This document discusses different types of social media connections and how to build them. It defines fans, friends, followers, groupies, and audiences. It recommends focusing on adding value to others first through presence, accessibility, communication, customer service, and resource sharing. It suggests letting people engage with and share your content. The document advises understanding the differences between these connection types and cultivating communities through responsiveness and consistency.

1. Fans, Friends, Followers,
Groupies, and Audiences
How to tell the difference, find yours
and build them up
Presented by Leslie Poston
June 2010
#gmccfan

2. Who Are All These
People, And Why Are
They Following Me?

3. • Fan - Someone who joins a page, usually on Facebook, because they like a company,
service, film, band or other public entity
• Friend - noun: Catch all term on social networks for someone who decides to be
connected to you. verb: The act of following someone on a social network.
• Follower - Someone who decides they are interested in what you have to say and
subscribes to your updates on a social network.
• Groupie - Someone who will blindly fan, friend and follow their favorite bands, brands,
movies, actors and other entities on all networks they can find them, then will incessantly
talk about the entity everywhere they are. Also known as a “super fan” in some circles.
• Audience - 1) People who passively listen to your message, usually in a community or on
a blog. 2) Your target market for creative content on various networks.
• Community - A network of true fans and groupies that gather around an entity and
interact with real conversation, often building a rapport based on trust and helpfulness as
well as camaraderie. Can be private (white label) or public (Facebook or other social
network).

4. Worry less about
which is better to have.
Work harder at being
worth connecting with.

5. Building Value First
Presence
Accessibility
Communication
Customer Service
Public Service
Resource Sharing

6. You Increase Your Value
By Valuing Others First

7. Highlight
Acknowledge
Share
Thank
Credit
Link

8. image from portlandart.net
Let People Play With
Your Content

9. The Best Internet Memes
Get Mixed, Remixed, Mashed Up And Shared.
Communities grow around them.

10. }
IKEA
Converse
Some Companies Letting Fans Play
Ford
Pepsi

15. Fans

16. • Create Public Presences
• Utilize Open Search
• Keyword RSS and Alerts
• Targeted Interaction
• Responsiveness

17. image from digitalks
Friends

18. • Know difference between real life friends and
online friends
• Work to turn online friends into real life
connections
• Know what makes folks want to friend a business
or other entity
• Know what makes people want to friend YOUR
business - what do you offer?
• Know the boundaries of “friending”
• Respect customer privacy and customer time

19. Followers

20. • Reciprocate to give customers access
• Acknowledge passive follow conventions
• Know follow is not required for interaction
• Know numbers don’t always mean success
• Make your interactions less about you
• Keyword for conversation, not follow

21. Groupies

22. • Apple is a brand that has
groupies
• Groupies flock to entities
that give them something
extraordinary in
exchange for their loyalty
• Brands that have
groupies leave a positive
emotional aftertaste after
each interaction with
their brand, no matter
how small

23. Audiences

24. • Audiences often translate to repeat visitors
to a site
• Interested in your content and thoughts
but may not interact directly
• Often translate well offline if cultivated (for
example, attending an indie film screening
or a concert)
• Often first found online talking about a
brand, but not to it

25. Communities

26. • Communities expect to be taken care of
• Communities lead to the most discovery
• These groups of people are invested in a brand,
and in its success, and will give feedback freely
• Communities expect results
• Communities need management
• Communities must be cultivated

27. Learn To Tie It All
Together

28. Think Past Gimmicks

29. Give Your Growth Time

30. Have A Consistent Online Pulse

31. Build On Your Own
Networks

32. Know your policy on content sharing

33. (real time analysis)
note: this ended up being an analysis of the Radisson Manchester, present in the class

34. (Q&A Session)
©Leslie Poston, All Rights Reserved, Not For Reuse Or Resale

35. Leslie Poston, Magnitude Media
@leslie or @magnitudemedia on Twitter
800•501•4049 phone | 928•438•5038 fax
leslie@magnitudemedia.net
Co-Author: Twitter for Dummies (Wiley, 2009+)
Contributor: Social Media ProBook (Eloqua)
Author: Grande Guide to Social Advertising (Eloqua)
Author: Social Media Metrics for Dummies (Wiley, 2012)
If you enjoyed my presentation, won’t you recommend me on LinkedIn?
http://linkedin.com/in/leslieposton
Connect with Magnitude Media’s pages also:
http://www.linkedin.com/company/magnitude-media
http://facebook.com/magnitudemedia
http://magnitudemedia.net
©Leslie Poston, All Rights Reserved