fan
noun
a person who has a strong interest in or admiration for a particular sport, art form, or famous person.

Facebook pulled an interesting marketing strategy  this week by replacing its “fan” buttons with “like” buttons. On the surface it seems like just a minor grammatical change, but the ramifications of this small action can be huge. According to Facebook, the reason for this change was a “part of [their] ongoing efforts to improve the user experience, increase engagement and promote consistency across Facebook, [they] are changing the language [they] use when people connect to [their] Brand Pages. People will soon connect with [their] Brand Pages by clicking “Like” rather than “Become a Fan.” People already “Like” their friends’ status updates, photos and links everyday. In fact, people click “Like” almost two times more than they click “Become a Fan” everyday”.

Will this plan actually work?

I am not convinced. One of the reasons social networking has become so popular is because it opens up brands to the consumer, allowing them to access ‘their’  brands on-demand. This can inspire more than just a “like” feeling, it creates a fan. This is what marketers have been trying to get their consumers to be: brand-loyal fans!  I can guarantee a “fan” will buy a band t-shirt, someone who just likes a band probably will not. While this new “liking” strategy may get more people to “like” a brand, I would like to point out that quality is way more important than quantity when it comes to social and email marketing campaigns. It is the fan, the super-loyal user, that will always click on your email and will always engage with your brand on social sites and will bring you the most return on your marketing investments.

And how do fans feel about this?! I think some of them feel a demotion in status from a FAN who attended every single one of band x’s tour dates last year and has band x’s tattoo, to someone who has been to just one show. Fans love being fans, they love the status and they are your most brand-loyal consumer. Engage them instead of losing them in the crowd.

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Seth Godin has a post up on his blog about viral growth on social networks. His basic point is that providing relevant content to a few people creates the kind of viral activity that over time is far more effective that providing mediocre content to a whole lot of people. Relevancy rules, and you increase relevancy by generating better content.

In order to generate better content though, we need to know who it is we are generating it for. The average Facebook user has around 123 friends which means that you are getting around hundred more views each time somebody shares a piece of your content on Facebook. The initial impulse here is to say “Well, shoot, if I can potentially increase my reach by 100 times, I should broadcast to as many people as possible so that there are more chances for the content to be shared.” Very simply, this is wrong. This idea is based upon the false assumption the odds of somebody electing to share a piece of content are fixed and are the same across all people. This is the old mindset that almost killed the music industry: our customers/fans/ticket-buyers are not individuals, but are all the same nameless, faceless automatons. This is obviously not true. If it were the case that for any piece of content, the odds for a recipient choosing share it socially were fixed at say 1 in 100, then I would tell you to get your content in front of as many people as possible. But that is not the case. The fact is that most people are not willing to share your content, no matter what. So instead of worrying about the masses, why not instead focus on the small handful of individuals that are willing to redistribute your content?

The key then is to identify which fans/subscribers/customers are most likely to respond to your message so positively that they want to spread the word. Go to your Facebook Fan-page… What? you don’t have one? MySpace is fine and all, but really, MySpace users are less engaged than Facebook users and there are far fewer of them. So, like I said, go to your Facebook page and look at you number of fans. Now look at the other areas of your page: the wall, the discussions, anywhere that your fans can interact. Is the number of active posters equal to the total number of fans you have? Not even close. The fact that some of your fans have posted on your wall or contributed to the discussion boards shows that they are willing to speak up and be heard though. These are your target, these are your speakers. So listen to them. Listen to what they want, what they like and dislike. Listen to them and find the clues, and there will be clues, about what you could do that would really make their day. Then do it.

Just like in life, Facebook users vary dramatically even though the uniformity of Facebook pages makes this easy to forget. Also, just like in life, some Facebook users are more outspoken then others. Find your outspoken fans and give them something worthy of being outspoken about. Even if your outspoken fans have only the average number of friends, your message still will gain significant reach beyond just your initial subscriber list. However, I suspect that you will find that the more outspoken Facebook users also have many more friends than the average user. Also, they are probably friends with other outspoken people who may not be on your Fan list (yet), which means that they have access to entire tribes of folks that you don’t even know are out there. This is how viral activity works. Pretty soon, if your content is truly compelling, not only has your actual fan base grown, but your messaging reach has been increased exponentially.

Okay, homework time: Go to your page, explore it, read it, get to know like your fans get to know it. Then come up with one good idea based purely on what your fans express and do it! Then let me know how it goes.

I am an old man (in some circles). When I find myself on most undergraduate college campuses the days, it seems that the students have more in common with my 12 year old step son than with me. I’ve been out of college for almost 15 years now. So it was with great curiosity and mild mischievous humor , that I have entered into the hallowed halls of online course-dom by way of Berklee’s Online Music Marketing with Topspin course.

I feel a bit like Rodney Dangerfield in “Back to School”.

As CEO of a pretty well respected direct-to-fan marketing shop, our clients kinda expect us to already know quite a bit on the topics of online, social and so forth. And we do. And we pitch and deliver outstanding programs every day. So it is a bit of a running joke around the FanMail office that that I might be bit overqualified for the class… and so likely doomed to failure based on murphy’s law.

I got a C on my first assignment for not answering the whole question, “Please outline your top 10 pros and cons (5 each) of a direct-to-fan sales and marketing approach. Which traditional outlets do you think are still effective for selling and marketing your music?” I got the 10 pros and cons but skipped the question on which traditional outlets still work. Rats… the details get me every time.

But it is the dialogue that I’m most interested in. That is the good stuff. The grade is really negligible for me.

I mean the music industry sucks for open dialogue. Generally there is just too much ego and posturing and and self congratulation and fierce competition for the industry to actually openly discuss what works or doesn’t work in their marketing methodologies. It is interesting. If you go to any number of main stream “corporate” marketing conferences often you find presenters (one person showing a case study or telling a real story of success) or round tables (open dialogue with the audience and a moderator). But in the music industry it is all about “The Panel” (a group of hand picked experts who are really there to propel their own agendas).

So I’m looking to Academics for dialogue and I applaud Ian and Shamal and team for bringing it into a forum where such things can hopefully thrive. My fear of course is that the promise of open dialogue here could quickly be clouded by the marketing agenda. We shall see.

I’m also interested in the Topspin platform. I don’t think that it is akin to the second coming of Christ as the hype would lead us to believe, but I do think that it is a game changer and puts some pretty powerful tools in the hands of artists and their team. At FanMail, we are hoping to expand our programming over the next months to execute services for our clients on the Topspin platform. This is a good way to “dip our toe in the water” without taking a full dive.

We have a number of clients who use both FanMail and Topspin in tandem. FanMail for email, sms, automation and database management and Topspin for transactions, media and widgets. I’m hopeful that as the dev team continues to build out their APIs, that the doors will be opened where these two world class systems can continue to compliment each other. Ian, can I hear an open source yelp?

To top it off (and inspired by the class project) I’m working with Josiah to bring The Lion’s Rampant album “It’s fun to do bad things” to market for a March release on Topspin. This band it too much fun and I’m sure there will be more insights on this to come.

Ok, I’m off to find an apple for the teacher.

Until next time!

David

Quote of the Day | Bob Lefsetz

I don’t have the time.
And neither do you.
That’s what your unwanted e-mails are, solicitations.

Check out the full post here>>

The thing that sucks about most marketers is that they think too much like marketers… like solicitors. They have a very hard time stepping away from themselves long enough to ask their audience/client/customer/ticket buyer/fans, “why is that important to you?” and “what are your needs”. Most marketers are only concerned with their own needs… their own point of view and what is important to THEM.

I had a interesting conversation over lunch with a gentleman in the music industry who didn’t understand why permission marketing was important.. or how it worked. The question he raised was, “if cost were not an issue, why shouldn’t promoters send as many emails as possible, to as many people as possible, as often as possible?”

And he has a point… after all, if I throw enough shit at the wall, certainly something will stick.

However, email marketing is NOT permission marketing. Email is just the vehicle… a very efficient vehicle, but just a vehicle none the less. The value is not in the email, but in the PERMISSION… that somebody cares what you are saying and is looking forward to it.

The problem with just throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks… is that the people who might have once cared and once gave you permission are likely to get hit along the way.

And once those people go away and block you out… they almost never come back.

You can go to home depot and buy all of the best and most expensive tools they have on the shelf. It won’t make you a great carpenter or craftsman. The same is true for great marketing. Being on every single social network, having every widget and chasing after every new shimmering online fan tool, won’t make for great results. Strategy and implementation, testing and optimizing. Thinking critically and being remarkable. Those are things that produce great marketing results.

Of course having the right tool for the right job is essential as any great craftsman will tell you. But knowing how to use the tool and learning how to become a great craftsman… that takes work and experience. I just love this post in Digital Music News on the subject. All too often we find people using great tools but who fail because they have the wrong strategy. Our mission at FanMail is to not only give our clients the best tools, but to also help them become outstanding craftsman.

File Under: Audience Engagement, Music Marketing, Music and Technology