寻找“超级粉丝”

    丝芙兰（Sephora）的“美丽心语”（Beauty Talk）社区是一个供粉丝们在线交流的网络论坛，一个网名叫“katie1724”的网友可以说是这里“名人堂”的成员了。她给出的“心”（相当于Facebook里的“喜欢”）超过了4,000多个，基本上每天都会发贴、回贴5到10次。从腮红的浓淡到季节面霜的好处，她基本上对这个品牌的一切都会发表自己的见解。

    “katie1724”的真身名叫凯蒂•玛吉尔斯基，是匹兹堡市一名32岁的法律助理，她喜欢丝芙兰的所有产品。她在侨居法国期间开始使用丝芙兰的产品（丝芙兰于1970年创办于法国），后来她把丝芙兰的网络社区当成了一个创造性的社交工具。她每个月大约都要花100美元购买丝芙兰的产品，但是像凯蒂这样的“超级粉丝”之所以被她们最喜欢的品牌盯上了，却并不是因为这些品牌看上了她们的钱。

    不少企业正在利用这些死忠的粉丝为企业创造价值，一些最活跃的消费者可以为企业带来相当大的信誉和用处，这点是连企业员工也做不到的。这些超级粉丝会回答和产品有关的问题，发表有见解的博客，甚至会向企业提供有价值的市场和产品反馈——而且不收一分钱的费用。丝芙兰的互动媒体常务副总裁布丽奇特•多兰指出：“我们以前曾经有一个版块名叫‘待解之谜’。后来我们必须得对这个版块做出改变，因为我们的超级粉丝把回答这些问题当成了一项个人挑战，而且总能很快地回答出这些问题 。”

    乐高积木公司（LEGO）的高管也在利用网络社区为公司产品搜集创意。【这家公司目前正在生产电影《回到未来》（Back to the Future）中的德罗宁跑车的乐高积木版本，这个点子就是通过它的Cuusoo在线社区得来的。】另外还有一个乐高社区，专门针对年龄更小的粉丝。在这个社区，一个网名叫“JayZX535”的粉丝平均每天在线3.5个小时，在去年11月到今年4月之间共阅读了68,000多篇贴子。更重要的是，JayZX535还发贴、回贴1,200多次，每天都给社区提供稳定的新鲜内容。乐高儿童社区负责人马克•福德基尔表示，这个网站每个月有10,000到12,000名活跃会员，其中有大概1%符合“超级粉丝”的定义。

    On Sephora's Beauty Talk community, an online forum for fans of the company's makeup and skincare products, katie1724 is a "Hall of Famer." With more than 4,400 hearts (the community's equivalent of the Facebook 'like'), she posts and comments five to 10 times per day. It's routine for katie1724 to offer insight on everything from shades of blush to the benefits of seasonal face creams.

    Outside of Beauty Talk, katie1724 is Katie Majersky, a 32-year-old legal assistant from Pittsburgh who adores all-things Sephora. Since adopting the brand while living abroad in Paris (Sephora originally started in France in 1970), Majersky uses the Sephora community as both a creative and social outlet. She spends about $100 per month on the company's products, but that's not why "superfans" like Majersky are finding themselves on the radar of their favorite brands.

    Companies are capitalizing on their most engaged fans, and many online communities receive their credibility and utility from the company's most active consumers -- not company employees. These superfans answer questions about products, post insightful blogs, and even provide companies with valuable marketing and product feedback -- all without collecting a fee. "We used to have a board called 'unanswered questions,'" says Bridget Dolan, VP of interactive media at Sephora. "We had to switch that because our superfans just took it as a personal challenge to always answer the questions so quickly."

    At LEGO, executives are using their online communities to generate new ideas for LEGO sets. (The company is currently producing a LEGO version of the DeLorean from Back to the Future, an idea generated through its Cuusoo online community.) On a separate LEGO community geared toward younger fans, JayZX535 averages more than 3.5 hours on the site every day, and read more than 68,000 posts between November and April. More importantly, JayZX535 posted more than 1,200 times, providing the community with a steady stream of fresh content at all hours of the day. Of the site's 10,000-12,000 active monthly members, roughly 1% of them fall under this "superfan" definition, says Mark Fothergill, head of LEGO's childrens' community.