[Welcome back to the You Can Be a Word of Mouth Marketing Supergenius! newsletter. This is text from the great issue all of our email subscribers just received. Sign yourself up using the handy form on the right.]
If you’re looking to create content for your fans to forward, increase your odds by working in a few of these fundamental ingredients:
1. Content about them
2. Group projects
3. Secrets, leaks, and early previews
1. Content about them
When your content is focused on your fans and talkers, there’s an inherent incentive for them to talk about it. Interview your customers, spotlight the work of your fans, hand out awards, and feature their content. The more it’s about them, the more they’ll share it.
2. Group projects
If you can bring your talkers together for a project, you can create amazing content they’ll all forward and share. There are a million ways to do this, and two great examples are the Raygun52 project (bringing together 52 artists to design 52 ray guns over 52 weeks) and the Age of Conversations book series that’s brought together hundreds of smart marketers.
3. Secrets, leaks, and early previews
Fans love to get their hands on early previews, sneak peeks, and samples. Recently, marketers for the next Batman film did it by slowly unveiling a picture of one of the film’s characters as fans shared it with Twitter and Facebook. But you don’t have to get this fancy. Try offering a simple email list for fans looking for early previews and periodically feed them interesting tidbits — and then let them share it with all of their friends.