Ever since the world opened its business gates to the digital market, digital content is no longer an entertainment or educational content platform. They started holding a higher authority in deciding the brand’s stability, market value, business prospects, and consumption rate. One of the key forms of sellable and entertaining content in the digital world is Video and the powerhouse of every video content is the relationship you build with its viewers.
Fans and followers:
Viewers can be classified into two forms – fans and followers. Followers are people who are interested in the content produced by the content creator whereas a fan is a “devotee” i.e., a follower who turned himself into a devoted content consumer for the particular content. But the bigger question here is what fuels the content creator, a follower, or a fan. dig deeper to know more.
Follower relationship
When a user decides to establish a relationship with a content creator on a digital platform, he simply hits the follow button. Once the following option is enabled, users can possess a limited engagement by commenting or sharing the content publicly and it’s a one-sided relationship between the follower and the content producer.
for instance:
If a user follows MR. Beast the infamous youtuber who is a sensation with his freebie video content, the user may or may not be accessible to all the content since it’s a follower relationship. There are plenty of downsides to the follower relationship for both user and the content creator.
Premium fan relationship:
Premium fan relationships are a jackpot for content creators and content consumers. Premium fans are users who appreciate, celebrate, support, and purchase your content. Fan relationships are euphoria for content creators.
With premium fan relationships, the affection and joy to produce new content to serve your dedicated fans are unexplainable.
Fans vs followers:
Let’s see what differentiates fans from followers for a content creator
| S.NO | Fans | Followers |
| 1 | Premium members | Visitors |
| 2 | Supporters and Promoters of your content in all social media platforms | Judge your content |
| 3 | Helps you earn money via memberships | Not a member |
| 4 | Builds community and stays updated to your content and shares your content | Uses your content for own reasons |
| 5 | Relationship- Private, secure and appreciative | Relationship- General, unappreciated and judgemental |
| 6 | Influential brand marketing | Unpropitious marketing |
| 7 | Acts as your unpaid PR | Zero promotions for you and your content |
| 8 | Sell merchandise | Fewer chances |
| 9 | Increases your brand sponsors | Minimal chances to attract brand sponsors |
| 10 | Dedicated towards your content | Likes, comments and moves on to other content. |
How can content creators turn followers into fans?
Understanding your followers and educating them is a key responsibility in converting them into fans. Find some of the promotional factors that you can use as a selling point for turning followers into fans.
- Get access to premium content that is available nowhere else– Followers are stubborn and unfocused but something that attracts them to you, find that and give it more exposure and let them know they can access more if they are premium fans. Share some of the behind-the-scenes footage with premium fans.
- The first to get updated on the upcoming content– First come first serve. Make announcements on how they can get to access the content before anyone else and feel the premiums.
- An interactive environment with your favorite content creator– One-on-one sessions, though a follower isn’t dedicated as a fan, they all love interactive sessions with their favorite content creator, making promotional videos with fans interaction and showcase them.
- Recognition– Recognise your fans with “super fan tags” and make them feel privileged, express your feelings about super fans. Reach out to them in emails, and appreciate their presence.
- Don’t focus on money– By increasing your premium membership costs, you might lose some potential fans and convertible followers. Make a reasonable premium pricing and let them know about it.
- Express gratitude– Cockiness in any form is never appreciated.We have seen empires go down in minutes. Value your followers, express your gratitude towards them, send personalized messages, and gifts, surprise them, and make them feel connected to your content.
- Be available
If you manage expectations authentically with your audiences, you don’t have to measure yourself against anybody else – Brain Fanzo
Don’t just bait your content for premium membership, make yourself available for Q&A’s, public relations and sometimes give instant replies to build your bond.
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Why build premium fans?
Building premium fans is not just about money, it is more than that,
- It’s you valuing your content as a creator more than anyone else.
- You’ve got fans who are excited about your content
- To build your own community
- To endorse brands by conducting events and campaigns with fans
- To gain sponsorship with the premium fan’s numbers
- Of course money- Earn assured money in multi-folds with premium fans.
- Build partnerships- who knows your next potential business partner could be your fan
- Because you value your dedicated followers
- To build your empire of brands
- Unpaid PR team- your premium fans will express their love for your content on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, etc.
- To stand out from the crowd- Premium fans boost your motivation to build innovative content. Serving your dedicated fans with intention will make you stand out from the rest of the content creators.
How community building can help you to grow your Brand
Community building is focused on the audience’s needs, current mindset, brand value, and building a bond between your brand and the audience in the community.
- According to Sector intelligence, 86% of Fortune 500 companies have built communities to provide insights for understanding their customer needs.
Brand community is a powerful tool to communicate with your audience and increases your chances to understand the needs of your audience.
Things to do in a community
- -post ask me anything stories inside your community
- -Share premium content with your fans.
- Keep them engaged- Conduct brand-related questionnaire programs and reward the community people for their engagement.
“Our Skimm is the third-ranked morning TV show” – Danielle Weisberg.
The daily newsletter Skimm conducted an ambassador program “Skimm’bassadors” through which you can share the newsletter with friends and receive swag and tote bags as rewards. This contributed to 20% of the overall growth of the company.
- Stories- Listen to their stories and bring changes to your brand with the inputs.
- Brand awareness- share newsletters, updates, and much more to expose your brand in the community.
How can Creators leverage data to gain control over content?
The entire business market is data-driven and the insights from the data give out deep detailed analysis and understanding of customer engagement. This will help creators to focus on the sellable content.
Creators who conduct data-based surveys are more successful than creators who implement creative ideas without data knowledge.
– Data-driven analytics offers more creative control for creators with personalized dashboards, content-based reports, engagement statistics, and viewer metrics.
-Insights increase your stake from other content creators by understanding fan’s expectations. -The big players in the business use data-driven reports to study their mistakes and to outgrow them. Premium video monetization platforms like GUDSHO provides content creators with a personalized dashboard and insightful metrics to understand their customer base.
Does creating content for premium fans will help your brand grow?
Yes it does with all due respect and responsibility. Creating targeted content toward premium fans increases your brand awareness and you will have a diaspora of loyal customer base.
Premium fans are there for a reason and if you satisfy them with all your might, then the brand videos will take off smoothly.
Final word
Stating the obvious, good content sells. Content creators are fueled by their passion to produce value-added content, but if you are struggling in the content market with a premium fan hub and high-value content, then it’s time to change the platform and to choose the right platform to market your content.
FAQ
Paid exclusive content which is not accessible in the public domain but only available for premium fans is premium content.
Dedicated followers who value your content and pay for it to access all of your work are premium followers.
You don’t get paid directly by followers, but if your content is exposed by followers to others which bring in potential fans, it can help you generate revenue.
It depends on the subscription rates and the monetization platform you opt for. GUDSHO offers 5x revenue to content creators when compared to other video monetization platforms.
To a content creator engagement is everything, fans engage, support, and share your work but followers don’t.
👉 Give them access to premium content
👉 Conduct interactive sessions
👉 Express gratitude
👉 Promote premium content to followers
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