All week we ran a series of podcasts focused on how companies are trying to engage, activate and monetize fans using all kinds of social media. The reason we focus on these super fans is because they are big consumers and influentials. Scott Karp, Publishing 2.0, has an excellent article titled “Influentials On The Web Are People With The Power To Link” that is all about the power of these fans.

Influence on the web is all about connectivity — the larger the network, the more powerful the links.

He makes the point that it is the links that drive the power and influence of sites and networks. He points out that the most successful of companies is the one that has been the most prolific linker of all: Google.

And this is one of our key thoughts as well - it’s one of the major reasons we care about Super Fans, because they are linkers by nature.

Technorati Tags: super fans, links, influentials

In Digital Podcast 38, we interview David Becker, Chief Marketing Officer at ExpoTV.com. ExpoTV is all about consumer generated video product reviews both on line and on TV. ExpoTV covers just about any product you can imagine with about 250,000 reviews.

If you are interested in producing a social media marketing campaign that uses user generated content this podcast is for you. David discusses the concerns advertisers have about marketing around user generated content and some of the steps marketers can take to mitigate the risks. He provides case studies from other companies that show how they have managed to produce successful social marketing campaigns. David has suggestions about how to connect with super fans and turn them into allies that will make social marketing work for you.

 

 Digital Podcast 38 [48:17m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (511)

David Becker is ExpoTV’s Chief Marketing Officer. Prior to Expo, David served as president and COO for Beliefnet.com, a spirituality and self-help web site. David also founded Backslap Entertainment, a user-generated content production and syndication company backed by Fremantle, producers of American Idol. David was also President and COO of Uproar.com.

Technorati Tags: social media marketing, user generated content, super fans, advertising, David Becker, ExpoTV

As part of our Super Fan series, we interviewed Dean Carignan. Dean is Director, Advertising Business Strategy for Microsoft’s Entertainment & Devices Division. In this role, he develops long-range strategic plans for investments in streaming video advertising, mobile marketing, and game-based advertising. Dean also spent several years with Microsoft’s adCenter group, where he drove product strategy for Paid Search, Display Ads, and Contextual Advertising.

Dean was able to provide us with some excellent perspective on these new advertising opportunities. He is part of a group that looks at opportunities to advertise via the Xbox, Media Center, Zune and mobile platforms. We go into depth on in game advertising and how important this new segment will be. He walked us through case studies of Domino’s Pizza and P&G that describe how a well designed campaign can add to the realism of the game experience and yield results for the advertiser.

This is a must listen podcast for advertisers who are struggling to break through on television and are looking for new ways to market their products using these rapidly growing platforms.

 

 Digital Podcast 37 [49:50m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (393)

Technorati Tags: Dean Carignan, Microsoft, in game advertising, gaming, social media, super fans

As part of our Super Fan podcast series, we interviewed Jason Feffer, Founder and CEO, of SodaHead. Jason was one of the earliest employees at MySpace and experienced their rapid rise into a major social networking site. After MySpace, Jason founded SodaHead, a company in the Social Answers space. SodaHead allows users to set up opinion polls that users get to vote and comment on. It’s a fun and addictive experience, and well worth trying.

Jason’s discussion of his experience at MySpace illustrates the importance of operational optimization to drive monetization of super fans. In his new company, Jason is putting a lot of what he’s learned to use in creating a new and fun social site. SodaHead has mastered the art of lowering the difficulty and barriers to user generated content. It leads to an experience where its much easier to join in the social mix in a more meaningful way than just asking someone to be your friend. SodaHead is definitely an experience everyone should try.

 

 Digital Podcast 36 [1:06:33m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (381)

Jason Feffer has an exciting eight-year history of Internet startup experience leading up to his most recent startup, SodaHead.com. Mr. Feffer helped start MySpace in 2003, which sold to News Corp for $580M. During his three years at MySpace, Jason served on the executive committee and as Vice President of Operations as the membership grew to 100 million. Mr. Feffer oversaw advertising operations, revenue reporting, policy enforcement, government relations and several other departments at MySpace.

Technorati Tags: Jason Feffer, MySpace, SodaHead, social media, social networking, social media optimization, super fans

As part of our Super Fan series, we interview Tim Westergren, founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Pandora, about how Pandora works and what they are doing to engage and activate their community.

Pandora is a popular music recommendation service built on the Music Genome Project. It’s a fantastic service for discovering music and well worth a try if you have not experienced Pandora.

We discuss the importance of having a good product and connecting with fans. Tim speaks about how he has traveled the country to learn from Pandora’s fans and how he uses Town Hall meetings to get feedback directly from the fans. They started small with just six people in these Town Hall meetings and now have meetings where as many as 400 people show up to meet with Tim.

The lesson learned is that the effect of proactively communicating personally and sincerely with people is an incredibly powerful force in turning people into evangelists.

 

 Digital Podcast 35 [32:09m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (437)

Technorati Tags: Tim Westergren, Pandora, Super Fans

As part of our Super Fan Series, we spoke with Stephen Smyth, General Manager & Senior Vice President, Americas Reuters Media about how Reuters is working to build it’s audience and strengthen its relationships with Super Fans. We discussed how they think about user segments and their needs. Stephen shared how they start with the target users experience and then build the content to fit the desired experience. He highlighted a number of the more interesting initiatives Reuters has underway at Reuters Labs. Reuters Labs is where technology, user experience, content and business model meet together as Reuters explores new ways to distribute its content in applications such as Face Search, YouWitness and Context Based Video Ads.

Reuters’ history of syndication is proving a valuable capability as Reuters manages highly distributed content across their own sites, partner sites and other third party sites. They have decided who they want to target specifically and use content creatively to drive audience.

 

 Digital Podcast 34 [39:05m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (410)

Stephen Smyth is responsible for Reuters Americas consumer business, driving revenue and audience for the online, mobile, interactive TV, digital signage and online syndication services. In addition, Stephen oversees global business development as well as local programming and production, traffic and ad operations in the Americas. Prior to his current role, Stephen led Reuters mobile, video, and digital signage business globally. He was responsible for maximizing revenues and brand value from the company’s presence on these platforms and oversaw relationships with key technology providers and distribution affiliates across the globe. In addition, he headed up Reuters Labs, a public showcase of the latest consumer product innovations from Reuters. Previously, Stephen was responsible for media strategy and business development for Reuters.

Technorati Tags: Reuters, Stephen Smyth, super fans, syndication, podcast

We sat down with Will Flannery, Vice President of Advanced Services for Fox Cable Networks (FCN), and Brian Peterson, Director of Corporate Communications, to discuss the challenges of multi-channel content distribution, the importance and role of Super Fans and what we can learn about Super Fans from sports fans.

We have a great discussion about the Big Ten Network and how the Super Fans can be more like tribes than traditional segments. These Super Fans cover the entire demographic spectrum and building communities that work for them requires understanding the different use case these fans have and how to build sites, tools and conversations that recognize these different needs.

We also explore some of the organizational challenges of coordinating across the different channels, and the importance of creating complimentary experiences across channels.

 

 Digital Podcast 33 [37:43m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (596)

Here’s a bit more about Will and his responsibilities at Fox:

Will Flannery is Vice President, Advanced Services for Fox Cable Networks (FCN). He is responsible for the day-to-day distribution activities for advanced television services including high-definition, interactivity and video-on-demand services involving Fox Cable Networks, a portfolio of networks including FX, FX HD, FSN and its 19 owned-and-operated regional sports networks, National Geographic Channel, National Geographic Channel HD, SPEED, SPEED HD, FUEL TV, Fox College Sports, Fox Soccer Channel, Fox Sports en Español, Fox Movie Channel, Fox Reality Channel and the Big Ten Network. In addition, Flannery also works closely with sister units such as Fox Networks Engineering & Operations, Fox Digital Entertainment, Fox Interactive Media and Fox Mobile Entertainment on new product offerings, copyright protection, inventory sales and technical solutions.

Technorati Tags: Will Flannery, Super Fans, Social Media, Fox Cable Networks

As part of our Super Fan podcast series, I spoke with Jeffrey Bridges, founder and executive producer of Pendant Productions. Pendant is an audio production group dedicated to making radio dramas like the old radio serials of the ’30s and ’40s, only modernized for today’s audiences. Pendant had 986,000 downloads of their shows in 2007 which just goes to show how popular the productions are.

Jeffrey started Pendant in 2004 to pursue his interest in fan fiction and fan generated radio dramas. Pendant is an all volunteer effort producing more than a dozen different shows, both takeoffs on existing properties and original properties produced by Pendant.

Pendant got its start with “Star Trek: Defiant” a text based story list that Jeffrey started way back in 1995. Jeffrey got interested in producing an audio version of the stories, and was able to find enough sound effects and audio mixing programs to make it possible. He went on to produce “Star Trek: Defiant” as an audio file. Not long after starting the first Defiant audio, Jeffrey was listening to some of the old Superman radio serials from the 1940s and had the inspiration to do Superman audio too, which led to the formation of Pendant Productions in 2004.

Jeffrey told me about Pendant’s history and how they make so many great radio shows. It is a fascinating story that shows just how much Super Fans can achieve and produce.

 

 Digital Podcast 32 [15:41m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (492)

Superman: Last Son of Krypton	Batman: The Ace of Detectives
Wonder Woman: Champion of Themyscira	Supergirl: Lost Daughter of Krypton
The Pendant Shakespeare	Star Trek: Defiant
Star Wars: Blue Harvest	Seminar
This Week in Pendant	Dixie Stenberg and Brassy Battalion
The Kingery	Once Upon a Time in Vegas
Imperium: Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman Crossover	James Bond: To The End	Indiana Jones and the Well of Life
Indiana Jones and the Well of Life

Downloads are available in web-quality and CD quality. The CD quality downloads are available via BitTorrent.

Technorati Tags: super fans, podcast, pendant productions, Jeffrey Bridges, superman, batman, wonder woman, supergirl

As part of our new Super Fan podcast series, we met with Chris Adams after last year’s Digital Hollywood conference to discuss his experience working with both movie producers and web producers. We focused on how these two very different organizational cultures need to learn from each other to realize the potential for online video and social media. Having done lots of work with both web based companies and feature film producers, Chris is able to provide excellent insights into the challenges these companies face in this era of new media. He understands the differences between the cultures and the need for help in bridging the gap.

In this podcast, Chris provides some great perspective on the organizational and personnel challenges these companies face in the transition to new business models. He describes the role that social marketing and super fans played in helping properties like Syriana and An Inconvenient Truth break out and build audiences. This podcast interview provides a behind the scenes view into where things are now and some of the major changes to come.

 

 Digital Podcast 31 [44:58m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (721)

Chris is founder and president of Orbit Media Group, where he consults with media and internet companies creating partnerships, programming and relationships between and to the benefit of media, entertainment and online brands. His current clients range from Facebook.com, one of the fastest-growing internet companies on earth, for which he helped to create and produce “Facebook Diaries,” the first-ever hybrid user-generated video/reality TV show to be distributed on Facebook.com, Ziddio.com, Comcast VOD and linear television and the IFC Channel, to HBO to Comcast, the largest cable and broadband company in the US to HBO to Glam.com, the number one site for women to film icons, to Born4Sports, a social network, marketplace and ecommerce platform for sports and sports lifestyle with presence in Europe, Asia and soon, the US.

Prior to launching his own consulting company, Chris co-founded Participant Productions in 2004 with Jeff Skoll, eBay’s first President. Participant’s vision is to create entertainment that inspires audiences to make social change. In this capacity, Chris developed and executed on the business plan, was intimately involved in finding and hiring initial executive personnel and managed the company overall. Participant’s first slate of movies — Syriana, starring George Clooney and Matt Damon; North Country, starring Charlize Theron; Good Night and Good Luck, starring David Strathairn and George Clooney, and the documentary Murderball - were nominated for an unprecedented 11 Academy Awards. Chris is also proud to have identified and helped to develop former Vice President Al Gore’s Oscar-winning documentary, An Inconvenient Truth which won the Oscar for Best Documentary and Gore’s work participated in his being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. In addition to the above-mentioned films, Chris developed and Executive Produced Participant’s first feature: American Gun starring Marcia Gay-Harden, Forrest Whittaker, Donald Sutherland, Linda Cardelini and Tony Goldwyn.

Technorati Tags: Chris Adams, Super Fans, social marketing, social media, Digital Hollywood

Chey Bell, host of Outside Voice, was hosting NowLive when I spoke with NowLive’s CEO Kevin Bromber. Chey and I had a good conversation about Digital Podcast, super fans, social media, podcasting and how people can promote their podcasts. If you have a show of your own it has some good tips for promoting your podcast.

About Outside Voice:

Chey’s show delves into the hot-button social and political issues of the week, Outside Voice delivers a fresh perspective, and a chance for anyone to participate in the discussion. You can chat with public figures, analysts, and entertainers as Chey conducts a virtual town hall meeting that is smart, timely, and interactive. Add your voice every Wednesday, 7pm- 8pm PST.

 

 Digital Podcast 26 [27:18m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (1135)

Technorati Tags: Chey Bell, NowLive, podcasting, podcast promotion, social media, super fans, Digital Hollywood