5 Ways To Turn Superfans Into Super-marketers

Sanjay Dholakia, CEO of Crowd Factory, recently shared his insights on encouraging teens to become superfans who will broadcast your message beyond the level of basic participation. Such fans are motivated by the chance to support artists they care about, hooking up their friends with rewards and receiving recognition for their supermarketer status.

"How To Turn Your Superfans Into Guerrilla Marketers" is a nice quick intro to the concept of the "superfan" who is often a teenager and is highly motivated to do quite a bit of marketing on your behalf, if they're rewarded in an appropriate manner.

In a campaign for young artist Cady Groves, Dholakia related that in response to the offer of a free merchandise pack as a reward for getting friends to download one of her song, many superfans stepped up their game by "coming up with their own tweets, direct messaging friends and posting on Facebook to recruit hundreds of new fans to the Cady Groves web site and Facebook Page."

Dholakia shared 5 tips for superfan motivation:

1. Offer exclusive content.
2. Raise the rewards as sharing increases.
3. Provide a platform for expression and reward that activity.
4. Recognize loyalty with prizes and public status.
5. Help them do good.

While most of these focus on bigger rewards and public recognition, no. 5 might surprise a few people but, according to Dholakia, U.S. girls in particular enjoy giving to and volunteering for good causes. That's pretty cool because supporting good causes also gives an extra luster to one's own brand beyond the benefits of encouraging superfans.

Sanjay Dholakia's Crowd Factory is focused, at least in part, on social offer marketing and they've been involved with a number of high profile music and media campaigns.

Hypebot contributor Clyde Smith is a freelance writer and blogger. Flux Research is his business writing hub and All World Dance: World Dance News is his primary web project. To suggest websites and related topics for review, please contact: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.