You may or may not have heard about it.
There was a mix-up at Nutella a few weeks ago that resulted in a cease-and-desist letter being sent to their biggest fan.
Big mistake.
Fortunately, the folks at Nutella realized what they had done and fixed it before it generated too much bad press. So no, this post isn’t a critique of Nutella, as you might expect. It’s more of a response to the situation:
- What is the bottom-line value of your fans and followers?
- And what can you do to get more high-value followers?
First, there’s no real value in a number
How many of us have high-value fans who love to tell people about our products or share our content?
Not many, right? So what’s the problem?
Here’s what I think: Too many of us worry more about the numbers than the actual people who follow us. We equate big numbers with big success, forgetting to focus on the quality of our interactions.
In reality, quality is far more important.
Brian Gardner explored this same issue in a blog post prior to his decisions to radically change his blog’s focus. He shared his own struggle between authenticity and numbers, finally opting for fewer highly engaged followers than massive amounts of followers who don’t engage.
I tend to agree with him.
Those hundred followers leaving comments and sharing your content would raise the energy level on your blog far better than the thousands who don’t comment, don’t share, and frankly, don’t care.
The value is in their engagement
The Nutella fan we mentioned above is a case in point.
Her name is Sara Rosso, and she’s the founder of @NutellaDay and the 40,500+ fanpage World Nutella Day. She’s also a digital strategist and food blogger, which makes her a huge asset to Nutella (the brand).
She’s not a high-value fan. She’s a super-fan!
At no cost to them, she spreads the word about Nutella, generating word-of-mouth advertising, new customers, and good PR. Most brands would love to find someone like Sara, if they only knew how.
What I want to point out here is that she’s one person. Just one. But because she’s fully engaged with the brand, she has as much value as 100,000 semi-engaged followers. Maybe more.
She’s a case point in the less-is-more principle of social media. A few highly engaged fans and customers can be much more valuable than a huge following of unengaged people.
So how do you increase the value of your followers?
There’s no rhyme or reason to this. There are principles, which I’ll share with you in a minute. But what works for Nutella won’t necessarily work for you. That goes for other big brands, such as Copyblogger and Appliances Online (who just hit a million Facebook fans a few weeks ago).
Your followers are unique to you. And while each individual fan is different, the group as a whole has its own personality, needs, and desires.
Marketing Tip: We need to be able to see the entire group, as well as the individuals that make up the group. We market to individuals, but we identify a market as a group.
So here’s the thing.
You have to find what works for your followers, which may require some experimentation. And to do that, you need to follow a few commonsense principles:
1. Get to know your followers. You need to know what makes them tick.
2. Like and respect them. Have compassion for their problems.
3. Keep them first. Their needs. Not yours.
4. Be real with them. A real person with a real personality.
5. Be genuine and transparent with them. Be honest about who you are and what you do.
6. Give as much as you take. Provide freebies and other fun stuff for your followers.
7. Be trustworthy.
8. Don’t just make offers. Educate, inspire, and entertain your followers. (ZAGG is a master of entertaining content.)
9. Be approachable. Do they know, if they contact you, they’ll get a response?
10. Give them an identity, so they feel part of something big and exciting.
11. Don’t be gimmicky. Fake hype is a real turn-off.
Basically, it all comes back to know-like-trust. The principles that encourage engagement and give you more valuable followers are the same principles that you use in every-day relationships.
So stop seeking numbers alone. Go for high-quality followers, and when you find someone like Sara Rosso, nurture that relationship.
In the meantime, focus on the followers you have. You never know how many future super-fans are hidden among them.
