How to Attract and Engage Superfans with Real-Time Experiences

Working in media and entertainment, you might have heard of the concept of 1000 superfans. Kevin Kelly, the former editor of Wired, predicted years ago that there would be an industry made up entirely of creators. In an essay titled 1,000 True Fans, he wrote: “To be a successful creator you don’t need millions....you need only thousands of true fans.” A true fan or “superfan” is someone who will buy anything you produce, follow you on every platform, and spread the word about your work to anyone who will listen. They are the loyal and passionate supporters who will help you grow your audience and income.

But how do you find and attract these superfans? And more importantly, how do you keep them engaged and satisfied with your content? This is where real-time engagement comes in. Functionality like real-time bidirectional voice, video and data (such as graphic overlay) can be added to any application or web experience. This allows you to create immersive and interactive experiences for your superfans, such as live streaming, video calling, chat, live shopping, co-watching, and more. In this article, we will show you how to use real-time experiences to build and engage 1000 superfans for your creative work.

Step 1: Create valuable and engaging content

The first step is to create new content or expose existing content. This stage is often the starting point for our customers.  Where the average on-demand asset impression lasts 5 minutes, live assets have an average impression length of 45 minutes.  By simply enabling the real-time engagement layer over your content, you turn the on-demand play into a live experience, driven by the superfans themselves. 

Step 2: Enable Real Time Engagement

One of the most effective ways to overlay real-time engagement is to use real-time voice and video features. This allows you to easily add live streaming, video calling, chat, and more to your app or website, and create immersive and interactive experiences for your fans. For example, you can:

• Live stream your creative process, behind-the-scenes, Q&A sessions, etc., and interact with your fans in real-time.
• Host video calls with your fans, and offer them exclusive access, feedback, coaching, or collaboration opportunities.
• Create a chat room or a community for your fans, and encourage them to communicate with you and each other, share their thoughts, ideas, and feedback, and build relationships.
• Add functionality to enhance the quality of your voice and video content, creating a sense of true immersion, for example:
• Track quality of experience (QoE) and quality of service (QoS) metrics with analytics
• Push your live stream to multiple social channels with media services
• Optimize user-generated content with AI noise suppression
• Create online spaces to explore with 3D spatial audio

By connecting with fans in real time, you create a more engaging and personalized experience that strengthens the bond between your content and your audience.

Step 3: Nurture and monetize your superfans

The final step is to nurture and monetize your superfans. Your superfans are the ones who have completed the full journey of: discovery, visibility, consideration, purchase, and advocacy. Your goal is to move your fans from one stage to the next, until they become your superfans who buy your content and/or products and promote it to others.

To nurture and monetize your superfans, you need to:

• Provide consistent and valuable content that keeps them interested and engaged.
• Segment your fans based on their behavior, preferences, and feedback, and tailor your content and offers accordingly.
• Create a loyalty program or a membership site that rewards your superfans with exclusive content, perks, discounts, etc.
• Encourage your superfans to leave reviews, testimonials, ratings, etc., and share your content with their friends, family, and social networks.
• Ask your superfans for feedback, suggestions, and ideas, and implement them in your content and products.
• Celebrate your superfans and show your appreciation and gratitude for their support.
• By nurturing and monetizing your superfans, you can create a loyal and profitable fanbase that will sustain your creative career.

Conclusion

Attracting and engaging 1000 superfans is not an easy task, but it is possible with the right tools and strategies. Agora is a powerful real-time engagement platform that can help you create immersive and interactive experiences for your fans and turn them into superfans who love and support your work. 

With Agora, you can embed vivid voice and video in any application, on any device, anywhere, and make real-time engagement ubiquitous. To get started with Agora, you can sign up for a free account and try our no-code app builder for web experiences, and explore our flexible and customizable SDKs for web, native mobile, IoT & more. Agora is the ultimate solution for creating meaningful human connections with your fans. 

Check out Agora’s media and entertainment solutions to start attracting superfans.