willing to pay them for offering this service.

There’s a world of difference between trying to push someone in a direction versus clearing the path they are already headed down.  The smart brands understand this, and are winning as a result.

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What the Hell is a ‘Social Business’ and Why Should You Care?

Social Business, Social Media, Brand advocacy, Mack Collier

If you’ve been following the social media marketing space/blogosphere over the last year or so, you’ve probably heard increasing chatter about the concept of ‘Social Business’.

So what IS a Social Business?  Good question, and it seems one that not even the people chattering about it can agree upon.  For example, The Wikipedia definition states “social business is a non-loss, non-dividend company designed to address a social objective within the highly regulated marketplace of today. It is distinct from a non-profit because the business should seek to generate a modest profit but this will be used to expand the company’s reach, improve the product or service or in other ways to subsidise the social mission.”

Ok…but here’s how @Armano describes it “At it’s core, it’s about connecting stakeholders who are critical to the success of your business. And as I’ve stressed before—it’s about executing initiatives leveraging the “3 P’s”—People, Process & Platforms.”  David also has a nifty drawing that helps explain the process at that link.

And here’s Augie Ray’s definition: “A new form of commerce where consumers, empowered by new social technologies and behaviors, bypass traditional channels and acquire more information, goods and services directly from each other.”

Finally, here’s how the Social Business Forum defines a Social Business: “An organization that has put in place the strategies, technologies and processes to systematically engage all the individuals of its ecosystem (employees, customers, partners, suppliers) to maximize the co-created value”

 

Three things I see from the above and other various definitions I’ve found for the term ‘Social Business’:

1 – We can’t even agree on the definition of the concept.  Which is no biggie, most of us can’t agree on the definition of ‘Social Media’ and it’s been around for 25 years in some form or another.

2 – The name ‘Social Business’ is terrible in that it immediately makes you think ‘Oh I get it, a business that does social media!’  Seriously, we marketers and business types put the ‘social’ modifier on waaaaay too many things.

3 – These definitions (and much of the discussion around the concept) seem to be focused on the companies that ‘get it’ when it comes to…whatever your definition of a ‘social business’ is.  If you’re a business that doesn’t ‘get it’, is talking about how becoming a social business will help you ‘engage with and empower your customers to increase co-created value’ REALLY going to get you excited?  I mean companies have been hearing about the potential of empowering and embracing their customers for at least 5 years now when we all got on a kick about how amazing social media is.  Right?  If that talk didn’t blow their skirts up, changing the name from ‘social media’ to ‘social business’ and trying again probably won’t either.

 

BTW here’s another interesting tidbit, the Wikipedia definition of the term ‘Enterprise 2.0‘: Enterprise 2.0 is the use of “Web 2.0” technologies within an organization to enable or streamline business processes while enhancing collaboration – connecting people through the use of social-media tools. Enterprise 2.0 aims to help employees, customers and suppliers collaborate, share, and organize information. Andrew McAfee describes Enterprise 2.0 as “the use of emergent social software platforms within companies, or between companies and their partners or customers”.

Ah we marketers do love to mark our territory by slapping labels on everything, don’t we?

But perhaps the biggest problem I have with most of the discussion around the concept of a ‘Social Business’ is that it seemed to be geared toward selling companies on the concept, versus the actual business benefits of integrating/embracing the concept.

Last month when I spoke at Bazaarvoice, I got to spend some time talking to CMO Erin Nelson and I learned more about BV’s offerings and how the companies is helping its clients.  In general, Bazaarvoice is creating products and systems that let clients get more detailed and relevant (read: valuable) product information and feedback, and then helping them ACT on that feedback, both internally and externally, in order to improve existing business processes.

A very simple example:  Erin noted that LL Bean tracked the reviews customers were leaving on their site for a popular sweater, and they noted that customers were asking for it to be produced in the colors green and purple.  So LL Bean started offering the sweater in those colors as well, and sales doubled as a result.  And the great thing about getting and ACTING on customer feedback is that it only encourages your customers to leave MORE feedback, which increases the chance that you can continue to improve existing business functions as a result.

That one small example to me does more to explain the possible reason why a company would want to become more connected  internally and externally because it details a real-world business benefit from doing so.

As a result, I think those of us that are talking about the concept of a ‘Social Business’ need to stop talking about it as if we are selling a concept/product, and start talking about it as if we are selling the BENEFITS of being a Social Business.  Because that’s what you SHOULD be doing, and besides, that’s a far more interesting conversation to be having anyway.

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IBM Study: CMOs Look to Focus on Social Media, Connecting With Brand Advocates

Not sure how I missed this, but a couple of months ago IBM released the results of a survey it did of 1,700 Chief Marketing Officers about the future of marketing, specifically the next 3-5 years.  One of the questions asked was what technology CMOs plan to increase their use of over the next 3-5 years.  The top three answers were:

  • Social Media
  • Customer Analytics
  • CRM (Customer Relationship Management)

Another question asked of the CMOs was what were their priorities for managing the shift toward digital technologies.  The number one priority according to the CMOs is enhancing customer loyalty/advocacy.

The beauty of social media is that it allows smart companies to better understand their customers.  Now, companies can simply monitor the conversation happening around their brand, and gain great insights into who their customers are, and what they want.  This leads to greater understanding of their customers, which leads to more effective and efficient marketing.  Which leads to an increase in customer advocacy, and loyalty.

Smart companies are already investing in aggressively monitoring and mining online conversations around their brand, and as a result, they are finding that participating in a conversation changes that conversation.  Rockstars have always understood this, and have actively embraced their fans, and have gone out of their way to connect with them.  Which is a big reason why Rockstars have fans, and companies have customers.

Finally, it seems that companies are beginning to understand the importance of understanding and connecting with their brand advocates.  And in case you’re still not convinced…

brand advocates, think like a rockstar

 

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IKEA Fans Ask For a Sleepover So the Company Gives Them One

IKEA, community-building, brand advocates, fans, think like a rockstar

Over 100,000 IKEA fans took to Facebook to create a page called “I Wanna Have a Sleepover in IKEA“, and the brand granted that wish to 100 lucky members, sending them to their signature warehouse in Essex in the UK.  The fans were given the royal treatment, including snacks, massages, sleep advice from an expert, and goodie bags.  A strict Pajamas-Only dress code was enforced, but unfortunately it seems that few pillow fights broke out.

This goes to the heart of something I talk about in Think Like a Rockstar: Create Something Amazing For the People That Love You.  IKEA was smart enough to see that their fans had self-organized into this group, so all they had to do was find 100 lucky fans, and make the group’s dream come true.

Now to be sure, this was a BIG expense for IKEA.  Even if all 100 selected fans were local, they had to outfit the store, bring in experts, plus all the goodies, manhours, etc.  But when you Google ‘IKEA Facebook Sleepover 100 Essex’ you find almost 90,000 entries covering this event.  That is a LOT of free publicity for IKEA, and almost all of it is positive.  I’m not sure what IKEA would say the PR value of 90,000 positive articles and posts is, but I’d guess it’s probably more than what they spent on this event.

And yes, you may argue that ‘Well IKEA can do this because their customers are the Cult of IKEA!‘  Maybe one reason why IKEA has such devoted fans is BECAUSE of events like this?

Feed subscribers please click here to watch the video in the post.

HT – PSFK.

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What Rockstars Can Teach You About Creating Kick-Ass Online Content

Think about it, Rockstars are amazingly effective content creators.  They create content (music) that we are not only willing to pay to get, but we also pay to view and hear them creating that content (concerts)!  And then there’s all the merchandise we purchase as well that celebrates them as content creators.

So as you are looking to rev up your content creation efforts, take a closer look at how Rockstars create amazingly compelling content that not only resonates with their fans, but delights them.

1 – Rockstars always play their Greatest Hits.  If you go to an Eagles concert, it wouldn’t be complete without hearing them play Hotel California.  Likewise, if you load up the Little Monsters and go to see Lady Gaga perform, you can’t wait to hear the ‘Ra ra ah ah ah…’ that tells you Bad Romance is the next.  Likewise, if you are a content creator, there are going to be certain types of content, certain topics you cover, that simply resonate more with your audience.  These are your Greatest Hits.  These are the topics you love to talk/blog/tweet about, and this passion you have for these topics means you create better content, that your audience wants more of.  So know what your Greatest Hits are, and feel free to cover these topics regularly, because this is what your fans want.

Now there is a slight caveat to this:  Often with Rockstars, their DIE HARD fans don’t want to hear their ‘mainstream’ hits as much as they do their more obscure songs.  For example, up until about 10 years ago (or around the time she lost her mind and started playing country music) I was a HUGE Jewel fan.  But I wasn’t really a fan of her mainstream hits, I was a fan of her more obscure songs.  Mainly, because I had already heard all of her hits before.  So when I heard her perform in Birmingham in 1999, I didn’t care if she played You Were Meant For Me, I wanted to hear I’m Fading (The K-Mart Song, not the popified Wal-Mart version she’s done since).  So if you are a content creator, what this could mean for you is that if you have die-hard fans, they might be willing/wanting to pay you for more exclusive/unique content.  If it’s content that only THEY have access to, even better!

Tip: Check your blog’s analytics and see what your Top 10 posts are all-time ranked by views, and comments.  Also, check your keywords and see what terms people are searching for that are leading them to your blog.  This will give you a great idea of what your most popular content is.  If you see that every time you write about X topic, that your audience responds, then that’s a BIG hint that you’ve found one of your Greatest Hits!  Don’t be afraid to blog about the same topic more than once!  The next time writer’s block has set in, dig into your analytics and archives and see if you can resurrect a past hit and post about it again!

2 – Tell a story with your content that connects with your audience.  Rockstars are great storytellers.  They find a way to write songs that touch listeners.  That stir emotions within us and make us believe that this song was written JUST for us.

For example, the next time you hear a Taylor Swift song playing on the radio, actually stop and listen to the lyrics.  There’s a reason why millions of teenage girls absolutely love Taylor: It’s because she is singing about THEIR lives!  She’s talking about their hopes, their fears, their failures, and their dreams.  They connect with her because she’s singing about everything they are experiencing right now.

You want to do the same thing with the content you create.  You want to tell stories that help you illustrate your points and make them more relevant with the audience you are trying to connect with.  If you’ve ever seen me speak, you know I do this in all of my presentations.  I make a point, then I use an example/case study of a business that has executed that point that I’m trying to illustrate.  I do this because I want to make the content relatable to the audience.  It’s one thing to talk to non-profit marketers about how they can use social media as a crisis communication tool, it’s quite another to tell them the story of how the Red Cross is doing just that.

Tip: Use case studies or even personal examples and stories to illustrate the points you are trying to make.  Any advice you are attempting to share with your content is always easier to understand if you can share a story of how someone else has already done what you suggest.

3 – Be memorable.  There’s so many songs I remember for just one or two lines:

“Many is the word, that only leaves you guessin’.  You guess about a thing, you really oughta know…’ Led Zeppelin, Over the Hills and Far Away

“I’d like to fly, but my wings have been so denied…” Alice in Chains, Down in a Hole

“Where did the Angels go? Cigarette smoke is all that’s left. I traded my wings in for a string of pearls, and the string’s all I’ve left…” Jewel, I’m Fading

“All and all, you’re just another brick in The Wall” – Pink Floyd, Another Brick in The Wall

Rockstars do a great job of giving us that ‘hook’ in their songs that make them memorable.  You can do the same thing with your content and blog posts.  It could be the headline of your post.  It could be the infographic or picture that grabs attention.  It could be the key stat that drives home the point you’re trying to make.

Tip: When creating content, whether a blog post, a video, even a tweet, think about what the ONE key takeaway you want people to have.  Look at what would make the most impact, is it a picture, a stat, what?

4 – Be real.  Rockstars do an amazing job of creating songs that are raw, emotional, and strip all the bullshit away to get to what’s real.  Look at this amazing music video for the song Hurt by Johnny Cash.  Look at how Johnny sings about living a life of regret, then it shows an old home video of Johnny standing in his yard with a contemplative look on his face.  Or notice how as Johnny sings, June looks on with a worried look.  All of this does a fabulous job of relating to us that Johnny is singing from his soul.

Tip: Don’t be afraid to speak with your own voice when you create content.  How often have you seen someone write a short blog post that says something like, “I think Chris Brogan and Shannon Paul are onto something, check out their posts here and here.”  We’ve probably already read what Chris and Shannon think, I want to hear what YOU think!  Don’t just parrot what another blogger says, share your own opinion, especially if you have a DIFFERENT take on the issue!  Sharing your own voice is a great way to build your following and audience because your voice is unique and distinctive!

5 – Turn a negative into a positive.  Up until 1993, Sarah McLachlan was very well-known in her home country of Canada, but not internationally.  All that changed with the release of the LP Fumbling Toward Ecstasy, and her first breakthrough mainstream hit, Possession.  The lyrics to Possession were very stark and even haunting, a definite break from what we’d heard of Sarah’s catalog up until this point.  “Into this night I wander, it’s morning that I dread.  Another day unknowing of the path I fear to thread.  Into the sea of waking dreams I follow without pride. Because nothing stands between us here, and I won’t be denied!”  

After the song’s release and international popularity, it was revealed that Sarah had endured multiple stalkings just prior to writing this song, including letters being sent to her regularly.  One of her stalkers even sued Sarah, claiming that the lyrics to Possession were taken from his letters to her.  This person later committed suicide.  But Sarah found the strength to take these traumatic events and focus her energy into her music, and the result was a hit that took her from being a celebrity in Canada, to an international superstar.

Tip: Incorporate setbacks into the content you create.  Obviously, your examples don’t have to be (and hopefully won’t be) as severe as what Sarah endured, but maybe you could offer a Lessons Learned post from what went wrong with a Social Media campaign, or how you handled what could have been a potential negative for your brand, and turned it into a positive.  Case in point, check out this wonderful video by Gary Vee on how he turned a potential PR disaster, into a positive experience:

Remember, don’t just focus on creating useful content, create remarkable content!  Content that others want to share and talk about, and build upon.  Your goal should be to create content that inspires others to build content as a result.

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The missing ingredient of the Influencer vs Fan debate: The passion of your biggest fans

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.