How to Build Raving Fans in Unconventional Ways

Do you want enthusiastic fans?

Looking for unique ways to engage your audience?

To discover how he grew a large and thriving fan base, I interview Pat Flynn.
More About This Show
The Social Media Marketing podcast is an on-demand talk radio show from Social Media Examiner. It's designed to help busy marketers and business owners discover what works with social media marketing.

In this episode, I interview Pat Flynn, the founder of SmartPassiveIncome.com, a website dedicated to helping people start businesses. He's also host of the Smart Passive Income podcast and author of Will It Fly?

Pat explores unconventional ways to build loyalty with your fans.

You'll discover which forms of content are better than others for creating raving fans.

Share your feedback, read the show notes, and get the links mentioned in this episode below.
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Here are some of the things you'll discover in this show:
How to Build Raving Fans in Unconventional Ways
The Beginning of Smart Passive Income

Pat built the Smart Passive Income blog in the latter half of 2008 as a way to showcase how he was finding success with Green Exam Academy, a website with resources to help people pass the architecture exam. On the blog, Pat shared how he'd built his business, things he wished he would have done, and mistakes he made.

In October 2008, he started including income reports (how many products he sold and how much money he made), not to show off but to provide inspiration. Pat believes that by keeping people in the loop of his activities and leading by example, others benefit from his knowledge.

Over time, the Smart Passive Income blog became more about experimenting with new tactics, documenting, and sharing what Pat learned along the way. Pat says that's how he became known as the crash test dummy of online business.

Back in 2008, if you had told Pat that he would be a leader in this space, he says he would have laughed. He didn't think that was what he wanted. Now Pat is owning the role, trying to lead by example and starting a movement of authentic entrepreneurship.

Listen to the show to hear Pat explain more about crash test dummies.

Nurturing Fans in the Early Days

While Pat got a lot of encouragement via the comments on his blog for the first couple of years, he never thought of those commenters as fans. Then in July 2010, he started his podcast. Later that year, strangers came up to him at a conference and chatted like they were old friends. Nobody at the conference mentioned his blog.

Pat thinks his fans connected more through the podcast rather than his blog because they viewed the podcast as more real. He explains that the written word gives you a feel for who a person is, but a podcast puts you in the ears of your listeners. For listeners, the feeling is similar to being part of a conversation.

Pat says he's very much himself on air, and shares personal tidbits in each episode to help his audience relate to and connect with him. For example, at the beginning of every show, Pat's voiceover guy John Melley (who does our intros in a different accent) reads a random fun fact about Pat. For example, "Here's your host. He's a Sagittarius who loves long walks on the beach: Pat Flynn." or "Here's your host. He was an 11-pound, 12-ounce baby."

Pat says he once met a woman at a conference who told him she loved his show and randomly added, "When I had my baby, he was also a giant." That small fact immediately connected them, because she could relate.

When you share fun little facts about yourself, Pat notes, people can find something they have in common with you and decide to follow you. This isn't true only for podcasts; the same thing can happen on your blog or your video channel.

Listen to the show to discover Pat's thoughts on using video versus a podcast to connect with people.

Being Yourself