With the sudden change on Facebook from becoming a “fan” of a page to “liking” a page, there is some confusion as to the inherent value of “likers” versus “fans.” We’ve been watching closely to see if the act of “liking” is less powerful or important than “fanning.” So far, most users aren’t behaving differently. We haven’t seen an upswing in “likes” due to the terminology change nor have we seen any diminishing in “fan” participation.

But what are the qualities and activities of  the “fans” or “likers” on Facebook that we’re tracking? And what is providing real value for our clients?

Qualities of Good Fans/Likers

Here is a list of some of the most important qualities of fans of a brand’s Facebook Page. Some of these also translate to other social networks, including Twitter.

1. Attention. When someone “likes” a Facebook Page, they are usually expressing their affinity for a product, brand, organization, individual or whatever or whomever is represented on the Page. But do they pay attention? In my mind, attention is, at its most basic, watching out for or noticing the status updates from brands in one’s newsfeed.
2. Participation. Taking attention to the next level, a good fan responds to your status updates. They not only noticed but felt compelled to react in some way, usually with a “like” on the update or (better yet) with a comment.
3. Interaction. Taking attention and participation even further, a good fan not only responds to your updates but comments on other fans’ comments.
4. Leadership. There are some fans who rise to the top as organic leaders of the community that forms on a Facebook Page, most commonly on its Wall, but sometimes within Discussions. These are fans to watch closely and to consider rewarding over time.
5. Loyalty. Once a fan is attentive, participates, interacts and start to take the lead in conversations, you are witnessing a powerful form of loyalty to your brand. They are going beyond simply being interested in the goods or services you are offering, but are willing to spend time and energy in the social space you’ve created to align themselves with you. Wow!
6. Evangelism. Once you move past simple attention, your fans can easily become evangelists for your brand. What are you doing (in a transparent, generous and respectful manner) every step of the way to encourage this behavior? It is so easy to “share” what you like on Facebook. What are you doing that is worthy of sharing?

The Birth of the Social Media Superfan

In trying to encapsulate the power of the “good fan on Facebook,” I began talking with my clients about the concept of Superfan. This term is familiar in sports. The Superfan is the person who paints their body or displays fandom in some other outrageous way at sporting events.

The Social Media Superfan is the individual who is fully engaged with your brand via your social networks, most often on one network in particular, but in some cases across many of them.

For one of our clients, we were actually able to trace a number of Superfans all the way back to an event we helped to manage in November of last year. We handled social media for the event and our tweets were seen by one woman in particular, who then showed up at the physical event at a department store. The client was there with a Flip camera and videotaped the woman talking about how she heard about the event on Twitter.

Fast forward to our work months later to identify Superfans. We found that this same woman had recently entered one of the contests we announced via Facebook…and won! She was also one of over several dozen women who participated literally daily on our client’s Facebook Page. Not only did she pay attention, participate and interact, but she was a leader of the community. She visited the page every single day just to say hello to the brand, to us (the social media team behind the brand’s page — we are very transparent about who we are and what we are doing), and the rest of the community.

We were floored to discover the power of these Superfans and their influence over others, to not only “like” our client’s Facebook Page but also to evangelize the product and to get others to buy it (in this case, perfume).

So what did we do? Acknowledged them and rewarded them. This was an unexpected move in their minds — and even just the personal acknowledgment of their presence and loyalty sent them over the moon. The fact that they were then going to receive a “thank you” gift in the mail was far beyond their wildest dreams. This was truly a win/win for everyone.

What are you doing to identify your Superfans? And what are you doing to reward them?

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The most common option is to brand yourself under a company, which works well when your company name is unique, brandable and broad enough to encompass a variety of products and services. This option works well for technology companies, for example, like Google and Apple.

Another option is to brand yourself under your own name. This is the way I ultimately decided to brand myself, but coming to that conclusion wasn’t quick or easy.

How It Works For Me

In years past, I tried to identify and promote each of my business ventures individually, but more recently, I asked myself what my main mission was for my work and business. I was able to succinctly say that my goal was to be a resource for small business owners and entrepreneurs. Once I realized that I had that one central objective, I saw that it really served as an umbrella for all that I do.

All of my work in some way supports small business owners and entrepreneurs. I have one site that provides articles and podcasts on issues related to small business owners, as well as products and services to help them along their way. I have a radio show that covers topics relevant to this same group, as well as a web design company that serves, for the most part, solo entrepreneurs. And, of course, I write for sites like this one on topics relevant to the group.

That unifying thread of serving small business owners and the entrepreneurial crowd shows itself in everything that I do, and usually, clients who work with me through one of my sites end up working with or following me through one or more of the others, so I decided to simply introduce myself under my own name. I changed my email signature, Twitter handle, Posterous handle, etc. to my personal name (or a shorter version of it), and now, when I introduce myself, my business card points people to my main web site (the domain is my name), which then links them to any of my business ventures that fall under the umbrella of what I do.

Instead of trying to wrap my mind around all the different products, companies, or spin-off sites that I develop, which will likely be an ever-growing and changing list, I now focus on thinking about what I personally want to represent and be known for: helping small business owners and entrepreneurs through a variety of resources, products, and services. People start with knowing me and what I do and then figure out which of the sites under that umbrella might help them.

Other Successful Examples

Seth Godin, Chris Brogan, and Gary Vaynerchuk are examples of successful entrepreneurs who identify themselves by their own names rather than those of their companies. They each have two or more sites, books, or companies underneath them and are considered experts in a particular area or niche. Seth Godin is known for marketing, Chris Brogan for social networking, and Gary Vaynerchuk for parlaying passion into business. Their followers know the niche that they serve, and they know them by their individual names first then that of their companies or products.

Michael Port is another example. He has his main, personally-branded site, MichaelPort.com, which directs visitors to any of his books and programs. People know him as a marketing expert, or maybe as the “book yourself solid” guy. They don’t necessarily remember every one of his books or products, but they know him and his name, and they know what he represents.

When to Go With Your Name

I think that if there’s even a remote chance you’ll start another business, sell your current one, or change directions, it’s probably better to go with your name over that of your company. This option works well for entrepreneurs and writers especially. If you think that you’ll start spin-off companies, products, or services and want to be known as an expert on a particular topic, then going with your name might be the easier choice when it comes to branding and promotion.

For me, it’s been much easier to promote myself, definitely, but I’ll also say that it seems to be a lot easier for new contacts to wrap their mind around what I do as well. They immediately see that I do a variety of things, all geared to help them as small business owners. It has made things easier to manage, and I’m much more confident in my marketing efforts as a result.

How do you promote yourself, as your name or that of your company? What made you decide to go that way?

Photo by Flickr user Frogman!, licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Two days ago a friend of mine asked me to review her résumé. Since she’s a graphic designer, I wasn’t surprised that some elements of it reflected her design style. She didn’t just pull up an MS Word template and fill it out.

This made me wonder: Apart from the usual web sites, business cards, and letterheads, are there other opportunities for us to brand ourselves?

Résumé. To elaborate on my friend’s job-hunting experience, she noticed that as she lined up for job interviews, a few of the other candidates had creative résumés as well. Though it may be common for designers, I don’t see why people working in other industries shouldn’t take a similar approach. As long as the execution is legible, cohesive and easy to understand, it may be a good way to stand out from the crowd of applicants. Georgina provided some excellent creative résumé pointers in a recent post.

Email signature. You can also use your business tagline or brand statement under your name in your email signatures. If overdone, this can seem too bothersome and intrusive, so keep the statement short and simple. I’ve seen some colleagues use this differently as well, adding links to industry-relevant PDF reports and white papers they’ve written. Your email signatures don’t have to be always be branded in the same way, either. Use a different signature for each target audience.

Invoices. Even the documents you use to charge customers can be a branding opportunity. If you send paper invoices, this also helps to make sure that the client won’t lose it in a pile of paperwork. For inspiration, you can check out these creative invoices featured by Smashing Magazine.

Milestone sheets, progress reports and other related documents. It’s perfectly sensible to put your logo in these documents, even if you’re already working with a client and don’t necessarily have to sell new services to them. Branding your documents in the same way you brand promotional materials ensures consistency. If these files are misplaced, the client only has to look at the logo to see who sent them.

Avatars. Our social media avatars are usually the first impressions that new contacts have about us. Having a strong image in your avatar makes the branding happen earlier than, say, waiting for them to look at your blog or web site. Last year, Aliza wrote an extensive post on this subject.

Which of these branding opportunities do you already use? Are there other uncommon ways you brand yourself online?

Image by bury-osiol from sxc.hu

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“Is this a conference about blogging, or have I been transported to a comedy club on ‘Best of Improv Night’?” I thought to myself.

Even when “trying not to be funny,” Brogan was hilarious, provocative and a little bit profane. Trying to distill his advice in between bon mots can be a challenge, until you realize that the best advice he gives — the meatiest points he makes — are the one-liners and quips.

The vibe on Saturday afternoon in the dimly-lit conference venue was electric. Brogan made some interesting points that really stood out in my mind. I captured them during his presentation while I was live tweeting.

Below I riff on some of his points with my own thoughts; I’m interested in hearing yours as well.

“In the immortal words of the philosopher Vanilla Ice: Stop, collaborate, and listen.”

Great advice for how companies, organizations and individuals should go into and utilize social media.

“If we say ‘we’ more often than we say ‘I,’ things are so much fun … because people like to feel they belong to something.”

“The number one obligation of people who have an inside is to let more people in.”

With these statements, Brogan echoed some of what Liz Strauss had said earlier in the afternoon — the idea of “inclusiveness” and how that really powers and drives participation on blogs and in social media.

“Be self-aware not self-involved. One helps you in life, the other one alienates you”

“Be everywhere: do that with your content and do that with your commenting. Commenting in heartfelt ways to their content, not to your agenda.”

These quotes are great tips for the attitude you should take when participating in social media channels or commenting on someone’s status update or post. Be aware of the other person and not so focused on yourself.

“You can let a blog die. It’s OK. It’s not a kitten.”

This quote cracked me up. How many of us feel so tied to our blogs, that our blogs are so precious that we can never let them go. Now think about how many of us neglect our blogs? If you aren’t feeling it, if you aren’t doing it, just let that neglected blog die.

“Failure is part of success. Failure is on the way to success. But have lots of paths to that goal.”

“Nobody is going to give you permission to do the next thing. Do not wait for the market to come along.”

These quotes were really a powerful statement for many in the audience about the fear of failure and getting off your duff and doing something. We all go out there in the “social mediasphere” hoping to be a big success, hoping our campaigns are a success, that our communications are successful. But just like with life, we have to let go of a fear of failure and realize that if it gets us to where we are going, it’s all good.

“Train your communities. Do not make yourself irreplaceable. You miss opportunities.”

“Content is the bait to make love (to your audience).”

“Oprah trick: Guard your audience. Because they are the asset. If you lose the asset, you lose everything.”

You come away from Brogan’s presentation realizing where his true power comes from — not just from his passion for his topics but for his audience. He knows the real value in the equation is not him but you. That is the way we should all be thinking when engaged in social media conversations.

“This social media stuff makes real things happen,” said Brogan. After hearing him speak, one can see why — and how — Chris Brogan makes things happen.

How is social media making real things happen for you?

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We’ve all learned that good news travels fast online, but bad news travels faster. Now, with social networks, blogs and microblogs, the speed with which bad news can travel online is staggering, as everyone can get in on the conversation almost instantly. What can any of us — individuals, organizations and companies — do to handle a social media communications crisis?

After publishing my 10 Golden Rules of Social Media, I’ve been asked by a number of people what to do when things go wrong in the social mediasphere. Anyone who is putting themselves out there using social media tools is bound to encounter moments of crisis — some as large as the Domino’s fiasco, others as small as an old-fashioned person-to-person flame war.

My advice is to plan now. Don’t wait for that communications crisis to take place before planning for how you’ll handle the fallout when something bad (inevitably) happens. Here’s a blueprint you can use for your own plan.

1. Pay attention. Whether you are using Google Alerts or Twilert or any other monitoring service to see when your name or brand name is mentioned, setting up “digital listening posts” is essential to help learn about not just the good things people are saying about you, but the bad things as well. Getting an early “heads up” can make all the difference in the world between crisis and total disaster.

2. Review context. Before you panic and jump the gun to respond to what might appear to be a crisis, dig a little deeper to make sure you understand what is being said and why. You don’t want to enter the conversation until you have a firm grasp on the issues being raised.

3. Address promptly. Timeliness is everything when dealing with and defusing the crisis. Every day, every hour, every minute you agonize over what to do — or ignore the situation altogether — is time wasted.

4. Acknowledge first. Once you figure out what has happened and what some of the emotions are behind it, make sure to address these issues or emotions in your responses. Like any good interpersonal communications, start with statements like “I understand you’re frustrated” or “We realize this is a confusing situation.” Give credence to the other party’s feelings and perceptions. They may not be correct, but they are valid in that they’re what they believe and feel.

5. Don’t overthink. Running through committees, endless drafts and approval processes to get a response out there can cause far more damage than good. As long as you have taken the time to assess the situation and can take a rational, respectful tone in your response, even an awkward response is OK to start with, and buys you time to continue to respond to the problem.

6. Be open. If you’re upset, nervous, worried, shocked — don’t be afraid to express that as well. People want to see a human response to a crisis, not an overproduced, formulaic or canned reply. When there is a crisis, there are people involved. Pretending there are no emotions mixed in the mess is a surefire way to lose credibility with others. Domino’s CEO responded pretty quickly and openly. However, check out his response to the crisis. The CEO never once looks at the camera. If you are going to be open and forthcoming in your response, at least look straight at the camera at some point. Even when reading from a teleprompter, you can set it up so your eyes are directed at the camera. Otherwise, you’ll look shifty and untrustworthy.

7. Fix the problem. If the crisis is bringing a problem to your attention, admit it, address it and fix it. If something is wrong and you can make it right, do it. If something isn’t really wrong but someone perceives that it is wrong, don’t dismiss their concerns. Take every exchange seriously, and do your best. That is all anyone can really expect. If you make sincere efforts and consistently take the high road, you stand to gain some goodwill, even if the problem is not entirely resolved.

8. Tell your story. Telling your own story throughout the “fixing” process is another good way of helping defuse the issue. Giving updates such as “We’re still looking into that bug that caused your data loss,” and “Please contact us privately so we can make amends to this situation” lets anyone paying attention to the situation see something is being done, even some of it has to happen “behind-the-scenes.”

What other things should we think about when it comes to crisis communications in a social media-powered world?

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TweepSearch

Finding interesting people on Twitter can be a challenge, especially if you’re just getting started with the service. With TweepSearch, you gain access to a very valuable person-finding resource thanks to the ability to search users’ bios for keywords. You can either do a broad, network-wide keyword search, or search for any user’s “@” handle to limit your results to that person’s followers.

Once you’ve retrieved results, you can also click on any person’s avatar to limit the search to that user’s followers. Also, you can use a “location: place name” search to filter results according to the location field. I use it to for expanding my network of contacts. It’s also handy if I’m looking for a specific subject matter expert in my area. It could also be useful if you have a long list of followers and you’re looking for someone specific but can’t remember their particular handle.

PeopleBrowsr

Not exclusively a Twitter tool, but I find it most useful when applied to this generally disorganized network. PeopleBrowsr is an in-browser solution that sort of works like TweetDeck. It displays the recent tweets of your followers, allows you to post, and provides customizable windows that can view any other posts you might like to cover.

For instance, I took part in an #editorchat on Wednesday night, so I set one window to retrieve all posts by everyone with that hashtag. A third window is set to find local chats, by people in Toronto, where I live, since I find local connections to be some of the most valuable for web working purposes.

PeopleBrowsr has a number of other features; so many, in fact, that I can’t begin to get into them here. I will mention that it supports automatic retweeting, profile viewing, and cross-network searching for finding contacts on Facebook and other places. That said, it can be a bit overwhelming, so proceed with caution.

Sigpad

If you’re a web worker, you probably know the value of a good email signature. It can lead the right people to the right place, and it’s not too pushy to offend people who don’t want to be “marketed” to. Mine has WebWorkerDaily’s URL, my Twitter profile URL, or my personal site’s URL in it, depending on who I’m communicating with.

With Sigpad, you can provide more in your signature, as long as your recipient can receive HTML email. At the Sigpad site, you simply input your username for any network they support, and then they generate a signature of your latest update, and provide instructions on how to use it with a number of different popular email clients. I find it handy with Twitter, since you can provide an example of the type of tweets you publish, instead of asking someone to go look at your profile and then decide whether or not to follow you.

I’m very selective with my audience using Sigpad, since it requires HTML email support, and since I know some will find it obnoxious or gaudy. Still, well-placed usage might help your network to grow.

In a lot of ways, Twitter is still very much a beast that has yet to be tamed. You can use it well, or you can use it poorly, but since you’re probably using it either way, this tools might help you achieve the former.

What tools do you use to improve your Twitter usage?

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Those are all very good uses, and benefit you as a web worker immensely. The only question I have as a visitor is, how do they benefit me? Yes, they help if I’m considering you as a prospective contractor for a job, but if I’m not, then the site quickly loses relevance. A blog should be doing work all the time, even when it isn’t speaking directly to your professional history and identity. Here’s how to make sure it is.

Keep ‘Em Coming

The best way to make sure a blog is doing work for you is to make sure that it will attract repeat visitors, even if those visitors aren’t currently interested in you professionally, since they may be at some later date. How do you get people to come back? Make sure they see your site as a growing, live resource.

Be a Research Assistant

The only way to do this is to make sure that you show them you can provide the information your visitors are looking for easier, quicker, and better than they can find it themselves. That doesn’t mean replicating Google search results. That means pre-searching, collecting, and annotating useful links and resources, and keeping them up to date. Case in point, if I’m looking for Twitter resources, I don’t go to Google, I go to TwiTip.com first.

Make link collections easy to find and clearly titled, possibly placing permalinks to relevant posts in your blog’s sidebar or header. Context and a human touch is especially important with these, since otherwise visitors will mistrust them as the products of automated web spiders and bots.

Humanize, Humanize, Humanize

That brings me to my next point, which is that you should make your blog as human as possible without being overly personal. I would avoid ads unless your blog is your primary source of income, or limit them to a very few which redirect to relevant sites to which you personally contribute or with which you’re involved.

The tone and content of your writing shouldn’t be too formal. The potential clients you want reading your blog probably spend a good chunk of their day reading formal business writing, press releases, etc., and your blog will fall off their radar if it comes across as too similar to those things. In the end, people are looking to connect with other people, not with dry instructional manuals.

Don’t Become a One-Trick Pony

Specialization is important. People respect specialists and look to them for solutions to pressing problems. That said, while there is nothing wrong with showing off your specialization on your blog, don’t make it the exclusive focus. You risk alienating everyone in your audience, and it will be especially hard to encourage repeat visits from casual readers.

It’s also important to show readers that you are not living inside a bubble. Web workers are prized for their ability to come up with non-linear solutions and adapt. That flexibility of mind will come across if you show a willingness to step outside your comfort zone once in a while and address different topics.

Get Beyond the “You” in Your Blog

Of course, since it represents you, it should primarily feature your content. That’s primarily, not exclusively. Having guest bloggers contribute content to your blog not only encourages an influx of readers who wouldn’t ordinarily find your site, but also provides a different take on who you are.

In soliciting guest posts, you present prospective clients with an example of your resourcefulness, and your ability to successfully network and make important connections in your chosen space. You also tell clients who you are by telling them who you associate with, something to keep in mind when selecting potential guest bloggers.

Some of these tips may be obvious, and others might not quite fit with what you have in mind, but at the very least, they should help you think more critically about how you represent yourself on the web, and that’s always a good thing.

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The non-monetary rewards most people who do these kinds of things, which include answering questions on Yahoo! Answers and finding weird buys to post to ThisNext.com, consist of things that we valued before we valued money, including praise and admiration.

For businesses and institutions hoping to use this massive emerging voluntary force to drive their own goals, the difficulty lies in determining just what it is that’s motivating people, and developing a rewards system accordingly. The difficulty is that much of the reward seems to be community-based, i.e., you contribute because you want to earn the respect of your peers, and to become an authority of sorts on whatever subject you happen to be interested in.

The article got me thinking about web working, and how much work I “give away”, as opposed to how much I receive compensation for.

Part of my work day, everyday, is uncompensated. It involves building my personal brand through any number of activities, including Tweeting, blogging, commenting, and writing for friends’ websites. The idea being, of course, that all of these things represent a certain kind of investment.

But is that really the reason I do these things, or is it just an excuse that makes it seem more reasonable in a money-based society? If I look closer at the sorts of activities I do everyday without expecting any kind of immediate or directly correlated rewards, I’m less sure of my motivations. If I’m honest, many of the things I do, I do to earn the respect of my peers, first and foremost.

There’s no doubt that it also helps build my personal brand, but the point is that that isn’t the driving factor behind it. There’s even a huge chunk of work that I would probably grow tired of if it were compensated monetarily. The dangled carrot of eventual respect is what keeps me at it, and for some projects, there is no better motivator, in my opinion.

How much of your day would say is taken up with uncompensated web work? What do you see as your motivation for doing these things? What do you think about companies trying to capitalize on this kind of labor?

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