The entertainment industry can teach marketers a lot about incorporating fandom into a company’s strategy.
From Beliebers to Kardashian followers, America is the land of the superfan. Diehard aficionados are the first ones to download a new album, tune in to the latest episode, or buy a concert ticket.
While we may refer to them as brand advocates, those people who support a brand especially when it’s facing some kind of crisis, are really just passionate fans.
Fans who are willing and able to dedicate their own time to support a brand online, or in person.
This weekend sees the first ever YouTube Video Music Awards streamed online. In many ways, it’s like a lot of other music awards: there’s glitz, there’s glamour, and there’s Lady Gaga, One Direction and Rihanna (though Cher’s invite is presumably still in the post…).
However, the YouTube awards are different in one major way. Any videos shared across Facebook, Twitter or Google+ since September 2012 contribute to deciding the winner, alongside user votes.
Just over a year ago, in August 2012, Nielsen revealed some research that revealed YouTube as the number one music discovery source for under 18s – a figure that can only have grown in the past 12 months. Arguably, this makes these awards the most relevant of all.
Online electrical retailer Appliances Online (now rebranded as AO) has seen impressive growth on its Facebook page, recently hitting the milestone of 1m likes.
According to AO, it is also making Facebook sell, something not all retailers have managed to do.
It has seen a 60% in branded search traffic, which has led to a 58% uplift in sales driven by brand terms.
To find out the secrets behind this growth, I’ve been asking AO Social Media Manager Yossi Erdman…
Social media, as a channel, is hard to hate, and despite the fact that companies are still grappling with ROI, brands continue to pour larger and larger sums into social media initiatives and industry observers continue to show the same interest in highlighting and analyzing them as they did when social media first started to go mainstream.
But don’t let any of this fool you. Investment and attention don’t mean that social media initiatives are effective, or serve a useful purpose. In fact, many of them are arguably downright pointless.