February 16, 2007 12 Comments

Who Are Your Fans

WaterJeff Pulver pointed me to an article in New York Magazine called Say Everything, which talks about the younger generation’s passion for putting their entire lives online. It’s a time where kids all presume that everyone has a stage, an audience, and a fan base.

I’m clearly not the younger generation, and yet, I consider this blog a stage. I use it to show you movies, pictures, stories from my life, and things that might be useful to YOUR life on occasion.

From time to time, I’ve mused about the “fan” thing. Who are the kinds of people who come to this site? I know most of you personally, but the funny thing is, I knew most of you first from the online world. We exchanged blog comments, or shared some other media, and then eventually, I met you somewhere. It’s funny, because Jon Swanson recently blogged about the notion of online friends versus real.

But who are your fans? Not just you the bloggers, but you in life. If you think about it, who’s going to say nice things about you? Who’s going to say, “Oh yeah, I love Dave LaMorte! He’s really brilliant! If I weren’t listening to his show, I wouldn’t have heard about … ”

And once you have an audience or a fan base, how do you treat them? I work for a guy who treats his community as one of the most important things in the world. He advocates for them, does what he can to bring them happiness, opportunity, and engagement. It’s a great way to maintain one’s overall standing in one’s own personal universe. It’s easy to find fans of my boss. (Believe me: in San Fran, it was mostly his fans that came out, not the videoblogger community).

You know what comes to mind the most when I think about MY community or the folks I hang with? It’s like we’re the Hong Kong Cavaliers! You remember the 80s movie, Buckaroo Banzai? A bunch of wacky types who have their own super powers, their own areas of expertise, but who band together to make cool things happen.

Yep. That’s who I hang with. How about you? Who are your fans?

Related posts:

  1. Fans Rule!

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  • http://www.gnmhealth.com Kevin Kennedy-Spaien

    OK, Chris… If your community is like Buckaroo Banzai, can I be the Jeff Goldblum character? I always wanted to wear chaps.

    See:
    http://www.worldwatchonline.com/meetnj.jpg

  • http://www.gnmhealth.com Kevin Kennedy-Spaien

    OK, Chris… If your community is like Buckaroo Banzai, can I be the Jeff Goldblum character? I always wanted to wear chaps.

    See:
    http://www.worldwatchonline.com/meetnj.jpg

  • http://www.jonglassett.com jon glassett

    Why is that watermelon in a vice?

  • http://www.jonglassett.com jon glassett

    Why is that watermelon in a vice?

  • http://www.teachingforthefuture.com/ Dave LaMorte

    I have a lot of problems getting my fans/friends/audience/colleagues involved. Maybe it’s just because teachers are too busy to blog, podcast, and give feedback to other people at the same times, but I’m not sure. I have this lurking suspicion that my audience may not be that engaged with what I have to say.

    How do I rally my troops? Or how do I even figure out who my troops are?

  • http://www.teachingforthefuture.com/ Dave LaMorte

    I have a lot of problems getting my fans/friends/audience/colleagues involved. Maybe it’s just because teachers are too busy to blog, podcast, and give feedback to other people at the same times, but I’m not sure. I have this lurking suspicion that my audience may not be that engaged with what I have to say.

    How do I rally my troops? Or how do I even figure out who my troops are?

  • http://www.idoitdigital.com Clintus

    I don’t think I have fans. I just think I’ve jumped into bed with a great group of people who are really nice. I just happen to be going with the flow at the moment.

  • http://www.idoitdigital.com Clintus

    I don’t think I have fans. I just think I’ve jumped into bed with a great group of people who are really nice. I just happen to be going with the flow at the moment.

  • http://www.somethingtobedesired.com/blog/blog.htm Justin Kownacki

    I think you need to make a key distinction: your (target) audience and your fans are not always the same thing.

    Your audience is the people you BELIEVE are hearing your message, the ones you CREATE the message for.

    Your fans are the people who RESPOND to your message, who TAKE ACTION based upon what you say or do.

    We may think we’re creating something that appeals to a certain group of people when, in fact, it appeals to a completely different group for completely different reasons that we never considered.

    As the pipe company who owned the “utube” URL proved when they were slammed with misguided YouTube traffic, it’s not who you THINK you’re talking to that matters; it’s who’s HEARING you.

  • http://www.somethingtobedesired.com/blog/blog.htm Justin Kownacki

    I think you need to make a key distinction: your (target) audience and your fans are not always the same thing.

    Your audience is the people you BELIEVE are hearing your message, the ones you CREATE the message for.

    Your fans are the people who RESPOND to your message, who TAKE ACTION based upon what you say or do.

    We may think we’re creating something that appeals to a certain group of people when, in fact, it appeals to a completely different group for completely different reasons that we never considered.

    As the pipe company who owned the “utube” URL proved when they were slammed with misguided YouTube traffic, it’s not who you THINK you’re talking to that matters; it’s who’s HEARING you.

  • Nate Underwood

    Finding fans is the easy part… Keeping them will be the challenge. They love to try you out but it is the multiple visits that are the trick. People are cyclical and “trendy” by nature and want to move on. How many things were once a big part of you that you moved away from?

    As you pointed out everyone in the pipeline under a certain age demographic is now producing content. There are only so many hours in the day to invest in content.

    If you do have a fan they must really relate to what you are saying.

    People with superpowers? We all have superpowers.

  • Nate Underwood

    Finding fans is the easy part… Keeping them will be the challenge. They love to try you out but it is the multiple visits that are the trick. People are cyclical and “trendy” by nature and want to move on. How many things were once a big part of you that you moved away from?

    As you pointed out everyone in the pipeline under a certain age demographic is now producing content. There are only so many hours in the day to invest in content.

    If you do have a fan they must really relate to what you are saying.

    People with superpowers? We all have superpowers.