Chapter 16

Exercise

Find opportunities to get your fans involved in your brand.

Step 1

Don’t worry—this doesn’t have to include making a hire if you’re not ready for that move. But think about all the places where you interact with your audience and see if there are opportunities to get your most active users more involved. Do you have a Facebook group, and could you get your fans to volunteer as community moderators? Or on Instagram, could your fans volunteer to help curate some user-generated content for your feed? Has your brand been more successful in the real-life space versus the online space with meetups, and could you recruit fans to become a chapter host for your brand in their local city?

Step 2

However you decide to make this opportunity available, decide on how you want to recruit. Will there be an application and can anyone apply? Or will it be invitation only, and you hand pick people based on how you see them engage online?

Step 3

Start recruiting and delegating to your active users! You can establish guidelines and systems, but once your fans-turned-volunteers have things going, let them run with it and see where they take it. Always encourage them to come back to you with ideas for how things could be done better, or feedback that they hear from the wider community. You’re slowly creating an army of superfans who can be your eyes and ears, extending your reach beyond where you can go on your own.