Reading Response #3

Kevin Kelly’s 1000 True Fans article hit home for me, but it resonated in a different context than that of the starving-artist-gone-digital.  I have learned that even in a context outside of the profit-driven marketing campaign, developing True Fans is quite important.  This past summer, as a State Department intern, I created a Facebook page for the U.S. Mission to the African Union (USAU).  Now, the reason that federal agencies like State are interested in social media is to increase online engagement with the people that they aim to affect, but I quickly came to see that this was not as easy as I thought it would be.  The Facebook page’s “fans” grew steadily over the summer, but I found that the type of engagement that we were getting was limited.  People would join the page, and might even post an occasional “like” after one of our status updates, but we weren’t generating online discussion or even articulate reactions to the things we were posting.  We needed true fans.   Kelly says that, “A True Fan is defined as someone who will purchase anything and everything you produce… They have a Google Alert set for your name… They bookmark the eBay page where your out-of-print editions show up… They can’t wait till you issue your next work.” And if you remove the profit-model references from his definition, that’s what I mean by true fans, too.  Fans who would visit the page daily just to see what was new. Fans who would post their own anecdotes—(using “stories that ‘have a point’” as Rosenberg so eloquently puts it, p. 349 of Say Everything)—in reaction to the articles and declarations we were releasing.  Fans who would passionately debate the issues that we raised in our online forum.  And like Kelly, I had a goal: 100 True Fans by the end of the summer would make our Facebook page a success. (Clarification: The long tail model can be applied to generating an online discussion in the same way it can be applied to generating revenue…you can have a few “super true fans” who comment a whole lot or a lot of fans who comment periodically…so I thought that 100 fans who commented passionately whenever they found something interesting would  create a very robust discussion.)

But we were stumped—or in reality, I should say I was stumped—on how to produce such types of online interaction.  (I suppose that’s one of the reasons that I took this class.)  And though the context for Kelly’s article is different, my question for him is still vital and relevant:  HOW DO YOU GET TRUE FANS?!?!  Because, while 100 (and even 1000) is a reasonable, imaginable number…it can be a rather intimidating goal, as well, if you’re unclear on how to best use the internet as a tool to sell your product or spread your ideas.

I still don’t have a full answer to that problem.  However, in retrospect, I have realized that some of the lack of interaction was due to the fact that our “fans” weren’t quite sure what their role should be.  When an embassy, led by an Ambassador, goes digital on Facebook, does this FB page drag along with it the decorum and formality of its diplomatic roots?  Or can you be less formal with an online diplomatic entity, using a vocabulary colored with lmao’s, wtf’s, and lol’s?

I wrote last week that the problem with government blogs is that they cannot be written from a personal point of view. Nevertheless, upon further reflection, I think that the personality that a government website creates is crucial to the response it will garner.  The USAU Facebook page is still new, but as fans get used to the character of the page’s posts, they will begin to respond accordingly.

I wonder though, if sites like the USAU FB page will ever be able to incorporate “citizen journalism.” Amanda Michel, Michael Andersen, and Patricia Gray lay out 3 different ways that citizen journalism can work, and here’s my knee-jerk reaction to how each of them would apply to a government Facebook page:

• Michel’s article is about the OffTheBus project (now housed at a  Ning site, similar to Facebook in its social networking capacity), which brought together citizen journalists to provide interesting, bottom-up news relevant to the 2008 election.  I think that their technique would be really interesting, if successful: imagine fans in Africa and America writing Facebook notes to tag to the USAU FB page about how their experiences linked to the work of the USAU.  However, the idea of citizens reporting for a governmental institution still seems a bit off to me…like it wouldn’t be such a good idea.  The message should probably come from the people inside the Mission.
• Andersen’s article on how the Guardian mobilized thousands of citizens to help generate content rapidly could probably lend the most guidance to a site like the USAU FB page.  Sending out a list of articles about recent projects or developments at the African Union and having fans say which ones the USAU FB page should hold an online video discussion on or cover more closely would both engage fans more and show the USAU FB administrator what type of info fans were interested in hearing.
• Gray’s article about Sharesleuth might apply if there were a group of fact-checkers who started another FB page or a blog to hold the USAU accountable.  If this were to happen, I think it would serve both to debate their issues openly. However, to this point it hasn’t happened…

In any case, this week’s readings kept me thinking about how I can apply the concepts from this class to my future work at State.  Slowly, the wheels in my head are beginning to turn…

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