Josh McHughCEO, Attention SpanCo-Founder, Fanatical

The Care and Feeding of Social Media Superfans

FOR DISCUSSION

• What is a superfan?• What superfans can do for you• How to find them• Building superfan communities• Doing it wrong• Superfan relationship upkeep

BACKGROUND

Proprietary audience intelligence and development platform

Digital and audience development agency

[STRATEGISTS][OPERATIVES ]

[ SOFTWARE ]

AGENCY CLIENTS

WHO ARE THESE “SUPERFANS”?

SUPERFANS AND INFLUENCERS ARE NOT THE SAME

• “Influencer outreach” often PR-focused blogger campaign

• Enthusiasm is more important than historical influence

• Influence can be built in a short amount of time

PORTRAIT OF A SUPERFAN

• Lisa Stanforth• Purdue 2007• Production Coordinator• Morning News Producer• Raving Superfan

WHAT SUPERFANS CAN DO FOR YOU

THE 20/90 RULE

• 20% of Twitter users generate 90% of activity

YOUR OWN MARKETING ARMY

TRUST

TRUST

• 92% trust recommendations from people they know

• 81% report being influenced by friends’ social media posts

• 36% trust ads on social networks

• -24% in trust in traditional advertising since 2009

Trust acceleration

• The greatest perceptions of trust were reported by highly identified ingroup fans describing fellow ingroup fans, while the lowest levels of trust were found in the highly identified fans’ descriptions of rival outgroup fans.• Sports Fans, Identity and Socialization: Exploring the Fandemonium,

2012

S.E.O.

CAMPAIGN RESURRECTION

HOW TO FIND THEM

WHAT TO LOOK FOR

• They’re already creating content for you• They’re talking about you a lot• They’re saying positive things about you• They’re sharing your content• They’re clicking your links• They’re using your hashtags

WHERE TO LOOK

• Customer service wins• Inbound traffic sources (Google Analytics, etc.)• Review sites

• Yelp• TripAdvisor

• Twitter lists• Listmakers

PAST PERFORMANCE DOES NOTINDICATE FUTURE SUCCESS

• General and even topic-specific influence scores can be inversely useful in recruiting and developing superfans

Malcolm Gladwell: Influence is predictive

Duncan Watts:Influence is history

Those who participated Those who didn’t

Average Klout Score37 39

TURNING FANS INTO FANATICS

HOW TO APPROACH

• Context, Context, Context

• An unsolicited message doesn’t have to be a cold call

FOCUS

• A community manager only has time to write and send 50-150 personalized messages/day – CHOOSE WISELY

RECOGNIZE

• Most powerful motivator of superfans• Retweets• Shout-outs• Post their content

MAKE IT A CAUSE

• Figure out what resonates with your budding superfans and help them get behind the cause

HOW TO LOSE THEM

PROLONGING THE MAGIC

LET THE SUPERFANS DRIVE ONCE IN A WHILE

• Give them a say• Sneak peeks• Backchannel• Unauthorized sites can be a good thing!

GOOD TIMES AND BAD

Going beyond the tweet

THERE ARE SUPERFANS, AND THEN THERE’S

twitter.com/getFanatical