Last night I was involved in a fabulous #SocialChat on Twitter and at one point we were discussing how companies could learn how to better embrace their advocates by watching how rockstars engage with their fans.  We were discussing how brand advocates WANT to take ownership in their favorite brands, but so few brands actually reach out and give them that chance.

I mentioned how Lady Gaga and Harley Davidson both embrace and love their fans.  I took a second to check Gaga’s twitter page, and as luck would have it, I saw this tweet:

Love it.  This tweet is going in my next version of the Think Like a Rockstar deck.  Here’s why I love this tweet:

1 – Gaga gave her fans ownership.  She reached out to them and empowered them to have something positive happen, if they acted.

2 – She communicated WHAT they needed to do in order to see the cover early.  Gaga’s fans would want to see the cover to her new single before it’s released.  Gaga knows this, so instead of just giving it to them, she makes them earn it.  Robbin had a great post about this point, and how movements need to be structured so that those involved have some skin in the game.

3 – She communicates to her fans that what THEY want is ABOVE what her LABEL wants.  Love that.  She’s telling her fans that ‘If it comes down to me choosing between what my label wants, and what you want, then you win.’

And her fans came through, and got to see the cover:

What is your brand doing to embrace and reward its biggest fans?

Last week I got to attend the 2011 FIRE Sessions hosted by Brains on Fire in Greenville.  I recapped the morning and afternoon sessions (Including a LIVE #Blogchat) over on the Brains on Fire blog.

The event itself was delightful and inspiring just like it was last year.  But for me, the highlight of my 3-day stay in Greenville came the morning after the FIRE Sessions, when I went visit the Brains of Fire headquarters.  There I had a chance to sit down and chat with Greg Cordell and John Moore.  Both conversations were absolutely fascinating, and today I wanted to share with you some of the smartitude that I heard from Greg.

We were discussing how companies can connect with their advocates, when our chat turned to the idea of sponsorships.  Greg said something that completely grabbed my attention:

“The greatest thing you can sponsor are the people that love you.”

Greg explained that the idea was to find what your customers love about your brand, and think about ways to sponsor events that tie into the qualities of your brand that attract your customers, or the way in which they use your product(s).  Here’s a couple of examples:

1 – If your customers love the elegance and simplicity of your product, create events and touchpoints that are elegant and simple.

2 – Figure out what your customers love about your brand and product, and create events that give them a reason to connect with each other and share that common love.  Greg explained that with Fiskars, they found that customers were using their scissors in their scrapbooking projects, and they also discovered that scrapbookers are very passionate about their projects.  So it was a natural to create events that bring scrapbookers together and let them connect over a common love: scrapbooking.

 

What’s important is to not only create an event that ties into the reasons why customers love your product and brand, but to also connect them to other people that share that love.  Greg clarified that companies should “sponsor the things that connect people to people, when you connect people to people through the things that they care more about.”  When you put people in contact with other people that share their same love and interests, it energizes and excites them.  And if your brand can facilitate that meeting and event, your customers will love your brand even more for doing so.

Isn’t that just so smart it makes your head hurt, in a good way?  When you relate this back to how Rockstars connect with their fans, this is really all a concert is.  It’s an event that brings fans together over a shared interest and lets them connect with each other.

What concert can you create for your brand’s fans?

This weekend I was lucky enough to attend and present at the #SMIATL conference in Atlanta.  On Friday afternoon, we did a Live #Blogchat session which was fabulous.  We discussed how to integrate blogging into your over-arching social media strategy, and also how to improve your blogging efforts.  Around 60-70 people attended the sold-out event, and it was a wonderful experience.  Thanks again to everyone that came!

On Saturday I presented a new version of my Think Like a Rockstar presentation, which is embedded below.  I am so proud of the fact that the session was very popular with attendees, and the deck on SlideShare has been viewed over 30,000 times in the 1st 48 hours of being uploaded.  I wanted to walk you through the deck, but also how I created it and what’s contributed to it being so popular.

First, if you’ve spent any amount of time reading this blog, you know how passionate I am about helping companies better connect with their brand advocates.  As a result, this is by far my favorite session and presentation topic.  A big reason why I love the Think Like A Rockstar session is because it takes the idea of connecting with brand advocates/evangelists, and frames it in a way that sparks the ‘Ah-Ha!’ moments.  When you ask a company ‘Would you like to learn how to energize and mobilize your brand evangelists?’, you might get some blank stares.  But if you ask ‘Would you like to learn how your brand can have raving and passionate fans just like Rockstars do?’, then companies tend to get excited.

The deck’s central question is: Why do Rockstars have fans, and companies have customers?  If you think about it, most of us self-identify as being a ‘fan’ of any music artist when we download their music or buy their CDs.  But when we buy a company’s products, we tend to view ourselves as customers of that company.

Why?

As it turns out, it’s because that’s exactly who both groups target.  Companies want new customers.  In fact, acquiring new customers is the top marketing objective of companies.  The problem is, new customers have little to no brand loyalty toward that company.  Which also explains why it costs 6-7 times as much to acquire a new customer versus retaining an existing one.

But notice in the above well-drawn graph that companies and Rockstars focus on opposite ends of the customer spectrum.  Companies focus the majority of their efforts on acquiring new customers.  This is the group that’s by far the biggest in market size, but that also has little to no brand loyalty.

But notice that Rockstars focus on that tiny sliver at the end that represents Brand Advocates (which is a fancy business term for ‘Fan’).  Brand Advocates are by far the smallest group, but they also have by far the highest levels of brand loyalty.  And then there is this:

So Rockstars are focused on connecting with their fans, the smallest group, but this group has such his brand loyalty that it not only spends more than existing customers, they also refer business equal to almost HALF the money they spend.

Which means that companies are trying to acquire new customers, and spending 6-7 as much versus retaining existing customers.

While Rockstars focus on connecting with their fans, the group that is spending more than existing customers, and they are also referring business FROM those existing customers.

So if Rockstars can figure this out, why can’t most companies?

Now I wanted to talk a bit about what I did to help make this presentation as popular as it has been (which has been SO rewarding!).

First, as I’ve said, I am so passionate about this topic.  So in the weeks leading up to #SMIATL, I made sure that everyone attending knew I was presenting Think Like A Rockstar, and that it was going to be a ‘big deal’.  The main reason why I was saying that was because I was making a promise to the attendees as well as MYSELF.  I spent over 100 hours in prepping this particular deck and rehearsing my talk.  Because again, this is my passion project.

Second, I promoted the talk all last week here on MackCollier.com in FIVE posts.  But each post tied into an element of the talk, so I was previewing the session, instead of just blindly promoting it.

Third, I had some fun with the talk.  Since the theme is how Rockstars connect with fans, prior to the start of the talk, I played a bit of a Led Zeppelin concert from 1979.  Think about it, how often have you come into a session 15 mins early, and stared at the introductory slide for 15 mins till the talk started?  I just wanted to have some fun and give attendees something neat to look at as they were coming in.  And of course I tweeted out that I had a little surprise in store if they arrived early 😉

Fourth, my delivery was solid.  It wasn’t perfect, but I received many compliments on the session itself.  Again, I had 100+ hours of prep time invested, so it had better have been good.  The truth is, there’s not a lot of short-cuts here, it’s mostly about putting in the hours.

Fifth, I uploaded the file to SlideShare immediately prior to my talk starting, and scheduled HootSuite to tweet out a link right as my talk ended.  Now this I actually screwed up, as I got the time change wrong, and forgot HootSuite was still on Central time.  I scheduled it to tweet out at 1pm, when I thought I was telling it to go out at 11am, which was right as my talk ended.  Live and learn.

The deck is embedded below, I hope you find it valuable.

All week I’ll be previewing my Think Like a Rockstar session at #SMIATL on Saturday. If you would like to attend #SMIATL use code SMISPEAK to register for only $128!

Unlike most companies that wish to keep their customers at arm’s length, most Rockstars look for ways to embrace their fans and connect with them.  A great example of this is what Blink 182 did recently with their montage music video for their new single Up All Night.  The band found over 100,000 instances of their fans using their music without permission in their videos, and they rewarded the fans.  They took the videos and mashed them up to create a music video for Up All Night.

The band was smart enough to understand that its fans weren’t ‘stealing’ from the band or trying to hurt them, they were in fact trying to promote the band and their love for Blink 182.  And to their credit, Blink 182 was smart enough to see this, and reward their fans by featuring them in their video.  All this does is make those fans more likely to promote the band to their friends!

The video is linked below, what are some ways that you could give your customers and advocates more of a say in your marketing efforts?  How could you put the spotlight on them?

http://youtu.be/eabtzkY_jNs

If you want to attend my Think Like a Rockstar session at #SMIATL, it’s Saturday morning at 10:15 AM!

All week I’ll be previewing my Think Like a Rockstar session at #SMIATL on Saturday. If you would like to attend #SMIATL use code SMISPEAK to register for only $128!

In 2003, Sarah McLachlan was given $150,000 by her label, Arista, to create a music video for her new single, World on Fire.  However, instead of creating that music video, Sarah promptly took all of that $150,000 (save $15), and donated it to 11 charitable organizations. Through Sarah’s generous donations, the lives of over one million people around the world were bettered and improved.

However, this presented a problem in that while Sarah had just helped one million people, she had also given away all of her music video budget!  But she did still have $15 left, so she took those last few dollars and bought a video tape, then she got some friends to donate their time to create and produce a music video.  What Sarah did was create a very basic and simple music video that outlined the typical expenses for creating a music video.  For example, a Production Assistant might cost $200 a day, office phones cost $480 each, and the cost of hair and makeup would be $5,000 a day.

Sarah then detailed what that money was spent on instead of the normal expense.  The $200 that would have normally covered the cost of a Production Assistant for a day, was instead spent on providing 1 term’s worth of schooling for 100 children in Ethiopia.  The $480 that would have normally been spent on an office phone, instead equipped 10 schools in Afghanistan. That $5,000 for hair and makeup?  It was spent on providing a year’s worth of schooling for 145 girls in Afghanistan.

Sarah created an amazing video that detailed how all of us can contribute just a little bit of money, and still make a huge impact on people that are less fortunate than ourselves.  What made the video even more compelling was that Sarah not only showed us what the money was spent on, she also showed us the VERY PEOPLE that were helped.  For example, at one point in the video we are introduced to a woman in Ghana that works 16 hours a day, 7 days a week to raise the $200 that’s needed to send her son to school each year.  As part of Sarah’s $150,000 donation, this woman received a $1,000 grant that will cover her son’s schooling for the next 5 years, which also means that the mother won’t have to work as much, and can spend more time with her son.

When asked about why she structured the video the way she did, Sarah explained “I wanted a video that wasn’t about me and wasn’t preachy, but one that would help shine a light on the tragedy and turmoil in the world and also show the beauty and strength of the human spirit.”

And BTW, World on Fire also went on to be nominated for a Grammy Award.

If you are thinking about how to create compelling and engaging content via social media, you would do well to follow Sarah’s lead and focus on the ‘Bigger Idea’.  Don’t try to promote your products and services directly, think about how your customers use your products, and what they are trying to accomplish.  For example, if your company sells digital cameras, don’t create a blog devoted to your cameras, create a blog devoted to teaching your customers how to be better photographers.  If you are a Realtor, don’t simply blog about your properties, blog about the beauty of the area where your properties are located.  By focusing on the Bigger Idea behind your products, you’ll create content that’s far more valuable and engaging to your audience.

BTW here’s the amazing video for World on Fire:

Tomorrow, we’ll look at how Rockstars embrace their fans! If you want to attend my Think Like a Rockstar session at #SMIATL, it’s Saturday morning at 10:15 AM!

All week I’ll be previewing my Think Like a Rockstar session at #SMIATL on Saturday. If you would like to attend #SMIATL use code SMISPEAK to register for only $128!

One of the clear distinctions between Rockstars and companies is how they both handle involving their fans and customers in the marketing process.  While most companies are scared to death of giving their customers any type of input into their promotional efforts, many Rockstars view their fans as marketing partners, and willingly embrace their efforts to help promote the artists that they love.

A good example of Rockstars embracing their fans is TheDonnasMedia.com.  This fan-run site collects and archives every live appearance made by the band, in whatever form is available.  Full-length concerts, television and radio appearances, even custom-made CD liners and notes.  If you are a fan of The Donnas, this is your Nirvana, with literally tens of thousands of hours of audio and video content stretching back more than a decade.

I contacted The Donnas’ management a few years ago when I first learned about this site, and asked them if they were aware of this site, and what they thought of it.  They absolutely loved it, and not only that, they fully-supported their fans’ efforts to make their music available, and even helped them in that endeavor.  Several times, the band has made mention of the site on its own website, asking fans that have recorded copies of recent concerts to contact the admins of TheDonnasMedia.com to give them access to it so they could add it to the site’s library.

The goal, as the band put it is to sell more music by giving it away. There is one big caveat with this site: You will find no content that has been commercially released by the band.  You can find a dozen or more live performances of the song ‘Fall Behind Me’, but you can’t find the version that was released commercially by the band.  Because the site self-polices itself and will only post music that the band isn’t selling.

But what I love about this is how The Donnas view the fans running TheDonnasMedia.com as PARTNERS that are helping the band reach new audiences.  They not only don’t feel threatened by the content that’s posted on the site, they actually help the site administrations get NEW material.  All because the band and its fans have a trusting relationship in place.

Tomorrow, we’ll look at how Rockstars focus on the Bigger Idea behind their music!  If you want to attend my Think Like a Rockstar session at #SMIATL, it’s Saturday morning at 10:15 AM!

Scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have concluded that it only takes 10 percent of a population holding an unshakable belief in order to convince the majority to adopt that same belief.  In fact, the scientists found that this will always be the case.

“When the number of committed opinion holders is below 10 percent, there is no visible progress in the spread of ideas. It would literally take the amount of time comparable to the age of the universe for this size group to reach the majority,” said SCNARC Director Boleslaw Szymanski, the Claire and Roland Schmitt Distinguished Professor at Rensselaer. “Once that number grows above 10 percent, the idea spreads like flame.”

This study ties into an idea I’ve been thinking about recently; the difference between how companies market themselves versus how rockstars do.  And while my graphical skills on the computer suck, I am a bit better at freehand, so I drew a graph to demonstrate what the customer base for the average company looks like:

Obviously, the size of the market for New Customers will always be bigger than the others.  After that you get Existing Customers, then customers with Some Brand Affinity and finally, Brand Advocates.  Note also that New Customers have the least amount of Brand Loyalty, and that increases for each group with Brand Advocates having the highest levels of loyalty.

But note the disconnect between which group most companies target, versus the group that most rockstars target:

At first glance, this can seem like the smart play for companies, because they are targeting the group that’s the largest.  The problem is, this group also has the lowest levels of loyalty to the brand.  So the company may be gaining New Customers, but it’s probably losing them just as quickly, again due to a lack of brand affinity.

But note what Rockstars do;  They focus on the people that already love them.  Unlike the New Customers, this group has a strong degree of loyalty for the rockstar.  So much so, that they will go out and actively recruit people from the OTHER groups to the left to come join them.  And yes, we have stats to back that up as well:

Note that evangelists refer business equal to 45% of the money they spend.  That means that the Brand Advocates that the Rockstars target, and also going out and finding new business for the Rockstar from the OTHER groups.

Remember also the study I referenced at the start of the post: Scientists have discovered that if 10% of a population have an unshakable belief in an idea, they will eventually convince the majority to adopt their stance.  The ’10-Percenters’ are your Brand Advocates.

So let’s compare and contrast the two approaches:

Company – Targets New Customers. Loses them just as quickly as it gains them, so constantly having to reinvest in getting more New Customers to replace the ones it lost yesterday.

Rockstar – Targets Brand Advocates (Fans). Brand Advocates have a strong sense of loyalty for the Rockstar, so they not only stay as customers, they go out and actively recruit New Customers, Existing Customers, and customers with Some Brand Affinity to buy from the Rockstar.

See the difference?  While the company is engaged in an almost constant zero-sum game, the Rockstar isn’t focusing so much on expanding its customer base, but rather on delighting the people that are already delighted with the Rockstar.  Because the Rockstar understands that its next sale is just as likely to come from the efforts of its EXISTING fans as it is their own.

This also is why Steve Knox said this:

Said in terms of the above graph, that quote would be ‘Victory in marketing doesn’t happen when you get New Customers, but when you connect with your Brand Advocates.”  Because your Brand Advocates are the people that are bringing you the New Customers anyway.

Companies, y’all make this marketing stuff too hard.  It’s not about spending a lot of money trying to convince strangers to buy from you, it’s about delighting the people that already love you.