I don’t want to abandon the topic of customer evangelism because it is such an important factor to any business, and it keeps popping up everywhere I go on the web. In Techcrunch this past week, the top 3 stories were about Fubar.com, Facebook, and Digg. According to a list of most-trafficked social network sites (done by Compete), Fubar now ranks 14th. But apparently it is the fastest growing site, increasing it’s traffic by over 3 million percent in the past year. That is phenomenal growth for a site that is essentially an “online happy hour.” Just like Field of Dreams, ‘if you build it, they will come.’ It is hard to tell whether or not the site can maintain or sustain such rapid growth. After signing up and browsing, I find the site to be busy and disorienting. And I am not sure exactly who the target audience is after finding some profiles. It is a happy hour, but you don’t have to be 21, so perhaps it attracts the younger sets who want to feel older. Whatever it is, there is a contagion among the customer base. And there must be a high level of evangelism of the core users. Any company that grows by three million percent must be considered a success, and it must have the people talking.
Facebook was in the news for testing a new instant messaging service that will be launching soon, much to the chagrin of the third parties have who have built widgets, apps, or other forms of instant messaging services on Facebook. Only 2 or 3 years ago, Facebook was once in the position that Fubar is now, experiencing massive growth all at once. Now that they have captured the market, they must continually create programs or developments to please the consumer base. A funny thing with Evangelism is that when things are going well people are talking, and when a site is doing things that are disagreeable, the people are screaming. A phenomenon that Facebook is no stranger to.
The same goes for Digg, whose users are an impassioned lot that always seem to be screaming about something or other. In last week’s news stories, the anger appears to be justified, as Digg may be involved in an acquisition. The core Digg users quickly mobilized and raised their voices in opposition. The Digg community has shown an amazing unity in voice and focus in action. Time and again they have gotten there message out there so quickly, it would make any political campaign jealous. I wonder if the Digg creators had envisioned such a strong community when they first started. And I wonder how a company goes about creating such a strong community. In the end, it all comes back to the same core issues – good content and good people. Build a site with good content, and cater to your consumers. Facebook has figured that out. They have always sought to create the best platform, with open source software that invites participation and innovation. And when things don’t go well, the customers let them know about it.
Fubar can learn lessons from the social networking sites that are above them on the popularity list. The most important thing that they can do as a team is cater to the users, and try to foster an interactive and engaging atmosphere. A funny thing with regards to the list of Social Network Sites, is that MySpace is still three times more visited than Facebook. I didn’t realize they were still doing so well. Anyway, here is the list to check out:
Tags: Ben McConnell, Church of the Customer, Customer Evangelism, Digg, Facebook, Fubar, Jackie Huba, Social Network Sites
March 24, 2008 at 5:17 pm
Yeah, I looked at Fubar too for the same reasons … looks like their slogan “First Online Bar and Happy Hour” is likely true … this SNS looks like it’s SNS flavor of the season or year … where there’s a critical mass around some fashion leaders and social leaders whom everyone is following. This trend is kind of disturbing, and definitely should be giving advertisers and investors a reason to pause and wait for the chips to fall …. who knows, it might be that even MySpace starts to crumble a bit from ‘burn out’ or being out of fashion. Fubar, overall, seems shallow and lame. But that’s my take … I only spent five minutes on the site.