Infographic: The Importance of a Fan Base

On mediabistro’s (@Mediabistro) AllTw!tter (@alltwtr), Shea Bennett (@Sheamus) writes:

A couple of years back Kevin Kelly (@kevin2kelly) wrote an excellent piece that argued that a person only needed to acquire 1000 true fans to make a living. Kelly expanded on the concept of the true fan, outlining exactly what makes them tick.

They will drive 200 miles to see you sing. They will buy the super deluxe re-issued hi-res box set of your stuff even though they have the low-res version. They have a Google Alert set for your name. They bookmark the eBay page where your out-of-print editions show up. They come to your openings. They have you sign their copies. They buy the t-shirt, and the mug, and the hat. They can’t wait till you issue your next work. They are true fans.

And on that total, he says:

One thousand is a feasible number. You could count to 1,000. If you added one fan a day, it would take only three years. True Fanship is doable. Pleasing a True Fan is pleasurable, and invigorating. It rewards the artist to remain true, to focus on the unique aspects of their work, the qualities that True Fans appreciate.

I’d argue (and often do) that you don’t actually need as many as one thousand. I think for start-up brands (and artists and entrepreneurs) aiming for 50 true fans is a worthwhile exercise. As those 50, if they’re nurtured and respected accordingly, will tell their friends. Who will tell their friends. Who will tell their friends. All of a sudden, you’ll have your 1000 true fans – and shortly after that, a heck of a lot more.

Read this in full.

The Infographic below by Kissmetrics (@KISSmetrics) offers tips on how to grow your fan base:

  1. Define your target market.
  2. Get the tone right.
  3. Identify which types of engagement are effective.
  4. Look at it as a long-term investment.
  5. Keep it real, relevant, and relaxed.
  6. Create a schedule for updates.
  7. Monitor and measure.

The Importance Of A Fan BaseSource: The Importance Of A Fan Base Infographic

Infographic: What It Means to Be a World Class Social Brand

According to a survey of senior executives conducted by Weber Shandwick (@WeberShandwick) in partnership with Forbes Insights (@ForbesInsights), 84% believe their brand’s sociability is not up to world-class standards.

In the report “Socializing Your Brand: A Brand’s Guide to Sociability”  Weber Shandwick offers 9 tips. The study finds that being a world class social brand means interacting with target audiences and creating original content that heightens the interactive experience, going beyond broadcasting news, deals, or events..

1. It’s not the medium — and it’s more than the message

2. Put your brands in motion

3. Integrate or die

4. Make social central

5. Listen more than you talk

6. Count what matters — meaningful engagement

7. Think global

8. Go outside to get inside

9. Be vigilant

Read the report.

Infographic: horizontal pdf / vertical jpg

Bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard; especially the Branding tab.

Ebooks Will Be Much Bigger Than You Can Imagine

This article in GigaOM (@gigaom) by Trey Ratcliff (@TreyRatcliff), founder of FlatBooks and the travel photography blog Stuck In Customs (@StuckInCustoms), says, “The ebook business will grow faster than people think. Innovations from Amazon and Apple have increased the velocity at which we consume ebooks, but there are two emergent behaviors that will increase the rate of overall consumption.”

Emergent behavior 1: Ebooks are not 1-for-1 with the traditional book business.

Most ebook projections are wrong. They anticipate for every $1 billion lost in the traditional book business that $1 billion will be gained in the ebook business. This ratio is actually closer to 1-to-2 because people are collecting ebooks like nuts for the winter. They are easy to buy and download, much like music. And, frankly, it’s fun to fill up your iPad with a colorful, robust set of thumbnails in your library. I don’t know why this is a good feeling, but it is.

Emergent behavior 2: Social media is a marketing multiplier.

The best way to successfully market something is to have true believers with big followings talk about it on the Internet. Since we have many authors who are socially popular, a multiplier effect begins to take place....The spread of good books has always been a word-of-mouth phenomenon. Now, with social media, ebooks are word-of-mouth-on-steroids.

Read this in full.

As ebooks grow, a concurrent problem will need to be addressed. Read paidContent's (@paidContent) "Why Amazon's Plagiarism Problem Is More Than A Public Relations Issue," by Jeff Roberts (@jeffjohnroberts) and Laura Hazard Owen (@laurahazardowen).

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you identify blue ocean strategy for your ebook publishing agenda.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily SomersaultNOW, the online dashboard especially for marketing and publishing executives.

Search Engine Optimization Myths

Stephan Spencer (@sspencer), co-author of The Art of SEO, lists common SEO myths in an article for Multichannel Merchant (@mcmerchant):

·         Meta tags will boost your rankings. Fact: Optimizing your meta keywords is a complete waste of time. They’ve been so abused by spammers that the engines haven't put any stock in them for years. In fact, Google never did support this meta tag. None of the various meta tags are given any real weight in the rankings algorithm.

·         If you define a meta description, Google uses it in the snippet.

·         Tweaking your meta description is the way to optimize the Google snippet's conversion potential.

·         Placing links in a teeny-tiny size font at the bottom of your homepage is an effective tactic to raise the rankings of deep pages in your site.

Read this in full.

Report: Consumer Media Usage Across TV, Online, Mobile, and Social

Almost 1 in 3 US TV households – 35.9 million – owns 4 or more televisions, according to a new report on media usage from Nielsen (@NielsenWire). Across the ever-changing US media landscape, TV maintains its stronghold as the most popular device, with 290 million Americans and 114.7 households owning at least one. Online Americans number 211, and 116 million (ages 13+) access the mobile Web.

See the charts of the State of the Media: Consumer Usage Report in full.

Forget Product Positioning, This is the Dawn of the Relationship Era

Advertising commentator Bob Garfield (@Bobosphere) and Doug Levy (@douglevy1), CEO of IMC2 (@imcsquared) and its blog the relationship era, have written an extensive article in Advertising Age (@adage) that encourages brands to “stop viewing purchasers as conquests. They are members of a community, prepared to adore (or the opposite) not just your stuff but the inner you.”

Welcome to the Relationship Era. Say goodbye to positioning, preemption, and unique selling position. This is about turning everything you understood about marketing upside down so that you can land right side up. This is about tapping into the Human Element.

Begin with a simple experiment. Type “I love Apple” into your Google search bar. You will get 3.27 million hits. If you type “I love Starbucks,” 2.7 million hits. Zappos: 1.19 million.

“I love Citibank” gets you 21,100. AT&T Wireless: 7,890. Exxon: 4,730. Dow Chemical: 3. Out of 7 billion human beings, three! Just to put that into context, type “I love Satan” and you get 293,000 hits. Now consider that in the past 12 months, Citibank, AT&T Wireless, Exxon Mobil, and Dow have spent $2 billion on advertising. How's that working out for them?

The methodology here may not be especially rigorous, but the results dramatize two immutable facts of contemporary marketing life:

1. Millions of people will, of their own volition, announce to the world their affection for a brand. Not for a person, an artwork, or a dessert but for a product or service. Congratulations. People care deeply about you.

2. Whether you like it or not, your brand is inextricably entwined in such relationships. If you were to type in “I hate Exxon,” you'd get 2.16 million hits – not counting the “I hate Exxon Mobil” Facebook page. Though people are listening less to your messages, it doesn’t stop them from thinking and talking about you. And each of those expressions of like, dislike, ardor or disgust has an exponent that reflects the outward ripples of social interaction.

Read this in full and read the book Winning in the Relationship Era: A New Model for Marketing Success (online pdf version) (also see "Social Media Is About Cultivating Community, Not Corralling Cattle"), then contact us (@smrsault) to help you set your “relationship era” branding and marketing strategy for 2012.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard; especially the Marketing/PR tab.

Stats That Mattered for Media and Marketing in 2011

Matt Carmichael (@mcarmichael), director of information projects at Advertising Age (@adage), suggests the following statistics that mattered most for media and marketing in 2011:

1.) 50 million -- The big number from the Census everyone was talking about was the number of Hispanics, which crested this milestone for the first time. Later the Census and The New York Times found that even more people in the US (51 million) are at or near the poverty line.

2.) 50% +1 -- Some time in 2011 the children being born in the US tipped to majority-minority, according to Brookings Institute demographer William Frey. It'll take the population as a whole, decades before the white population is not the majority, but the newborns are there now. Diversity marketing is in for a makeover.

3.) Half of kids under 8 (and 40% of 2- to 4-year-olds) have access to a smartphone, iPad, or some other mobile media device.

4.) In October 2011 Facebookers in the US spent 136,000 aggregate years on the site, according to comScore.

5.) The US added just 11.2 million households between 2000 and 2010, the -- slowest household formation rate we've seen in a long time. This impacts industries like construction and any sort of household goods and services and is helping to keep the recovery slow.

6.) When asked all the reasons they subscribe to a local paper, 85% said local news, but nearly 4 in 10 said “habit,” according to the Ad Age/Ipsos Observer American Consumer Survey.

7.) Nuclear families account for just one-fifth of all households but more than one-third (34%) of total consumer spending. Nationwide there are 1.3 million fewer of them in 2010 than there were in 2000.

8.) One in three consumers can't afford your product: The 2011 Discretionary Spend Report from Experian Simmons finds 34.5% of households have less than $7,000 to spend on non-essential goods. Just over half have less than $10,000 to spend on entertainment, education, personal care, clothing, furniture and more.

9.) Don't count out old media. Fifty-seven percent of millennials indicated in a study from OMD that TV was the first way they hear about products and services.

10.) For the first time in American history there are now a million more female than male college graduates, according to the Census.

Read this in full.

How "A Charlie Brown Christmas" Reveals the True Meaning of Viral Content

For SmartBlog on Social Media, Jesse Stanchak (@SBoSM) analyzes the 1965 TV classic, A Charlie Brown Christmas, and suggests the same reasons for its longevity and continued popularity can be applied to online content that’s intended to go viral:

·         It has an amateur vibe.

·         It has a strong point of view.

·         It tackles a persistent problem.

·         It builds on existing work.

·         It makes its point quickly.

Read this in full.

Also see our previous blogpost, “Infographic: Understanding Viral Content Marketing.”

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you set your social media marketing strategy.