One of the things I love about community – using the definition from my previous post: What is a community? In simple terms, it’s a group of people bound together by a shared interest or purpose – is that a community in which you find yourself can subdivide into smaller off-shoot communities related to the initial, broader community, but be an entirely new community in and of itself. (Read more from David Spinks regarding intentional vs. unintentional communities and humanity's giant river of connective energy.) This is how cultures and subcultures form. This is how we navigate life socially – how we “find our people.” It happens all the time. Just look at people’s favorite pro sport to watch. Many might say they love to watch baseball, and then have a sub-community of like-minded fans who like to root for the same team. Or maybe you like Quentin Tarantino movies, but you are of a subset of Tarantino movie-lovers who are die hard fans of just one of his movie titles. It’s not surprising, but when you think about it, it’s the ultimate discovery engine for you and I to get information and stay engaged vs. isolated in life. It’s why word-of-mouth marketing is the most powerful form of influence and discovery ever. It’s why businesses create communities with their customers around the shared connection of those customers using that product. When you have a bond with another person – even a stranger – over something in common between you, respect and trust around that commonality begins to bud and becomes the foundation for listening to one another and allowing each other to be influenced and shaped by what is shared. Here’s what made me ponder this topic in the first place: Last Friday night I performed music for a local concert series where I live. There was a cancellation in the scheduled musical line up and at the last minute I was asked to cover and fill the slot. I was happy to do so, but the crowd that might show up was not expecting me based on the advertisements they had seen. The gist of this music series is to have live music that is available for local residents to come together and have something fun and free to do outdoors in the summer. Of course by design, there are businesses nearby that participate and benefit from the patronage of those who attend the event. However, the idea is that there is free entertainment and a place to gather if those in the local community are looking for something fun, free and family-friendly to do. People may show up because they like to get out every Friday to gather and socialize with their neighbors in a casual environment. Others have kids driving them nuts with too much free time in the summer and they need to get out of the house so the kids can run around and play with other kids while mom and dad relax, have a beverage, and chat with their parental counterparts. In this situation, as I was the live music performer, I’m the content. My performance is, from a high-level, fodder – something for them to consume while they’re gathering…perhaps a reason they came out to the event (though in this case I wasn’t the act they thought they would encounter) or maybe a reason, once there, that they stay (which was my hope, and many did, thankfully). The point is, while I, as a music performer, may not have been the specific reason they came out, my performance may have resonated enough to encourage them to join my own community. My community of those who come together around the music I make and share. That’s what’s interesting to me, that so many sub-communities of other communities pop up in all sorts of places (online and off) as a result of joining a community or showing up at a gathering of others generally interested in the initial common reason they’re gathering, and finding other subsets of people with whom to commune. For example, enjoying music from (to them) an unknown performer that they’re collectively enjoying and experiencing in that particular moment. This is how building a fanbase as a creator works. As a creator we’re using our art as a vehicle to bring people together through their shared interest in and experience with our creative work. Often, when starting to build that fanbase, we’re inserting ourselves and our craft into a broader, related community, so those in that broader community who express interest can dive deeper into a subset community around a more specific aspect of the broader community. Not unlike going to a local event as something to do, discovering some art they like, and further discovering others in attendance who are also having a shared experience enjoying the same art. Now those people are connecting within this subset of the broader community that got them there, and the artist is gaining fans in his/her own community. As iron sharpens iron, community sharpens community. Get further connected.
Join the Investors Club newsletter You matter, and you belong! That sense is, in part, what community provides us. What is a community? It’s a group of people bound together by a shared interest or purpose, or in the case of family, shared experience, kinship, and ideally love. The guiding factor in a community is some kind of social exchange that involves trust and respect for the other person (or people) bound together by something in common. Humans are social creatures. Even the most introverted of us humans are social by nature and need a sense of belonging and validation to a certain degree to feel more complete and whole. However, a community can exist with as little as two people…or as much as 200,000+ people, or more…or anything in between. The emotional support and connection that exists as a result of those in the community coming together around their common interest or experience is what has the greatest impact on the individuals involved. That effect is more important than the size of the community itself. Community’s impact can be as strong as family bonds even when those involved are not actually related in any biological or familial way beyond the community. When you think about it, community is everywhere you find two or more people sharing a bond over something that brings them together with a certain level of respect, vulnerability, and trust. We’re always pursuing a community, engaged with a community, or trying to leave one, likely in pursuit of another, but we’re always socially involved in a community of some shape or form. As the saying goes, there is power in numbers. It’s normal to want to be a part of something bigger than yourself. It’s healthy to find positive companionship around shared interests. It’s necessary to know you don’t have to operate in this world alone. I’m glad we’re connected here. You matter, and you belong. For those of us who had formidable years in the 1990s, Chuck Klosterman’s The Nineties book (affiliate) is proving to be (I’m still reading it) a fun, smart, historical and pop culture nostalgic trip through the end of the 20th century.
BTW: I personally don’t think you will ever be disappointed reading any of Chuck Klosterman’s work. He has many great, fun, amazing books. Trusting the doing. Being strategic vs executing. When shifts happen we often want to strategize to have the right approach to deal with the change, but in some ways we likely get further behind by doing that. Those who assess quickly start executing and iterate along the way will be further ahead of us by the time we finally start executing on our more refined strategic approach. I sometimes forget that I’m better at connecting a few dots, executing, reassessing and doing it again than I am at pausing to formulate a grand strategy that can be beautifully executed when ready. Even though my urge is to do the latter, that’s not my actual strength. Trusting those doing instincts is how things develop…
I need to get back to trusting those doing instincts. How about you? It’s interesting to me that both B2C and especially B2B marketing likes to overcomplicate how they label and describe marketing efforts. As an independent artist/musician we label marketing efforts as marketing/promotions, and fan interactions. That’s about it. The point is: demand gen, ABM, customer marketing advocacy…however you label these efforts, it’s marketing/promotions and fan interactions. No need to overthink it too much. Just create the strategy and execute. We will follow a product or service recommendation of a friend or colleague, but not one from the organization that makes or provides that product/service, why?
Trust. We have more trust in our friends and colleagues because we have a human relationship with them. Rapport has been built over time with them (the length of time doesn't necessarily matter). Often with a friend or colleague, there is not an agenda to sell something to each other from the onset of the relationship. That allows some level of vulnerability and/or candor to enter into the relationship building process over time, which helps accelerate and solidify trust. Brands are often interrupting one's attention and priorities to force an opportunity to build a relationship. This is true even in the most consultative of selling processes. It often doesn't work because if the desire to build a trusted relationship of any kind is not mutual, the balance of power between the parties is off, and the "interrupted" party will be guarded in their interactions with the other. A creators' output is subjective.
When a fandom begins to grow around a creator and their output it’s still subjective. However, when those fans continue to support that creator it’s an objective observation that the subjectivity of the creator/their output has real value. ![]() User Generated Content (UGC) works. Why? Because there is an immediate genuine connection between the person sharing their story and the person listening to that story (consuming that content). The two parties are bonded by a similar need, or the seeking of a similar solution. One has identified and experienced a particular solution and the other (the one consuming the content) is usually seeking such a solution and wants to see themselves in the person sharing their story -- do they have a similar situation to mine, do they think about the need in a similar way, have their struggles to find a solution been similar? If yes, the UGC will likely resonate in a far more effective (and less-biased) way than if the company making the product the content is talking about would have created that same content. Thus, the content will likely be better at provoking action from the viewer/reader/listener, ideally toward a sale. I don't often talk about consumer products and customer marketing advocacy (CMA) tactics as most of my CMA experience is in the B2B world, but the fundamental reason it works overlaps either realm, though the execution is often a bit different. I thought I'd share an example (see image) that speaks to my own interests, guitars. Glarry guitars are entry-level instruments that are surprisingly good for their low price point. What Glarry does well, in my opinion, is they don't shy away from UGC right on their website. In fact, they encourage it. People who purchase a guitar from Glarry are provided the opportunity to share a review of the product that ends up right on their site, and Glarry even encourages people to do unboxing videos and share their opinions about their products -- good, bad, and beyond. These reviews -- and especially the video reviews -- are helping Glarry extent their brand marketing reach (as most reviewers providing a video review have that same video on their YouTube channel), and these reviews are driving new sales. It helps that the product is good enough to get more positive than negative reviews. P.S. I actually own this Telecaster-style semi-hallow body electric guitar with a humbucker neck pickup, and for the price it's a really fun little guitar with some great tone. Plus, I was able to find it for cheaper on Amazon here: https://amzn.to/45vAOru (affiliate). The following are the elements we need to make a digital customer advocacy program work well. Strategy Identify ongoing value for customers so there is a reason they want to participate and it becomes a way to build a relationship with them over time. Ongoing Customer Recruitment Have a multi-pronged approach to consistently add new customer members to your program. This means enabling all customer-facing teams to help, create new customer onboarding procedures, and even empowering current members to easily refer their coworkers. Provide Consistent, Relevant Content and/or Value Understand your membership, what they find valuable and what will help them in their individual roles and careers. Then keep providing such value and they will come back and engage. Give, Give, Give, before you ask to Get. Care. Be Human. Find Ways to Help or Connect People Focus on the individual vs. their org. Help them navigate their roles, their career, the general professional landscape and most importantly, help them network or facilitate connections that can provide real benefit to their role or future career. Be as Expedient in Responding to People As You Can (Self-explanatory) Celebrate Your Members Everyone wants to be seen and heard. Recognize the individuals in your membership. Most individuals don't even get recognition for their work within their own companies, which is sad but true. Recognizing someone's hard work and contributions goes a long way toward that individual offering up further discretionary effort. Easily Empower Customer Members to Advocate for Your Brand The path for customers to advocate should have little friction, and the benefit to them of advocating should ideally outweigh the effort required to be involved. If you've done the above, this last line item will be made a lot easier, and produce more of the results you're after with your program. Connect with Nick on LinkedIn Digital collage/illustration artwork called, "Headstock" by Nick Venturella When people buy art, or respond with appreciation to a piece of art, music or writing, what are the factors in play that make that art resonate?
It's a connection, or rather an appeal that leads to a connection. The art first piques the interest of the viewer/listener/reader and that artistic content -- the visuals/the melody/the words used to describe something -- appeals to that audience's own emotional biases; their own sense of self-expression (how they see themselves and/or how they want to be seen). There is a lot wrapped up on those emotional biases. A big one is nostalgia -- when the art reminds the audience of a positive or heart-warming past experience. This makes the appeal "stickier" (aka harder to resist) for those whom the nostalgic content (aka the positive memories the art invokes) resonates most. The point is, for art to effectively connect with an audience to motivate that audience to some sort of action -- share on social promoting the art, click through to learn more, or to buy something -- it needs to appeal to the audience's emotional biases and resonate enough to motivate that action. How do you actually motivate the kind of action you want your audience to take? You have to do some research to find out what emotional biases your art appeals to most, and for which people. This is the hardest part of marketing and promoting anything -- art, a product, a business. In an over simplified business perspective, this kind of research is called product/market fit. That is, regarding the product you make, who are the people your product could help most? Meaning, that audience has the most demand for and willingness to pay for your product and the solution it provides. Huh, the solution it provides...that's something to explore in art. What solution does art (visual, music, writing) provide? Usually, art is providing some sort of emotional connection to motivate action. The art is the product. The emotional connection it creates for the audience is the solution it provides. The outcome to that solution could be to motivate an individual to listen to the song again, to escape into a fantasy world, often to buy the art or a product that is using the art to help sell it. Art is a communication vehicle. A very powerful and effective one when used well. Art alone, however, leaves that vehicle motionless. That vehicle wants to go somewhere. It wants to drive to pick up some friends. It longs for the attention of others who understand it. That's why art is not only a communication vehicle, but a community cultivator. As humans -- whether introverted or extroverted -- we long for some amount of community. That could be with one other person or thousands of people (think of a bunch of fans just like you at a concert of your favorite musical act). Art communicates to the emotional biases of individuals, but it has far more power and arguably more appeal when those individuals with similar emotional biases stoked by the art that resonates similarly to them, find one another and form a community -- a shared reason for coming together. When community forms like this, more communication between the art and the community audience exists. The art becomes the connection point or ongoing communication vehicle between the artist and their audience. This is where/when co-creation of the art via communication with the audience gives way to new ideas and possibilities. At this point, the human connectedness is at a critical mass enough to allow the art and the community around it to become something new entirely, but based on the shared emotional bias and appeal from which things started. The best art is made for the artist, because the artist felt compelled to explore an idea that they fleshed out further into more of a complete work or finished creative thought. The reason that’s the best art is because it comes from a pure and authentic frame of mind with no hidden agenda (like to sell). However, once it’s created because of its genuine authenticity it is more relatable and tends to resonate better with others (not everyone, mind you, but those who identify with what the art represents and how it makes them feel). That’s the art that often ends up gaining a following (a community) because it was born out of true, authentic intentions from the artist. Art that is made for the sole intention to sell often lacks depth — the art’s soul is missing, and people notice that. That is not to say that people who make art to make their living end up, making soulless art, the true professional artists, typically are able to make money from it because they get into the mindset where they’re creating the art for themselves to scratch the itch of a curiosity that they're compelled to explore to realize an expression that is inside of them first, and then once it's out there, are able to attract an audience for whom that resonates, and that’s why it sells. |
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