MackCollier.com

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A Community Cannot Go Mainstream

For the last couple of weeks, I have been beta-testing the Farcaster mobile app on my iPhone. Farcaster describes itself as ‘a sufficiently decentralized social network’.  I call it a sort of web3 hybrid of Twitter and Facebook.  Right now the app is in closed invite-only beta, and founder Dan Romero claims it has about a thousand active users.

So far, I absolutely love it.  The userbase is very techy and some of the stuff (ok a LOT of the stuff) is over my head, but I am loving the vibe of Farcaster.  Here’s what I am seeing there from the users:

  • Almost no self-promotion
  • No politics
  • No arguing
  • A lot of questions being asked that lead to organic conversations

What I am seeing on Farcaster right now reminds me a lot of how Twitter was in 2008/2009.

And that’s the problem.

Two of the overarching themes on Farcaster are:

1 – Wow I love the experience here versus Twitter!

2 – What are the plans to ensure that we keep this same experience as the userbase grows?

 

To his credit, Dan has thought about this a lot, and has a plan in place to protect the community on Farcaster, while growing.

But history has shown us that it won’t work. A community cannot go mainstream. A community can only scale so far before it snaps. And that breaking point typically arrives long before it achieves mainstream appeal.

What is a Community?

For the purposes of this post, let’s define a community.  A community is a group of like-minded individuals who have a shared sense of ownership in something larger than themselves.

Let’s go back to my early Twitter experience. It greatly mirrored what I am seeing now on Farcaster.  A lot of organic conversations.  It was quite easy to ask a simple question on Twitter in those early days and get sucked into an hour-long discussion. And make 10 new connections in the process.

There was no politics, no fighting, no broadcasting, no self-promotion.

Ironically, we all looked forward to the day when Twitter would go mainstream. Our reasoning was when EVERYONE knew what Twitter was, it would be even better!

Then it happened…

A Community Cannot Go Mainstream

I was driving down the highway in rural Alabama, I believe in 2009, when I saw this billboard.  I had to pull over and take a picture (and immediately post to Twitter). I immediately knew that Twitter was about to go mainstream.

And I was right.  Ashton Kutcher’s campaign to get Twitter followers opened the floodgates for other celebrities like Oprah, Britney Spears and the Kardashians to join Twitter. When celebs started flocking to the bird app, journalists were right behind them.

Overnight, Twitter went from our cozy bird app with around a million users in March of 2008, to having over 100 Million users in 2011.

And almost just as quickly, the experience on Twitter completely changed.  It seems celebs like to talk about themselves.  And it seems the media that followed them to Twitter wanted to talk about them.

Meanwhile, those of us who were enjoying our organic conversations and lack of self-promotion or fighting, suddenly felt like some fat, smelly guy had just cannonballed, uninvited, into our quiet and peaceful pool.  Now we were all soaked, and ready to leave.

Be Careful What You Wish For…

But the thing is, we had wanted this.  At least we thought we did. We wanted Twitter to go mainstream.  We wanted to see everyone enjoying the bird app and its community as we did.

Yet we didn’t think about how new people joining Twitter would fundamentally change the experience on Twitter.

And it totally did. Organic conversations gave way to ‘broadcasting’ from ‘thought leaders’. Or if an organic conversation did get off the ground, it was quickly sabotaged by a troll, who had likely joined Twitter sometime after Oprah did.

Why did this happen? Because the new users that Twitter rapidly picked up hadn’t help build the community that had been there since 2006/2007. They didn’t have that vested interest in growing and sustaining something that they hadn’t help build. They came to Twitter completely detached from the current users, so they wanted to use the bird app in their own way.

So Twitter went mainstream, but that small community of a million or so users from 2008 did not.  If Farcaster goes mainstream in a few years, the small community of users it has now will not.  It’s just the nature of how communities evolve and grow.

Why Can’t a Community Go Mainstream?

Let’s go back to the above definition of what a community is: A group of like-minded individuals who have a shared sense of ownership in something larger than themselves.

Those two bolded qualifiers are important.  A community is a group of people who are both like-minded AND who have a shared sense of OWNERSHIP in the community itself. By its very nature, these two qualifiers restrict the size of a community and prevent it from going mainstream.

Think about the size of a community.  As the community grows, it becomes more difficult to find new members who are of like mind as the current community AND who want to join the community as someone who will build and sustain the properties that make that community unique.

Every time a community welcomes a member who is NOT like-minded and/or who doesn’t have a desire to build or sustain the current community, the overall experience and value of that community degrades. If it happens often enough, the community itself can fracture and come undone.

Think of every community, online or offline, that you’ve ever joined and participated in.  The odds are the reason why you left that community came down to one of two reasons:

1 – It was too small

2 – It added people and you felt the values and spirit of the community was no longer appealing to you

When a community is pursuing growth, it should focus first on adding members who are like-minded with the existing community and who have a desire to work with the community to help it grow and create more value for all.

Community Growth is About Growing Value, Not Size

For years, I’ve been writing about how the social web needs to move back to a decentralized model vs a centralized one. I’ve been on the internet since the late 1980s. Over that time, I’ve been a member of countless communities covering countless topics, beliefs and ideas.

These communities have always, without fail, followed the same pattern.

1 – Start small, usually just a handful of passionate people.  Sometimes the community never grows past this point.

2 – If the community continues to grow, then its growth will either be fueled by simple word of mouth, or by the community itself personally vetting and bringing in new members. Word of mouth leads to faster growth, but the overall experience typically degrades faster.  If the community itself drives growth, the community typically stays smaller, but the experience can actually improve even more.

3 – At some point, the community either stops growing (often on purpose), or the community continues to grow and the overall experience of the community is altered to a point where the community itself becomes too detached from its original experience, and the community itself fractures.

 

Let me give you a simple example:  I joined CompuServe in the early 1990s. CompuServe had a number of chat rooms and I loved these.  One chat it had, every Sunday night, was called College Chat.  As I was still early on in my college journey at the time, having a weekly chat where I could talk to students around the country going through the same period of life I was, well it was really cool.  At first, the community was really small, about 20 or so regular members.  You had a few who would be moderators, who would drive the conversation.  After a few weeks you would start to get to know members and you’d make friends.  And all this did was deepen my connection to this group, since I would only see them once a week, for an hour every Sunday night.

After a year or so, CompuServe’s growth really started taking off.  A flood of new members to the platform meant a lot of new people participating in College Chat. Unfortunately, this degraded the experience.  The moderators found it too much to deal with, and moved on.  When they left, other regular members followed.  The new members that joined hadn’t been here and built this community up and hadn’t seen what made it special.  So they didn’t have the vested interest in building and growing the community. The community grew too big and fractured, but for that one year or so I really enjoyed College Chat.

Why Decentralized Will Win Over Centralized

When it comes to communities, in most cases, smaller is better. A small community can create deeper connections between its members, and those connections are pivotal to having a community that creates maximum value for all.

Think of it this way:  Centralization would be all of the United States. Decentralization would be the individual cities that make up the United States.  Each city has its own vibe, its own culture.  And typically, the culture and vibe of a city becomes more distinct the smaller it is.

Think of that in terms of the internet.  Twitter would be the United States, a centralized body where everyone is.  The individual cities would be decentralized online communities that you could easily visit and participate in as you wished.  A smaller community typically means a more in depth experience with like-minded people who have a much sharper focus and aim for participating in said community.

This is a big reason why I am excited about web3.  Because the promise of decentralization is so immense. I just hope as these brilliant builders are growing in a decentralized web3 world, that they will forego the desire to grow too big, too fast. Let growth flow slowly, and from the community itself.  This is how you increase your chances of growing in a way that adds to the value of the community, rather than detracting from it.

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Why Should Your Business Care About NFTs?

Non-Fungible Tokens. Can we all agree that’s the worst name ever?

What does it even mean? And they are selling for millions of dollars??? Suddenly EVERYONE is talking about Bored Apes this and Crypto Punks that.

And you don’t understand any of it. This is the position a LOT of us are in as we begin the new year. NFTs are one of the areas of the burgeoning web3 space that I’ve been trying to wrap my head around for the last few months. In doing so, I’ve been focusing on the potential business impact, ie “Why should your business care?”

What are NFTs

Non-Fungible Tokens. That word ‘fungible’ trips people up. It almost sounds like fungus. Non-fungus token?  Yeech!

Fungible means interchangeable. Think of currency. My dollar is interchangeable with your dollar.  My $3 in Bitcoin is interchangeable with your $3 in Bitcoin.

So it stands to reason that non-fungible means the item is NOT interchangeable. A non-fungible token is unique. An NFT has unique properties and characteristics. You can have two NFTs that are similar, but they will both be different in ways that makes each unique. And when items are unique, that means they aren’t the same, so they aren’t equal. You may have a 1978 Firebird Trans Am, and I may have a 2010 Ford Focus. Both are similar, in that they are both cars, but they are unique cars and as such, they have wildly different values and aren’t considered interchangeable.

Wait, can’t I just copy that JPEG?

Ah the ‘right-click’ theory. That you can easily copy an NFT as an image on your computer and have it as well.

The NFT is much more than simply an image. It is the unique data and provenance associated only with that particular NFT. This is where much of the value of NFTs are derived, and you can’t simply right-click and copy that.

The ownership of an NFT can be verified on a blockchain, as well as its history. We’ll talk more about the business implications of this in a minute. When you right-click that NFT you saw on Twitter, you can copy the image on your computer, but there’s no claim of ownership. For instance, if you wanted to take that image and sell it as an NFT, we would be able to verify that it’s not the same one that already exists, and which has a set value in the marketplace.

Ok, but it’s still just an image, right? I’m still not getting it.

Let’s go back to ownership and the history of ownership. More specifically, let’s go back to The Legend of Zelda.

One of the most prized toys of the 1980s was a Nintendo Entertainment System. I still remember getting that HUGE Sears catalog in the mail in 1985 and seeing that beauty for the first time! I bet a lot of you reading this can remember losing the hours of your youth playing Super Mario Bros, Metroid, Double Dribble, and so many more great games!

Let’s say you and your family are shopping at an indoor flea market. And you walk by a booth with a lot of those old Nintendo video games. You see a copy of The Legend of Zelda sitting there. “Hey!”, you exclaim to your son, “I had this when I was your age! I loved this game!” You see a price tag of $5, and decide to get it. You take your copy home, smiling as you are reunited with your childhood.

I’ve done the same thing. Occasionally over the years I would spot an old Nintendo game at a flea market or store, and I’d pick it up. I’ve accumulated a few over the years, and a few weeks ago as I was going through some old boxes, I came across my treasure trove of old Nintendo cartridges. One of them was The Legend of Zelda. I smiled as I saw the golden cartridge, and flipped it over.

And that’s when I saw it.

Faded, written in black permanent marker were two words: ‘Mack Collier’. That’s when it hit me: This wasn’t a copy of The Legend of Zelda that I had picked up at a flea market, this was actually THE copy of The Legend of Zelda I had owned as a kid! I even remembered why I had written my name on the back of it (in permanent marker, no less!), because at the time I was trading NES games with buddies at school. We would swap games for a week or so, then give them back. Well I traded a game and after a week, the kid I traded with said he had ‘lost’ my game.  I suspected he simply liked my game better and decided to keep it.  So I wrote my name on my copy of The Legend of Zelda to avoid this happening in the future. Ha!

The point in this story is, while there are many copies of The Legend of Zelda game out there in the wild, there’s only one copy IN THE WORLD that Mack Collier owned as a teenager in the 1980s. Luckily, I still have that copy. And my name being written on the back helps verify (at least to me) my ownership, and the record of ownership and the associated story that comes with it. That adds value to this item (at least to me).

The history of ownership helps tell the story of the item (in this case an NFT), and that helps assign value to the piece.

What would be a business example of using NFTs?

Let’s say your supermarket chain wants to start a brand ambassador program. Your program will launch with 100 members. Each member will receive their own, unique and numbered NFT. This will represent their ‘digital identity’ within the program. What the NFT is really doesn’t matter in this example, it’s more about the functionality it enables for the holder. Think of it as an ambassador’s Membership Card that proves they are a member of the supermarket’s ambassador program.

So if you join the brand ambassador program, you are given an NFT that gives you Level One privileges within the program. Additionally, each year you are given 500 tokens that can be used as currency within the program and among its members (Think of these tokens as being similar to Rewards points in a loyalty program).

This is where it can get interesting.  The tokens allow you to purchase items (real and digital) associated with the program and brand. In addition, performing certain tasks can earn you more tokens. Such as signing up for the brand’s newsletter, referring a new member to the ambassador program, filling out a survey, etc.

So what can you do with your tokens?  There are a million possibilities, but for simplicity sake, we’ll focus on three areas:

1 – Use the tokens to buy products directly from the supermarket. Basically, the tokens could replace cash. Or you could use the tokens to buy a discount for a set amount of time, etc.

2 – Sell the tokens to other members. As all members are using tokens to reach certain tiers in the ambassador program, users that have more tokens than they want or need could see their excess to another member.

3 – Using tokens to upgrade your NFT. Remember above that I said when you joined the supermarket’s brand ambassador program that you receive an NFT that gives you Level One privileges? What if you want to upgrade your NFT? Let’s say for 750 tokens, you can upgrade your NFT to give you Level Two privileges. These could include higher discounts, larger token payouts for performing tasks, and more access directly to the brand. This leveling up could go all the way up to Level Five (or Ten, Fifty, whatever). With better perks at each level.

 

The NFT becomes a sort of digital resume or history of that person’s activity within the brand ambassador program. And everyone could trace what the person had done by seeing on the blockchain how the NFT had changed over time. So the activity becomes the ‘story’ of the NFT, and that helps create value for the NFT itself. It’s that ambassador’s digital identity.

You owe it to yourself and your business to learn about NFTs

I started really investing some time in learning about emerging Web3 technologies like blockchains, cryptocurrencies and NFTs a few months ago. At first, I was totally unimpressed with NFTs and focused most of my attention on understanding crypto. But the more I learn about NFTs, the more confident I feel in saying that 2022 will be an even bigger year for the space.

Which would be pretty impressive:

 

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Twitter Should Be Bigger Than Facebook

I can show you why they aren’t in two tweets.  More on that in a minute.

I joined Twitter in March of 2007. I actually started hearing about Twitter from online friends in the Summer of 2006, soon after the site launched. At the time, I was working hard to grow my first blog, and wanted to focus my attention there. But more and more friends told me to get on Twitter.

Then SXSW happened in 2007. Twitter made a very smart decision to have a presence at SXSW, because the startup knew that many of its more influential users or potential users would be there.  TV screens were set up all in the hallways in the convention center showcasing tweets as they happened.  Anyone who has been at SXSW can tell you, the hallways are where the magic happens.

After SXSW in 2007, EVERYONE I knew online was gushing about Twitter. I finally relented on March 31st 2007, and joined Twitter.

If you joined Twitter after say 2010, you honestly do not know what you missed. Twitter from 2007-2009 was amazing. It was the most incredible social site I’ve ever been on. Nonstop organic conversations with the most amazing people, from all around the world! At its peak around 2011 or so, I was spending up to 10 hours a day on Twitter, every day.  DMs essentially replaced my email inbox.  I met new friends, made new contacts, did business deals.  All on Twitter.

I loved Twitter in the early days.  The days before the celebs and the media and the trolls found it.  Everyone did.

But the reality is, Twitter never loved us back. I specifically remember a conversation a group of a dozen or so of us had on Twitter, sometime in 2009. As most conversations were at the time, it was organic, and lasted for at least an hour.  It involved several ‘power users’ of Twitter, who all had 10,000 to 50,000 or so followers.  And this was in 2009, when you didn’t see Twitter users with over 100,000 followers every day, if at all. So we are talking pretty big and influential users.

The focus of our conversation (on Twitter) was how it was time for Twitter to officially hire a Community Manager. We wanted Twitter to make an effort to LISTEN to its users, and incorporate our feedback to improve the experience for all. At the time, Twitter was growing like mad. It wasn’t mainstream yet, but it was on the cusp. You had so many smart, passionate users that were so hungry to see Twitter explode. We had so many amazing ideas for how Twitter could become huge.

And what infuriated us, was that Twitter completely ignored us. I think our pleas reached Twitter, because shortly after, Twitter put out a statement clarifying that Twitter wasn’t a conversational platform, it was intended to be a ‘discovery’ or ‘broadcast’ platform.

Twitter said they never intended for the platform to be a place where people went and talked all day.

We were crushed. How could such a popular company totally misunderstand how its core users use and love their site?

But Twitter always has. Twitter has so many creators who have gone out of their way for over a decade to evangelize the site for years.  Twitter has done little or nothing to highlight these creators.  For instance, at its height, #Blogchat was regularly the Top Trending Topic on all of Twitter during the chat each Sunday night.

Twitter never reached out to me or any popular chat host (that I know of) to even say thanks for bringing people to our platform.

They just never seemed to care. That has always frustrated me.

Now about those two tweets…

Ever since Twitter launched in 2006, users have begged Twitter to add a way to edit tweets. This is by far the most requested feature that Twitter users have ever asked for. And Twitter, as Twitter seems to always do, has always ignored completely that its users have wanted this feature.  I can’t even remember a time when anyone in Twitter leadership has ever even addressed the feature request or why it hasn’t been implemented. It comes across as if Twitter simply doesn’t care that its users want this feature.

So imagine my surprise (and frustration) when I recently saw this tweet:

https://twitter.com/TwitterBlue/status/1458110348880343041

Twitter is finally giving users a way to edit tweets (sort of), but it MAKES YOU PAY FOR THE FEATURE.  It’s only available if you purchase Twitter Blue’s monthly subscription.

To Twitter users who have begged for the ability to edit tweets for years, this comes across as such a slap in the face.  Totally tone deaf, yet somehow completely consistent with Twitter not understanding its core, passionate users.

Now let’s look at the second tweet:

https://twitter.com/Clubhouse/status/1460367376721924102

While Twitter seems to go out of its way to ignore its top creators, and always has, Clubhouse goes out of its way to promote and highlight its top creators.  And for extra irony, they are doing a lot of it on Twitter, as you can see above.

This matters. One of the most pressing problems that startups face is growing a community of passionate users who will help the startup’s service or products grow. Many startups bootstrap their core operations at first. Marketing is one of those areas where the startup typically tries to give it a go themselves due to a lack of funds initially. So community management is vital to the early days of the startup in order to retain and grow the customer base.

Clubhouse understands this.  Clubhouse knows if its creators/room organizers are successful, that the platform will be successful.  So Clubhouse is investing in supporting its creators via its accelerator program, and also by promoting them on the platform and by having constant ‘townhalls’ on Clubhouse to discuss what’s happening with the platform, and to review user feedback.

All of this communicates to Clubhouse users and creators that the platform hears them, and appreciates them.  Clubhouse has done more to listen to and engage its users in the last year, than Twitter has in the last 15.

And that’s a shame. As well as a huge missed opportunity.  If Twitter had started in 2006 with the same commitment to engaging its users and listening to their feedback, then Twitter would easily be the biggest social platform in the world right now.  I have zero doubt in my mind.

 

But even though I hate how the platform keeps its passionate users at arms length, I do love the people I’ve met on Twitter, and the conversations that happen there. Speaking of which, I’ve been asked by Social Champ to join their weekly Twitter chat as a co-host. Our session is tomorrow at 10 am Central, hope to see you there!

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Social Media Isn’t Transactional, it’s a Community

A few weeks ago I was driving and a pastor came on the radio and he discussed how most Christians pray the ‘wrong’ way.

He explained that most people who pray, pray in a transactional way. “God if you do this for me, then I will do this.” The pastor explained that we shouldn’t pray asking God to do something for us. He said we should pray that God will empower us to do more for other people. He said as we do more for others, the blessings we bestow on others, will return to us.

This has completely changed my outlook on prayer. I now focus on how I can serve others, versus what I want to get.

I was remembering these words when I saw this LinkedIn update from Mackenzie today:

This is true for all of social media, and really all of life. If you want others to help you, helping them first is a great way to make that happen.

Every time I talk to my friend Michelle, she ends every call with the same request “Now, what can I do to help support you?”

Here’s what I’d like you to do, please check out Michelle’s new podcast, Hard Won Wisdom, which debuts next week with her co-host Fawn Germer. I cannot wait to listen and I’m so excited to see what happens next for Michelle!

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Monday’s Marketing Minute: Clubhouse’s Growth Slows, YouTube Pushing Users Back to TVs, the Power of Fandoms

Happy Monday! I hope you are ready for an amazingly productive week! Here’s some business and marketing stories that have caught my eye since last Monday:

 

So from February to April, Clubhouse saw its number of downloads fall by roughly 90%. To help combat this, Clubhouse is pushing for growth in Brazil and India, two countries where Android devices dominate over their iOS counterparts. With the introduction of Greenroom from Spotify, I think it signals that social audio is already shifting toward more targeted or niche groups, and I believe that will help accelerate Clubhouse’s decline. Clubhouse needed to own the social audio space before competitive offerings came out that offered a more niche appeal, and that hasn’t happened. I still think Clubhouse will be competitive in the social audio space for another 6-12 months at least, but it likely won’t end up being the dominant player in the space that we thought it could become.

 

I always find it fascinating how our content consumption patterns change over time and as we become more adept at using tools. For instance, YouTube now claims that roughly 40% of its viewership happens on TVs. What can we deduce from this?  That likely suggests that more YouTube users are viewing longer-form videos. Maybe it means they are viewing more movies on the platform, or maybe it is a sign that YouTube Gaming is continuing to gain in popularity, as most streams from gamers last several hours.

 

I love this deck on The New Fandom Formula by Zoe. It’s a great primer into the power of fans and online communities. Online communities are going to continue to become a major story in the coming months and years, as several stories are converging around the power of fans and customers connecting online. I’ve already talked about what’s happening in esports, but there’s much more on the way. And I love how Zoe’s deck has locked content, and if you want access to the full deck, you have to purchase it. I can speak from experience, creating a high-quality deck like this takes many hours. Content creators deserve to paid for creating high quality work like this, and I think the money asked helps communicate the value of the content. The free version has a ton of useful information so definitely check it out.

 

 

So that’s what I wanted to talk about this week! Now, let me warn you that there is a huge breaking news story happening on July 1st. It will have massive ramifications for the marketing and branding worlds, and I’m honestly shocked that more of my peers aren’t addressing what’s coming. Check back here on Weds for the rundown on what’s coming and why it’s relevant.

Till then, have a wonderful week, see you on Weds!

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Monday’s Marketing Minute: Stack Overflow’s Huge Pricetag, Shorts Expanding, Twitter Trying out Subscriptions

Happy Monday, y’all! Hope you are ready for an amazing week! We have a pretty massive lead story so let’s jump right into this week’s Monday’s Marketing Minute:

 

This could end up  being the most significant acquisition in the tech space this year. Stack Overflow is a Q&A site that caters to programmers. It has developed a massive community over the years, and is known as the go-to site for any current or aspiring programmer to get answers to their technical questions. And it was just acquired for $1.8 BILLION.  That pricetag is massive, and it will hopefully start a trend of companies either acquiring or building their own community sites for users and customers. Yes, such sites are a long play, but once they get rolling, it’s such a competitive advantage.

 

YouTube’s wildly popular Shorts feature is expanding into more countries. Shorts, much like Reels from Instagram, are competitors to Tik-Tok, and both are gaining traction. We could see something similar play out in lesser form over the coming months as the popularity of social audio migrates from Clubhouse to other sites like Twitter and LinkedIn.

 

Twitter is beginning to follow through on its strategy of offering subscription services for users.  The first is focused on weather. For $10 a month, you can get the following:

  • Ability to ask a team of meteorologists unlimited questions and they promise to answer
  • Members-only weekly newsletter
  • Early access to podcasts

Twitter also says they will hold Spaces during periods of potentially harmful weather. Honestly, I’m struggling to see how the $10 price tag is justified for this. For instance, I can get pretty much all this information for free from following James Spann on Twitter.  Maybe $5 a month would be more plausible, but if people start paying $10 a month for subscriptions, they are gonna expect an experience above and beyond what they can get on Twitter now, for free.

 

So that’s it for this edition of Monday’s Marketing Minute! Hope you have an amazing day and week!

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Here’s the 1% of Your Customer Base You Should Grow

In 2005, Alabama football started the season with an unexpectedly strong showing. The Tide, coming off a 6-win season in 2004, jumped out to a 4-0 start and #16 ranking heading into an October 1st matchup against #5 Florida. The game was in Tuscaloosa, and the excitement was palpable. Adding to the intensity, was the fact that all week heading into the game, the fact that Alabama had never beaten a Top 5 opponent in Tuscaloosa was repeated endlessly.

As you might expect, ticket prices for the game were through the roof, but I decided to go to the game just to be on campus and soak in the experience.  Due to traffic I got to the stadium a few minutes into the game. Outside the stadium there were multiple televisions set up so fans could watch the game. The game was being broadcast on CBS, and I began to circle the stadium heading toward the nearest television so I could watch the game.

The game was in the first few minutes of the first quarter. As I was walking, I could hear the roar of the crowd, it was very loud. A play started, and I then heard what almost sounded like a gasp from the entire crowd then what can only be called an explosion of sound. The sudden roaring of the crowd was so loud, that I could literally FEEL the audio waves coming from the stadium as I walked outside it.

This is what was happening inside the stadium at that moment (volume UP):

 

In 2018, Twitch streamers Nickmercs and Aydan were competing in a Fortnite tournament, and one of the perks was that if the team could eliminate a certain number of players in a specific time they could collect a $30,000 prize bonus.

As the duo got closer to winning the Make It Rain bonus, they were having trouble concentrating because debris from the ceiling kept falling on them as they was playing.

The crowd’s roar was so loud as Nickmercs and Aydan kept eliminating players that the ceiling was vibrating, and it was causing debris to fall down on the players.

 

We all start at zero

I’ve always been completely enamored with how entities and personalities in music, entertainment and sports/esports can create fans that are as passionate as the fans you see in the above two clips. One of the reasons why I wrote Think Like a Rock Star was to help companies understand how these fans are created, so those businesses can also create passionate fans.

One of the biggest misconceptions businesses have about creating fans is the belief that fans just ‘happen’ for people and companies in certain industries like sports, music, and entertainment.

Nickmercs is one of the streamers in the above video.  He’s also one of the hottest streamers in the world right now, and a few weeks ago he had over 400,000 viewers for one stream.

But recently, he tweeted out a reminder that in 2014, he was celebrating the fact that he had hit 170 viewers on a stream:

And he was excited about having 170 viewers, because he started with 0. All Twitch streamers do.

All businesses start with 0 happy customers. We ALL start at 0.

Reverse-engineering the Roar

Another huge misconception businesses have is that they can’t create fans like Alabama football does, or like Taylor Swift does or like Nickmercs does.

Let’s go back to the first example in this post of the Alabama football game. It’s easy for your business to look at that and think, “We could never have fans like that!”

Are you SURE about that?

Let’s break down that example. How many people are there that would claim to be Alabama football fans?  I have no earthly idea and it would be almost impossible to measure. For the purposes of this post, let’s say there are 10 Million people who self-identify as being Alabama fans.

The above Alabama-Florida game had roughly 80,000 people in attendance. Let’s say there were another 20,000 fans outside the stadium and in the area.  So for the purposes of this post, there were 100,000 Alabama fans who were passionate enough about the Crimson Tide to come to Tuscaloosa to see that game.

100,000 is 1% of 10 Million. So that means that only 1% of Alabama football fans were passionate enough about the Crimson Tide to come to Tuscaloosa on October 1st, 2005, to see them play.

So all the passion and electricity you saw in that video above, that wasn’t Alabama football fans.  That was the 1% of Alabama football fans who are the MOST PASSIONATE about the Crimson Tide.

Think about your business. How many customers do you have?

Let’s say your VP of Marketing wants to create a conference just for your customers.

Could you get enough customers to attend to make the event viable?  Maybe not.

But do you think you could get 1% of your customers to attend?  Yeah, that’s a possibility.

Then how is your business different from Alabama football or NickMercs or Taylor Swift when it comes to creating passionate customers that love you?

It isn’t. The difference is, Alabama football and NickMercs and Taylor Swift do a better job of ENGAGING their fans than your business does.

 

Excitement breeds excitement

Let’s say your business has 1,000 customers. 1% of 1,000 is 10. So you have about 10 customers that absolutely love your business.

Who are those customers? You should know who they are, their names, what they do. Your business should be in constant contact with them. Your business should empower those 1% of your customers to tell others about your business.

Let your most passionate customers be your best salespeople. Let them sing your praises to others. They are already doing this (because they love you), your business just needs to be smart enough to give them better tools to do what they are already doing.

That will lead to more customers for your business. And once your current customers see how you are engaging with, embracing and empowering your 1%, it will make them want to join that 1%.

What if your business could grow its customer base by 10% a year, and increase its 1% of customers that love you by another percentage point every year?

So start out with 1,000 customers and 10 customers who love you.

The next year, you have 1,100 customers and 20 customers who love you.

The third year, you have 1,210 customers and 30 customers who love you.

The fourth year, you have 1,331 customers and 52 customers who love you.

The fifth year, you have 1,462 customers and 73 customers who love you.

 

So in just 5 years, your customer base could grow by almost 50%, and the number of customers who love you could increase over sevenfold.

Think of the impact that amount of growth could have on your business. And it’s not just growth, it’s cumulative growth, fueled by engaging just 1% of your customers, and letting them spread their passion for your business to others.

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Monster Energy is the Red Bull That You’ve Never Heard Of

If you’ve attended a marketing, business or content conference in the last decade, you know how successfully Red Bull uses content marketing. They are experts at content marketing, in fact I used the brand as one of the key case studies in my book Think Like a Rock Star. Red Bull also invests heavily in extreme sporting events, as well as mainstream sports like NASCAR, and even in the thriving E-Sports industry.

Red Bull doesn’t market its product, it markets what happens after you drink it. The brand sets the standard for successful content marketing, and its focus on sponsoring and helping to grow the sporting events that its customers love is absolutely brilliant.

Red Bull does everything right when it comes to marketing, and it’s no surprise that they dominate the energy drink space.

Except…they don’t. In fact, Red Bull may not even be the market leader in the energy drink industry by the end of 2021.

monster energy

Meet Monster Energy, the Red Bull That You’ve Never Heard Of

What makes the energy drink industry so fascinating is that it doesn’t have one brand doing exceptional marketing, it has two. And this exceptional marketing has helped catapult both brands to own the energy drink industry.

Heading into 2021, Red Bull was the energy drink market leader, with just over 40% of the market. Monster Energy was right behind them with just under 40% of the market. However, Coca-Cola acquired a 17% stake in Monster Energy in 2014, and Monster Energy will be benefiting from Coca-Cola’s distribution channels as part of that relationship. This has led to speculation that Monster Energy could actually pass Red Bull to become the energy drink market leader in 2021 or 2022.

But the purpose of this post isn’t to prop up Monster Energy or really Red Bull either. What I wanted to focus on is how both brands have created incredibly effective marketing strategies. And in some ways those strategies are very similar, and in others, they are quite different. I want to examine those strategies in detail here because there are some key lessons that you can take from both brands to improve your own company’s marketing and give you a competitive advantage in your space.

 

Red Bull and Monster Energy Both Market Sporting Events, But in Very Different Ways

Both Red Bull and Monster Energy invest in sponsoring athletes and teams at sporting, extreme and esports events. This is very smart marketing, and it helps both brands show customers that they have ‘skin in the game’. It also communicates to customers that these brands are committed to seeing these events grow.

While both brands are active in these events via sponsorships, their marketing efforts are slightly different. Red Bull works to associate itself with the athletes. Their marketing message is that they help fuel these amazing athletes and help them accomplish these amazing feats. Red Bull sponsors the athletes and then leverages their accomplishments via content marketing. These athletes give Red Bill access to thousands of hours of amazing content, which is a big reason why Red Bull’s content marketing is viewed as some of the best work by any global brand. But make no mistake, the underlying message from Red Bull’s marketing is that these amazing athletes doing amazing things, are doing it because they drink Red Bull.

Monster Energy takes a slightly different approach. The brand does sponsor teams and athletes at events. But while Red Bull’s branding is more about the athletes and how Red Bull helps fuel them, Monster Energy is wanting to position itself more as a lifestyle brand. Monster not only sponsors events, teams and athletes, but the brand also has a major presence at these events. The brand will offer product sampling at events, goes out of its way to connect directly with fans, and also has the famous (infamous?) Monster Girls at their events. While Red Bull is positioning itself to align more with the athletes, Monster Energy positions itself more to interact directly with their customers via events.

 

Red Bull is All-In on Traditional Marketing, Monster All But Ignores It 

‘Red Bull gives you wiiiiings!’ You’ve probably heard that tagline from Red Bull’s commercials many times over the years. The brand heavily invests in broadcast commercials, and it has created some stunners.

When’s the last time you saw a commercial for Monster Energy?  Have you ever seen one?

Both Red Bull and Monster Energy are attempting to connect with the 18-30 year-old demographic, especially males. This group has a highly tuned bullshit detector when it comes to traditional advertising and marketing. So both brands are mindful of that in their marketing efforts.

Red Bull works with and associates itself with extreme athletes, and then uses them as sort of ‘influencers’ to connect with the end customer. Red Bull’s broadcast and print marketing efforts focus on the athletes and their amazing accomplishments moreso than the brand itself. This approach of letting the athletes lead the marketing and Red Bull takes a backseat has resonated with customers, who don’t see it as marketing, but rather as awesome content.

Monster Energy focuses more on connecting with customers directly. As you might guess, the brand all but avoids traditional marketing in trying to connect with the 18-30 age group it covets.

Marianne Radley, Monster’s Senior VP of Marketing, explains: “We’re very hesitant about doing interviews for no other reason than focusing on building the brand one can at a time with intimate consumer connections. Our marketing has always been very below the line. We’re mindful of that, so we try to keep our time with the press minimal just so it doesn’t look like we’re pushing so much in your face. Everything we do is genuine and sincere, and we try to keep that for all points of communication.”

Notice Ms. Radley’s comment about how Monster doesn’t want to appear to be ‘in your face’ with its marketing. She’s speaking to her customer base. She knows young males hate promotion, so the second one of her customers thinks ‘this smells like marketing’, they will tune out, and Monster has lost a chance to connect with that customer. As you can see from her quote, the brand is very mindful of how it connects with its customers.

red bull

 

Red Bull and Monster Energy Market Differently, But the Result is the Same

While the two brands market and position themselves in slightly different way, there’s one key element that’s the same. Both brands invest in supporting the athletes and events that are important to their customers.

At the end of the day, both brands are courting the coveted 18-30 year-old male category. This age group is very resistant to traditional marketing efforts, as mentioned earlier. So both brands use different tactics to reach their customers. Red Bull does traditional marketing, but it’s not traditional in how it’s structured. The focus isn’t on Red Bull’s products, but on the athletes and celebrities that use those products. That makes the marketing more interesting and palatable to millennials.

Monster Energy all but ignores traditional marketing. Instead, the brand focuses on connecting with their customers personally at events and through non-traditional marketing efforts.

The results speak for themselves. Both brands command roughly 40% of the energy drink market, and they control over 80% of the market space combined.

 

What’s the Key Takeaway For Your Brand?

Focus your marketing efforts on what’s important to your customers. Years ago, Fiskars was looking for a way to revitalize interest in a centuries old brand that made a very boring product; scissors. Fiskars started by doing market research into who its customers were, and how they used its product. What the brand found surprised them; Their customers were actually much younger than they assumed, and Fiskars scissors were quite popular among scrapbookers. Fiskars took what it had learned, and applied that to its marketing. They built a community for scrapbookers, and let some of Fiskars most avid scrapbooking customers, run the community.

The community, which was dubbed The Fiskateers, ended up being quite successful for Fiskars in building sales and brand awareness. The lead members of the Fiskateers community were highly sought after by crafting stores across the country. Crafting stores always enjoyed a boost in sales when a Fiskateer appeared and spoke to the customers. Fiskars’ success with The Fiskateers was because the brand invested in the activities and communities that are important to its customers. Just as Red Bull and Monster Energy invest in sporting events, Fiskars invested in growing the scrapbooking community. In doing so, the brand created something of value for its customers, which in turn, created value for the brand.

Think about how your customers use your products, and for what reasons. How can you incorporate your customers’ behavior into your marketing efforts? What are your customers passionate about and how can you sponsor those passions and help them grow?

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What’s the Difference Between an Audience and a Community?

In my book Think Like a Rock Star, I make the point that the rock concert is probably the greatest marketing tactic ever created. The beauty of the rock concert is that it gives fans a way to see and connect with their favorite rock star in a way that they can’t get from buying their albums or merchandise.

But more than that, it gives fans of that rock star a way to connect with each other. The importance of being able to connect with like-minded people that love the same rock star cannot be overstated. When you put a group of people together that share a common interest, it gives them a chance to connect with each other, and to become a community.

You hear so many content marketers talking about the importance of building an audience for your content. They talk about how to tailor your content so that it finds and grows an audience.

But what about building a community around your content? And what’s the difference between an audience and a community in regards to your content or your brand or your idea?

 

Meet Tim and Jason 

Tim and Jason are both fans of Alabama football. In terms of our discussion here, Tim will be your audience, Jason will be your community. Let’s look at how they differ:

Tim – Tim has been a fan of Alabama football since 2010, right after Alabama won its first National Championship under current coach Nick Saban. He has an Alabama cap and a couple of shirts, which he likes to wear on gameday. He tries to watch as many Alabama football games on TV as he can, although he does miss a few due to work and other activities. If Coach Saban retired and Alabama football had a losing season, he would probably start cheering for another team.

Tim is what you would call the ‘audience’ for your content. He will stick around as long as you are giving him useful content, and he’s just here for the content.

Jason – Jason is what you would call a ‘die hard’ Alabama fan. So are his parents and all his friends. Jason attended his first Alabama football game when he was 12 years old. He grew up watching Alabama football lose under Mike Dubose and later Mike Shula, which makes him appreciate even more how successful Alabama football is now. Jason is a season ticket-holder, and prior to last year, he attended every home game. He loves being on campus and each trip to Tuscaloosa was a day-long event. He would arrive on campus around 6 am, and tailgate for several hours prior to the start of the game. He enjoys meeting other Alabama football fans, and knows all the fans that tailgate around him for each game. As he’s gotten older, he spends more and more time on campus, he loves seeing all the sights and meeting other Alabama football fans and sharing stories about past seasons.

Jason is what you would call the ‘community’ around your content. He loves your content, but he also loves communicating and engaging with other people that also love your content.

As you read these personas for Tim and Jason, note the main difference: Jason is far more invested in your content, because he’s part of a community that loves your content, and he loves connecting with other members of that community.

Here’s another way to think of the difference:

Members of your community are actively engaged and invested in the community that they are a part of. They will devote more resources, whether its time or money (or both) to you and your community and seeing both grow.

So consider this when deciding if you want an audience for your content, or a community. And some people only want an audience, and there’s nothing wrong with that. They just want to create great content, and have people appreciate it, and that’s it.

But some people want to have a true community around their content. They want to create content that is found to be valuable with an audience, but they then want that audience to be connected with each other and become a community. They are willing to put in the extra time and energy to get to know the people that enjoy their content, and help those people connect with each other.

A community is more invested in seeing that community, and the things, ideas and people they support, succeed.

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What is a Customer Feedback Loop and Why Should it Be a Part of Your Brand Ambassador Program?

Customer feedback comes in many forms:

  • Surveys the company sends out
  • Calls to customer service
  • Social media responses or complaints from the customer
  • In-person feedback from customers in retail locations

Often, this feedback is used to solve a current issue the customer is having. But what if a customer’s feedback isn’t focused on an immediate need? What if the feedback is an overall criticism or appreciation for the brand? What if the feedback is focused on an ongoing situation the customer encounters when dealing with the brand, either good or bad?

Many brands focus on the ‘customer feedback’ portion of a customer feedback loop, but forget the ‘loop’ part. The idea is to acquire feedback from the customer, then consider that feedback and either act on it, or not. But either way, the customer should also receive feedback from the brand as to next steps.

So when it comes to facilitating a customer feedback loop. the two most important considerations are the most effective ways to collect feedback from the customer, then the most effective way to relay feedback from the brand, back to the customer. Thus, facilitating the ‘loop’ portion of a customer feedback loop.

Feedback solicited from and given to another customer is typically more valuable than customer feedback solicited from and given to the brand. The reason why is because customers trust other customers more than the average brand.

How Do You Integrate a Customer Feedback Loop Into Your Brand Ambassador Program?

Too many brand ambassador programs simply position its ambassadors as a new promotional channel. So before you think about integrating a customer feedback loop into your brand ambassador program, you need to shift your focus into all the different ways that your ambassadors can help your brand

  • As a promotional channel
  • As a customer service channel
  • As a customer feedback loop
  • As a way to educate other customers about and defend the brand

To only think of ambassadors as megaphones for your brand is incredibly short-sighted and honestly unfair to the talents that your ambassadors possess. So your brand needs to think about the value that can be created by your ambassadors if you empower them to solicit and collect feedback from current and potential customers. Think of it as free marketing research that your ambassadors can conduct on behalf of your brand.

So how could this work for your company? Let’s use a simple example. Let’s say your brand launches a brand ambassador program, and creates a smartphone app just for its ambassadors. This app would be a tool to empower ambassadors when they connect with other customers. It would include things product information and reviews in case the ambassador encounters a potential customer who is considering a purchase and needs more information. It could also include functionality that lets the ambassadors give detailed feedback not only on interactions with the brand online and offline, but also, feedback on customer interactions. Ambassadors could file reports on interactions they have with customers, offering suggestions on how the brand should respond, etc. The brand could then notify the ambassador that they received and processed their report.  It could even ‘escalate’ the report to contact the ambassador directly.

The process could look like this:

1 – Ambassador engages a customer either online or offline

2 – Ambassador records feedback from the customer

3 – Ambassador shares customer feedback with the brand

4 – Brand acts on the customer feedback and communicates steps taken to ambassadors

 

That’s it. And the great part is, this is new customer feedback that the brand otherwise would not have access to. This feedback can be incorporated into existing business processes to increase sales and reduce costs. So start thinking about how your ambassadors can perform additional roles for your brand past that of simply being a direct sales channel.