Note: This is a guest post from Paper.li’s Kelly Hungerford, who heads up Marketing and Communications for the brand.  I asked Kelly to write this post for several reasons, but mainly because she’s been a huge supporter of me and my book Think Like a Rock Star for months now.  Plus, she’s working with Paper.li’s fans to build an advocacy program and I wanted her to talk about what the brand is doing and what they are learning because it is not an easy process.  But building a strong connection with your most passionate customers is definitely a worthwhile goal and I’m so grateful to Kelly for sharing what Paper.li is learning along the way.  Please drop Kelly a comment and let her know what you think!

A few months back, before Think Like a Rock Star was available for sale, I approached Mack for some advice. I wanted to pick his brain on the beginnings of a brand ambassador program for Paper.li.

After two years I felt we were ready to move make a commitment and take the plunge into developing a structure and process to begin formally recognize our core users — our advocates. I wanted a program that would

• officially recognize our most loyal advocates and say thank you
• enable them to take part in shaping the service in the future
• empower them to inspire others

After speaking with speaking Mack I realized I couldn’t answer a fundamental question, which was “what are the key elements that would excite your users in a program?. “  I could only make an assumption.

I had spent the past two years listening, responding and engaging but still didn’t understand enough to formalize a process around my fans. I needed to change my approach. Mack sent me an early copy of TLARS and I began reading and realized that I needed to bend my ear past listening to achieve deeper understanding.

Applying TLARS principals at Paper.li

I spent the next 4 months fine-tuning my listening skills, applying and adapting approaches from TLARS to my work. Four months may sound like a long time, but I purposely took extra time to evaluate our users’ needs for three reasons:

1- Resources: Paper.li is still a small company, with colleagues covering multiple rolls. NOT doing my research will impact my team and create more work for everyone

2- Goodwill:  we feel a large sense of responsibility to get things right when we roll out enhancements or launch new features. Formalizing a program is no different. Their time is valuable and we value their time.

3- No revenue pressure: my aim is to reward our most loyal users, not to increase any revenue. We recognize the benefits of formalizing a relationship for both sides, but there is was no time pressure to roll anything out before it was ready.

 

And these were the changes that were implemented:

1- Increased engagement outside of our owned channels

I noticed that when I engaged with users under the Paper.li name, I naturally put on my “helping hat”. I was always looking after issues, giving advice, solving problems. This is a great way to build trust and keep users loyal, but it is a bit similar to going to grab a beer with a colleague and only talking about work the entire time — it doesn’t lend to interesting conversations.

So I increased the engagement under my own name and out from underneath the Paper.li hood. This may seem like a natural thing to do, but when you work for a company, it doesn’t come naturally. The natural thing is to interact with your community through official channels and campaigns set-up through your company.

One of the first outside events I organized for our community was a #BlogChat sponsorship. Although it was company sponsored, I was there on my own time and under my own name. By reaching out this way, the dynamic changed and so did the information flow. I was able to listen without a customer service or marketing hat on my head, participate with my community to better understand what was important to them.

2- Quit making assumptions

There is nothing wrong with assumptions, but when you are structuring something around your users, for your users, why make any assumptions if you don’t have to?

We have the tools available today to virtually reach and shake hands. We should use them to our advantage to better incorporate our users voices into our organizations and create more experiences for them, with them.

I stopped making assumptions and started sending an email, tweet or post to get the information I needed. It took more time, but it yielded the information I was looking for.

3- Leveraged our support function

Where I didn’t have an answer, I asked. This sounds like a “duh” statement, but I am convinced that 50% of the time we don’t have the answers we require because we simply haven’t asked the right question — or any question.

Both Twitter and our support forum give us the opportunity to engage and inquire, but most users contact us via Twitter for quick responses, so this wasn’t the place to ask 20 questions. I opted for our support desk and we began increasing our conversation with our end users there.

We added a simple question like this “Would you have time for one more question?” and then asked our question.

That extra one minute invested to formulate a question not only resulted in beautiful feedback but ultimately strengthened and built a stronger mutual relationship between our team and our users.

This isn’t something that we implemented just to understand our advocates wishes better, this was a change across the board.  By going the extra mile we have seen our advocate circle organically grow and we are not just responding to requests, we are building relationships. In fact, a lot of our users just drop us a line to say hi during the week now.

 

The results:

After adjusting our listening, analyzing results and putting a few internal processes in place, we were able to structure the first phase of a very humble ambassador program — around user feedback– for our advocates.

Here’s what they asked for along with what we were able to implement to get the program started.

1-  Direct contact with our team: via email, G+, Skype or a special address in our forum, our advocates wanted to be able to tap into at any time. This is great for not only for keeping in touch or answering questions but is essential for getting feedback on features or input on new ideas.

Solution: We set up a private G+ community, gave access to key members of the team via direct email and Skype.

2- Early notification of product releases: our users want to be empowered. They want to show their audience what’s happening before it’s made public. They also want to educate others.

Solution: We hold G+ product, information and best practices hangouts. We invite users to speak and share their impressions with the rest of the group, share best practices and hear what’s new.

3- Badges/recognition: who said the badge is dead? Our core users want to show what they are a part of. They are proud to be associated with the company and would like to show their pride off. Additionally, they wanted to be easily identifiable by other publishers.

Solution: a badge that identifies them as an ambassador/super-user. They will be highlighted in blog posts, cited as distinguished publishers when asked by PR, included in presentations, blog posts and so forth.

4- Testing new product: this take number two a step further. Our users want to be a part of what’s happening and help shape the product for the future.

Solution: shared access on our pre-prod environment. We inform them when new features, improvements or enhancements are ready and let them test. The feedback has been great and they are having a blast and they are helping us resolve issue and define new ways of working and thinking about our product.

5- Receive Swiss chocolate: no kidding! Our fans would like to get their hands on authentic “can’t be found in the supermarket” Swiss chocolate.

Solution: Unfortunately, this part of the program isn’t yet in place. it isn’t easy to ship Swiss chocolate (or food) internationally. We’ll work on this.

Our ambassador program is truly a work in progress. There is no glam, fancy announcements, t-shirts or mugs being handed out. But the anticipation of how this can progress is as exciting as the feedback that we’re receiving from our advocates.

We’ve succeed in pulling back the curtain back and incorporating our most passionate users (formally) into our team as honorary members, giving them a backstage pass and total access to us. We’ve truly begun to Think Like a Rock Star at Paper.li and we’re proud of it!

I recently got this email from a reader of Think Like a Rock Star that’s interested learning how to use social media to connect with her fans and market a ‘cool’ product.

“I loved your book and not only found it extremely helpful from an execution perspective of how to put an advocate program together, but your mentality and approach to social media was truly eye opening and has reignited my passion for my business and connecting with my fans.

While your book discussed selling the benefit rather than the product I feel that my customers buy my product for the “cool factor” which is a bit harder to put into words than say it makes a faster breakfast or cleans your clothes better. If I dig a bit deeper I have researched and seen that exclusivity and originality are essential in this area of fashion. If some one did it already fans aren’t afraid to point fingers.”

One of the things that the book also talks about is how to create content that taps into the ‘Bigger Idea’ behind your product.  But if one of the big reasons why someone buys your product is because it’s ‘cool’, then how do you create content around ‘cool’?

Another way to think about having a ‘cool’ product is to have one that, as Kathy Sierra says, ‘inspires The Nod’.  Your product is ‘cool’ to other people that get why it is cool.  Your product says something about them as a person.  Maybe that they’re smarter than the rest, or more selective, or maybe that they’ve been a fan of your brand for a longer period of time.  Harley-Davidson is cool because the brand says something about the owner and their lifestyle that Victory motorcycles do not.

In the Introduction to Think Like a Rock Star I talk about how Jewel connected with her fans to empower them to organize the JewelStock concerts.  Wearing a Jewel ‘Intuition’ t-shirt likely wouldn’t impress anyone, not even hardcore Jewel fans.  But if an EDA sees you wearing a JewelStock tee, it would instantly grab their attention.  Wearing the JewelStock tee communicates to other long-time Jewel fans that you were there in the beginning, and if you were seen wearing it by another long-time Jewel fan, they would likely run up to you ask ‘OMG were you there?’  Within that very small community, it communicates status, that you were part of a rare moment that helped launch Jewel’s career.  But what if that same person passed by a girl that had a JewelStock sticker on her Bug?

They’d share The Nod.  Because they’d both instantly have a bond that most Jewel fans don’t share.

So if you want to create content that taps into the ‘cool’ factor about your product, then you need to figure out what it is about your product that makes it cool?  And you have to remember that the ‘what’ ties back to the person that bought the product, it says something about them.

For example, one of the other examples in the book is how Fiskars connected with scrapbookers to drive sales.  Any pair of scissors can be used in scrapbooking, but an orange-handled pair of Fiskars scissors communicates that you are serious about your scrapbooking.  That you take your projects more seriously and that perfection is important to you.  Owning a pair of that particular brand in that particular color communicates something about you as a scrapbooker.

Now my friend’s email also mentioned looking to appeal to the brand’s fans and that they are interested in exclusivity and originality.  Back to the Fiskars’ example. The orange-handled scissor is a ‘cool’ product to scrapbookers.  But Fiskars has also created The Fiskateers movement that’s just for scrapbookers.  If you want to join this movement, you have to be approved to join by the existing members.  But if you are, you get your own numbered orange-handled scissor that’s only available to Fiskateers!  The orange-handled scissor is already cool to members of the scrapbooking community, but the fact that it’s numbered also communicates that that person is a Fiskateer!  Extra cool points!

So if you want to want to market a ‘cool’ product, focus on two areas:

1 – What makes the product cool and what does it say about the person owning it?  Are they smarter?  Concerned with the environment?  Geekier?  Bolder?  More active?

2 – How will others be able to spot someone else that has your ‘cool’ product?  This goes beyond the product itself, especially if it’s a clothing product.  But if it’s not a clothing product, maybe a t-shirt or a sticker could work.  Or, in the case of Fiskars, maybe its the same product (orange-handled scissors) with a special modification (numbered) that’s only available to a select group of customers (such as your biggest fans).  Maybe this could be a special color of an existing shirt that’s only sold to your fans, or maybe your fans create the modification, and that’s added to the shirt, it becomes a ‘badge’ or ‘marker’ to other members of that community of fans.

And finally, go back to the qualities listed in the first step above.  Think of those attributes (smarter, more active, bolder) as Superpowers.  How is your product going to help your customers be smarter, more active or bolder?  Red Bull gives you the fuel and energy you need to do bold and daring stunts and activities.  Patagonia creates clothes that last longer, that also environmentally-friendly.   Think about what it is that your customers find ‘cool’ about your product, then focus on how you can enable that coolness.

Sara Rosso is definitely what you would call a ‘superfan’ for Nutella.  So much so that in 2007, Rosso decided that the chocolate-hazlenut spread deserved its own holiday and created World Nutella Day.  Over the past 6 years, the ‘holiday’ has grown into first a community for fellow Nutella fans, and now a movement celebrating the brand.  The stated goal for creating the holiday was to ” encourage Nutella enthusiasts worldwide to enjoy and get creative with Nutella.”  The event has its own Facebook page with 40K Likes, and a Twitter account with almost 7K followers.  On the event’s website, fans have currently submitted over 700 recipes for Nutella, and the entire platform is obviously driving interest, fandom and sales for the brand.

And Nutella just told Rosso to shut the whole thing down.  Last month, Rosso received a Cease and Desist letter from Ferrero, the parent company of the Nutella brand.

“They asked me to take down the site because they consider it to be an unauthorized use of their intellectual property and trademarks—the Nutella logo and brand,” Rosso explains.

In Think Like a Rock Star, I devote an entire chapter to helping brands understand who their fans are, and what motivates them.  No doubt, Ferrero looks at World Nutella Day, and likely sees little more than customers using its logo and likeness in an unauthorized manner.  The company feels it needs to step in and protect its brand, and to be fair it has every right to do so.

But in acting this way, Ferrero is also communicating that it does not understand its own fans, and why they are driving this effort.  A fan sees itself as the owner of a brand, in many ways the parent of that brand.  As such, they want to see the brand grow and succeed.  So they act in what they perceive to be the brand’s best interests.

Ferrero would likely counter that even so, the fan’s best interests for the brand might not be the same as what the brand wants for itself.  This is why Ferrero should be working with its fans.  Fans are special customers, they want a relationship with their favorite brand.  Fans want the brand to step in and give them more instruction on how they can better serve and help that brand.

One of the case studies from the music industry I talk about in Think Like a Rock Star is the fan-run site TheDonnasMedia.com, which was created by fans of The Donnas.  The site contains hundreds of thousands of hours of live concert footage from the band’s performances, and even custom made liner notes and photos so fans can literally create their own CDs of The Donnas’ concerts.  The band found out about this site years ago, and instead of shutting it down, they contacted the fans running the site, and began working with them to make the site better.  They understood that the point of the site from the fans’ perspective was to create new fans for The Donnas, so instead of sending a C&D letter to the site’s owners, the band instead began promoting the site to its fans!  And for their part, the fans self-police the site, and won’t allow any material to be uploaded to the site that’s been commercially released by the band (remember what I said about fans acting in what they perceive to be the brand or in this case band’s best interests?).

If Ferrero would reach out to its fans that have organized World Nutella Day, they would no doubt find that Ms Rosso and her team would bend over backwards to accommodate any request from the brand, and would be thrilled that Nutella was reaching out to them.  There is an obvious opportunity here for Nutella to work with Rosso and these fans, and create a huge platform for the brand’s fans that could create a significantly positive financial impact on the brand.

But instead, the brand is attempting to shut down the entire movement, and that has, shockingly, led to Nutella now receiving criticism from its own fans on its Facebook page:

“Today, i decided to remove Nutella and other Ferrero products from my grocery list because of the legal actions taken against the http://www.nutelladay.com/. Do whatever you want, but without my money.”

“Bad move Ferrero. Bad, bad move. I won’t be buying your delicious nut butter anymore. It’s a good thing there are plenty of alternatives!”

“We love Nutella, BUT after hearing how you treat your fans, we’ll be switching to an alternative brand.”

“I will never use your product again! You lost more than 1 fan today.”

Rosso has said she will be shutting down the site and all accounts associated with World Nutella Day on Friday.  Now there’s still a chance Nutella could step in and say that they want to work with the fans, but the time to do that was before they issued a C&D letter, which is why they are now dealing with backlash from their own fans.

We will be discussing how brands should handle fan-run efforts like this tomorrow during #rockstarchat on Twitter at 1pm Central.  But for now, here’s how a brand should respond when it discovers that a fan is running an effort that involves its brand.

1 – Contact the fan(s) first before pursuing legal action.  Even if what the fans are doing is clearly against what you feel are the brand’s best interests, it still helps to contact the fans and communicate that to them directly.  Normally, the fans will be thrilled to hear from you, and happy to incorporate any changes you request.

2 – Work with the fans to figure out how they can continue to have a relationship with your brand that benefits them, as well as you.  Let’s assume that your fans are running a site that, for whatever reason, your brand decides needs to be shut down.  Instead of simply sending lawyers out to the fans, contact the fans and carefully communicate to them why their effort is such a disconnect with what your brand is trying to accomplish, and communicate to them that you want to see if they can work with your brand in a different capacity.  For example, by attempting to shut down World Nutella Day, Nutella has now alienated an army of literally thousands of fans.  If the brand had reached out to these fans and figured out a way that they could keep working together, the fans would have loved it, and the effort would have become an even bigger platform to help the brand.  Instead, it’s now become a PR headache for Nutella.

3 – See if there is an opportunity to bring the fan’s initiative under the brand’s umbrella.  Instead of shutting down the effort, why not see if the fans would like to help you run it if your brand takes it over?  I honestly suspect this is what will happen with World Nutella Day.  There is enormous potential in this community, Nutella could easily morph this group into its own brand ambassador program, etc.

4 – Buy Think Like a Rock Star.  It shows you exactly how to create a better relationship with such fans, and helps you understand them and how they are trying to help you brand.

 

If all else fails, you may need to pursue legal action against the fans running such initiatives, but it’s usually a good idea to first contact your fans, and voice your concerns to them.  Typically, your fans will go out of their way to work with your brand because remember they are your fans.

If you are a fan of Nutella, what do you think about this story?  Should Nutella be shutting down World Nutella Day, or is it a movement that can only help the brand?  What do you think?

PS: Thanks to Lauri Rottmayer for the tip about this story.

 

Afterthought:  If Nutella wanted to start today building a new fan community that was 40K strong like the one Rosso has already built (for free), what would be the costs and how much time would it take?  I’m thinking about half a million, and remember Rosso has been doing this for 6 years.  Whatever the cost, that’s the minimum amount Nutella would be throwing away by not trying to embrace this effort and bring it under the brand’s umbrella.

 

UPDATE: Nutella just posted on its Facebook page the following “Positive direct contact between Ferrero and Sara Rosso, owner of the non-official Nutella fan page World Nutella Day, has brought an end to the case.  Ferrero would like to express to Sara Rosso its sincere gratitude for her passion for Nutella, gratitude which is extended to all fans of the World Nutella Day.  The case arose from a routine brand defense procedure that was activated as a result of some misuse of the Nutella brand on the fan page.  Ferrero is pleased to announce that today, after contacting Sara Rosso and finding together the appropriate solutions, it immediately stopped the previous action.  Ferrero considers itself fortunate to have such devoted and loyal fans of its Nutella spread, like Sara Rosso.”

 

Kudos to Nutella for doing the right thing!

Last year Nielsen surveyed 28,000 internet users to discover what sources they trusted.  It should come as no surprise to anyone that the winner was Earned Media (media created about a source by someone other than the source) at 92%.  The second result at 70% was customer reviews online.  Paid Media, media that a source pays for to promote itself, fell in trust down to 47%, falling by 24%, 20% and 25% yearly since 2009.  Earned Media, especially Word of Mouth, is up 18% since 2007.

In other words, if someone else is talking about a brand, we trust them, but if the brand is talking about itself, we don’t.  This should come as a surprise to no one.

The disconnect is that brands know this as well, yet they continue to spend billions every year on advertising and marketing in an effort to get the attention of a group of people that have little to no interest in paying attention to them.  Brands seek to grow by acquiring new customers, and they create marketing strategies built around this goal.  But getting the attention of people that have little to no loyalty to your brand (as well as little to no interest in what you have to say) is a very expensive game.  For decades, the marketing idea has been to accept that most people won’t see your message the first time, so you just repeat it constantly until they do, and then pray that it resonates.

Rock stars play a different marketing game.

Rock stars actually have the exact same marketing goal as brands, they also want to acquire new customers.  But rock stars don’t focus on acquiring new customers via advertising and promotion, ie Paid Media, they focus on acquiring new customers via the efforts of their existing customers.  And specifically, a small subset of their existing customers, they focus on connecting with their biggest fans. Rock stars find the people that are the most fanatically passionate about them, and then connect with them and empower them to market the rock star to other fans.

The benefits are obvious:  Rock stars are connecting with the group that has the most incentive to positively promote the rock star to other potential customers.  How many rock stars paid CBS $4M for a 30-second spot in this year’s Super Bowl?  Exactly, rock stars don’t have to throw money at crappy advertising that’s designed to gain the attention of people that are purposely trying to avoid the brand’s marketing messages.  They shift control of their marketing messages to the very people that customers trust the most: Their fans.

This is how rock stars are going to change marketing forever.  Rock stars have always built their careers around remaining connected to their biggest fans.  Brands have built themselves and their marketing strategies around gaining market share by acquiring new customers and effectively building the largest promotional megaphone.  That model worked well in the 50s when there were three media sources, the newspaper, television and radio.  Then, if you could afford to get your message distributed via those three sources, you won.

Today, the game has changed.  Instead of 3 media sources, here are 300,000,000, and 99.99999% of them are customer-driven.  Anyone that has a smartphone in their pocket has a promotional megaphone that’s more trustworthy than anything the average brand can create.

This is exactly why I wrote Think Like a Rock Star, to help brands learn to navigate a marketing world that rock stars conquered decades ago.  How much differently would the world of marketing look if brands didn’t focus on acquiring new customers via advertising, but instead connected directly with and delighted their biggest and most passionate fans?

It’s a question that your brand had better figure out the answer to quickly, because that’s where we are headed, like it or not.  Because there is big money to be made by embracing your biggest fans.  That’s another lesson that rock stars learned decades ago.

When will your brand wake up?

Surprise! @crazydukefan and husband Geoff were recipients of hand-delivered tickets tonight! Love this day. #bamasb twitter.com/UACoachMurphy/…

— Patrick Murphy (@UACoachMurphy) February 5, 2013

Alabama softball fans that ordered season tickets had a bit of a surprise when their tickets arrived yesterday.  They were expecting the tickets, but probably weren’t expecting to see the person that hand-delivered them.

Head Coach Patrick Murphy.

Every year, Coach Murphy and the Alabama softball players make a point to go out and hand-deliver tickets to the fans that order season packages.  Recall that last month we talked about how you create loyalty in your customers by rewarding them after the purchase.  Alabama softball fans were expecting their season tickets this week, but having the head coach and team deliver them is the reward.

It’s also an example of how Coach Murphy and the team created something amazing for the people that love them.  To the fan, this moment of surprise and delight also validates why they support the program.  The fan feels better about supporting the program but also in a way feels better about themselves for supporting a head coach that would do this.

And to clarify, Patrick Murphy is only the 2nd softball coach that Alabama has ever had.  Murphy was named the coach in 1998 and was named assistant head coach when the program launched two years earlier in 1996.  So he had to literally build not only the program from the ground up, but its fanbase as well.  He knows the value of connecting with the program’s fans, and how important they are.  The first year of the program’s existence, the average attendance at softball games was 50 people.  Today, Alabama’s softball team is among the national leaders in attendance, and in 2011, the program set an NCAA record for single-day attendance at a softball event.

Oh, and winning helps.  Last year Coach Murphy led Alabama to its first softball National Championship in school history.  Showing your biggest supporters and fans that you appreciate them doesn’t hurt either.

Think Like a Rock Star is now less than three months from hitting stores.  So as you might guess, these last few months have been a crash course for me in how to effectively market a book and help it be successful.

Most of the information I’ve found and advice I’ve received from other authors has focused on The Launch.  The idea is to sell as many copies of your book as possible into a small concentrated window, typically the week that your book comes out.  You want to sell as many copies as possible during that launch week because typically those bestseller lists from sources like The New York Times and others reset each week.  And focusing in sales on that one-week launch period might be the difference between forever being known as a published author, and being a New York Times Bestselling author.  For the author, it’s a really huge deal.

So as you might expect, I’ve got a ton of stuff planned to help Think Like a Rock Star have as successful of a launch as possible.  And over the next few weeks I will be asking for your help in seeing that successful launch take place.

But the thing about a book launch is that it’s mostly focused on what’s best for the author.  As I was researching this, I realized there was a parallel to my book, in that really the launch is all about acquiring new customers.  Getting as many new sales as possible so that it helps the book’s ability to hit all those bestseller lists and all that jazz.  So in a way, if I strictly focused my book’s marketing on The Launch, I was really undermining one of the core lessons of Think Like A Rock Star.

Focus on  New Customers or Existing Fans?

The thing that really separates rock stars from most brands is who they market to.  While most companies focus on acquiring new customers, most rock stars focus on delighting their existing fans.  Rock stars focus most of their time and energy on connecting with their existing customers, not their new ones.

This prompted me to rethink my marketing plan for this book a bit.  There’s no doubt that The Launch is insanely huge to a book’s eventual success.  But in my opinion, even more important than marketing to new customers is finding ways to support your existing readers.

So over the next few weeks while I prep for the book’s launch, I will also be launching some efforts to support the readers of this book.  For example, starting within the next 7-10 days, I will be launching an email newsletter to compliment the book.  This newsletter will also be a tool to help readers learn how their businesses can better connect with their fans.  It will be an ongoing effort, and it will provide the most value to people after they buy the book.  I also have a couple of other projects that I’m not ready to announce yet.

But for now, I am going to end this post by asking for your help.  If you have or did buy Think Like a Rock Star, what could I offer you after your purchase to help support your brand’s efforts to better connect with its fans?  Maybe a place where readers could connect and get advice from me and each other?  Or what have other authors done for his/her readers that you really liked, that added value to you as a reader?

I saw where someone, I think it was Seth Godin, said that one of the best reasons to write a book was to start a conversation.  That was really the driving force for me to write Think Like a Rock Star, I wanted to start a conversation about how companies can better understand who their fans are, and connect with them.  Part of that conversation is finding ways to support the people that want to find ways to do just that for their companies.

What are your thoughts?  What could I do as an author to create more value for you as a reader after you buy the book?

PS: I’ve started sending out copies of Think Like a Rock Star to a few colleagues and I recently got feedback on the book from Paper.li’s Community Manager, Kelly Hungerford.  Here’s what Kelly thought:  “Simple, jargon-free and true to Mack Collier’s authentic style, this book explains exactly why your brand need fans and not customers, and how you can turn your most enthusiastic ones into powerful brand advocates.  Mack delivers his passion for brand advocacy, knowledge of customer-centric marketing and in-depth understanding of what makes the most devoted of fans tick in a language we can all relate to: rock stars and fans.

I love this this book for many reasons, but mostly because that for every “why” in this book, there is a “how” to back it up! The case studies, tips and social media advice are perfectly aligned with Mack’s underlying mission of helping brands understand the true value of their most passionate customers. It’s a must read for modern day marketers and I highly recommend you purchase two copies: one for you and one for your team.”