AUDIENCE(8)
Use your Paid, Owned, and Earned Media not only to sell in the short term but also to increase the size, engagement, and value of your Proprietary Audiences over the long term.
The Audience Imperative contains four key concepts you must embrace fully before you can begin your Proprietary Audience Development efforts:
1. Proprietary Audiences
2. Paid, Owned, and Earned Media
3. Size, Engagement, and Value
4. The Long Term
Let us begin by better understanding the different types of proprietary audiences that we can build today.
Elon Musk: The CEO Armed with Audience
Elon Musk (@ElonMusk) is not a normal CEO. Whereas most executives are content running a single business, Elon runs three—Tesla, SpaceX (@SpaceX), and SolarCity (@SolarCity)—all of which are on the cutting edge of the highly regulated transportation and energy industries.
As an early tech entrepreneur (he also co-founded PayPal and Zip2), Elon was quick to embrace Twitter and has 393,472 FOLLOWERS as of this writing. He is also one of the most active CEOs on Twitter, and regularly uses his Twitter FOLLOWERS to:
Successfully pressure The New York Times (@nytimes) to correct portions of an article in which their journalist made false claims about his test drive of the Tesla Models.
Amplify major company events such as the early repayment of governmental loans.
Discredit Tesla skeptics with facts and data.
Elon’s Twitter FOLLOWERS allow him to circumvent traditional media gatekeepers, advocate on behalf of his company, and share his thoughts on the future of energy, transportation, and the environment. So the next time your CEO asks you why he or she should tweet, just point to Elon—the CEO who managed to build his Twitter audience while leading three companies simultaneously. Oh, and did I mention he also has five children—a set of twins and triplets? They’re the reason the Model S seats seven comfortably.
a Years after my last child’s birth, Enfamil sent me a free can of formula. I believe this was a mistake unless, of course, my wife is now raising a secret child with her secret second family. I’d better go check Facebook . . .
1. Andy Goldsworthy, Midsummer Snowballs (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2001), 34.
2. Roger Deakin, “Review: Vegetal; Theatre de la Ville, Paris,” The Independent, March 12, 1996, www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/review-vegetal-theatre-de-la-ville-paris-1341614.
3. Cecil Adams, “Did Oil Really Come from Dinosaurs?,” The Straight Dope, May 12, 2006, www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2652/did-oil-really-come-from-dinosaurs.
4. Wikipedia, s.v. “Super Bowl Advertising,” accessed June 9, 2013, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Bowl_advertising; Nielsen, “Super Bowl XLVII: How We Watch and Connect across Screens,” Newswire, February 5, 2013, http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/newswire/2013/super-bowl-xlvii-draws-108-7-million-viewers-26-1-tweets.
5. This is, of course, a turn of John Wanamaker’s famous quote, “Half of my advertising is wasted, I just don’t know which half”; Advertising Age, “John Wanamaker,” March 29, 1999, http://adage.com/article/special-report-the-advertising-century/john-wanamaker/140185/.
6. Caitlin A. Johnson, “Cutting Through Advertising Clutter,” CBS News Sunday Morning, February 11, 2009, www.cbsnews.com/8301-3445_162-2015684.
7. Angus MacKenzie, “2013 Motor Trend Car of the Year: Tesla Model S,” Motor Trend, January 2013, www.motortrend.com/oftheyear/car/1301_2013_motor_trend_car_of_the_year_tesla_model_s/viewall.
Chapter 3
Your Proprietary Audiences: Seekers, Amplifiers & Joiners
With the crowds on your side, it’s easier to play up to your potential.1
—Julius “Dr. J” Erving
Leave it to Basketball Hall of Famer Dr. J to provide businesses with the prescription for what ails them. Crowds. Audiences. Attention. As a player, Dr. J experienced firsthand how the singular focus of an audience of thousands can lift one’s performance to previously unimaginable heights.
Although your company may not play in sold-out arenas, there are three principal types of proprietary audiences you can draw regularly with the right effort:
1. SEEKERS
2. AMPLIFIERS
3. JOINERS
Understanding the difference among these groups is critical to your long-term ability to build audiences as assets. Accordingly, let’s take a moment to examine each in greater detail.
SEEKERS
If you’re a Harry Potter fan, mere mention of the word seeker probably brings to mind Quidditch, the fictional game in which wizards fly on broomsticks in hot pursuit of the “Golden Snitch.” While that’s clearly not the type of SEEKER we mean to discuss here, it is an apt analogy.