K atie c ouric

Create a Strong Feeling of Connection
David Oh of FabFitFun explains that you need to be committed to and value
your relationship with customers or fans. Staying power is achieved through
maintaining a strong relationship with your audience. Building a million
followers doesn’t mean anything if you don’t maintain a relationship and a
connection with them.
You can foster a better connection by responding to and engaging with
people who comment on your posts—it creates a connection to your
company that people feel is genuine. FabFitFun has a forum where
customers can ask whatever they want and Oh goes there himself to talk to
customers. This has created a lot of value for the company. Oh explains that
lots of brands seem afraid to do it, but he knows that the best entrepreneurs,
including Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, have gone online and engaged.
He also adds that the greatest critiques come from your friends. If you
treat your fans like friends they’ll probably give you some good insight and
advice. They might tell you what they like best about your company or page
and help you improve over time.

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No Secret to Success
Chan explains that you can’t force success with so-called hacks or tricks,
like looking at the time of day you post or by leveraging popular hashtags.
Most users are intelligent and if they go to a hashtag and see content that’s
irrelevant, they won’t follow your account. Hacks may help a little at the
beginning, but the secret sauce of success is very straightforward—create
the best experience on your platform for the users.
Chan explains that he learned a lot about this process by observing the
movies he likes. He noticed that Marvel comics have tons of superhero
movies that are very popular. Because of this, DC Comics tried to replicate
Marvel’s model. But when you look at box office sales, DC Comics’
movies don’t do as well as Marvel’s movies. He learned that that is because
the key element isn’t the superhero itself. When you look deeper, the
Marvel movies combine extremely funny parts mixed with heartfelt
moments dealing with family issues and personal relationships. DC movies
usually lack those aspects. DC tried to use a hack—the popularity of
superheroes—when the secret was actually just great content that connects
with people’s emotions.