Why we don’t “buy” fans

I used to play in a band years ago and someone offered me really good advice.

“Never approach someone and ask them to manage you. the best manager is the guy or gal who fronts up to you after a gig and says ‘You guys are f@*kin' awesome, you have to let me manage you.' That way you know they are going to work really hard and stay passionate about the cause.”

This is why we don't pay for “likes” on Facebook pages or followers on Twitter.

There is no point building a community of people around your brand if those people are only hanging out because you're paying them. They're hardly going to tell their friends about you or lead other to you. And they're probably not going to part with their money for your products or services. So what's the point of having 10,000 fans on Facebook if you can only sell 100 tickets to your next show? That's 0.01% conversion and a whole lotta bloat.

A recent campaign we ran over 4 weeks got us 250 new fans on Facebook and over 100 email addresses into our database. That's a 40% opt-in ratio.

I know what I'd rather.