12 percent (and growing) are Twitter FOLLOWERS of one of or more brands.17
The growth of Facebook FANS and Twitter FOLLOWERS has not come at the expense of email SUBSCRIBERS. Thus, the marketing opportunity today is to grow all of your JOINER audiences. To do that, you’re going to need to optimize your Paid, Owned, and Earned Media in ways that would make an old-school marketer’s head spin.
a While it’s more accurate to refer mobile app audiences as “users” or “downloaders,” I have included them as SUBSCRIBERS because our interest is in your company’s ability to communicate with them in an exclusive fashion—something a mobile app affords both when opened and when push messaging is enabled.
b RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication as and is a means to distribute content online.
c SMS stands for Short Messaging Service and is better known as text messaging.
d As of this writing, Justin Timberlake (@JTimberlake) and his fellow Myspace investors are doing their utmost to breathe new life into the once-dominant social network. If they succeed, then those in entertainment industries may have a new/old place to build and engage FANS.
e Many thanks to Mark Gastineau for his roughing-the-passer penalty that enabled the Browns’ 1987 playoff comeback. Also, my sincere apologies to Jets future owner, mega-FAN, and best-selling author Gary Vaynerchuk (@garyvee) for referencing the sordid tale at all. When you’re a Browns FAN, you cling to ancient victories.
f This is the basis of Earned Media, which we’ll explore in the next chapter.
1. Amanda Palmer, “The Art of Asking,” TED2013 video, 13:48, February 2013, www.ted.com/talks/amanda_palmer_the_art_of_asking.
2. Cord Jefferson, “Amanda Palmer’s Million-Dollar Music Project and Kickstarter’s Accountability Problem,” Gawker, September 19, 2012, http://gawker.com/5944050/amanda-palmers-million+dollar-music-project-and-kickstarters-accountability-problem.
3. Ibid.
4. Marcus Wohlsen, “Email Is Crushing Twitter, Facebook for Selling Stuff Online,” Wired, July 1, 2013, www.wired.com/business/2013/07/email-crushing-twitter-facebook/.
5. Derek Halpern, “Why You MUST Build Your Email List—And How to Get Started,” Social Triggers (blog), http://socialtriggers.com/build-an-email-list/.
6. Online Etymology Dictionary, s.v. “fan,” accessed August 5, 2013, www.etymonline.com/index?term=fan.
7. Charles Mackay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, with an introduction by Professor Norman Stone (Hertfordshire, England: Wordsworth Editions, 1995).
8. General Mills, “General Mills History of Innovation: The Pillsbury Bake-Off® Contest,” http://generalmills.com/~/media/Files/history/hist_bakeoff.ashx.
9. “Springtime in Atlanta. March 27th–March 30th, 2013,” Atlanta Chapter of the Coca-Cola Collectors Club, accessed August 5, 2013, http://theatlantachapter.webs.com/springtimeinatlanta.htm.
10. “What Is IMM?,” IMM 2013 (FAQ), accessed August 5, 2013, www.imm2013.eu/index?lang=en&Itemid=506.
11. Jessica Lee, “78% of Brand’s Facebook Fans Are Already Customers,” ClickZ, July 1, 2013, www.clickz.com/clickz/news/2278389/78-of-a-brands-facebook-fans-are-already-customers-study.
12. “Facebook ‘Like’ Button Replaces ‘Become a Fan,’” HuffingtonPost, June 19, 2010, www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/19/facebook-like-button-repl_n_543439.
13. “Jayne’s Hat,” ThinkGeek.com product page, www.thinkgeek.com/product/f108/.
14. Ellie Hall, “‘Firefly’ Hat Triggers Corporate Crackdown,” BuzzFeed, April 9, 2013, www.buzzfeed.com/ellievhall/firefly-hat-triggers-corporate-crackdown.
15. “SUBSCRIBERS, FANS & FOLLOWERS REPORT #16: Retail Touchpoints Exposed!,” ExactTarget, 2012, http://pages.exacttarget.com/SFF16E-US?ls=Website&lss=Micro.SubscribersFansFollowers.RetailTouchpoints&lssm=Corporate&camp=701A0000000czJzIAI, 28.
16. Darren Rovell, “Steelers’ Antonio Brown Spends Super Bowl Week with Twitter Fan Turned BFF,” CNBC, February 9, 2012, www.cnbc.com/id/46326110/Steelers_Antonio_Brown_Spends_Super_Bowl_Week_with_Twitter_Fan_Turned_BFF.
17. “SUBSCRIBERS, FANS & FOLLOWERS REPORT #20: Marketers from Mars,” ExactTarget, 2013, http://pages.exacttarget.com/SFF20-US?ls=Website&lss=Micro.SubscribersFansFollowers.MktrsFromMars&lssm=Corporate&camp=701A0000000eR4AIAU.
Chapter 5
Beyond Don Draper: Paid, Owned & Earned Media
Change is neither good [n]or bad, it simply is. It can be greeted with terror or joy. A tantrum that says, “I want it the way it was,” or a dance that says, “Look, it’s something new.”1