How Brands Should Approach Online Fandoms

Engaging passionate fans can be a difficult task, but it can be achieved with sensitivity, intelligence and, above all, authenticity.

Marketing to any group is difficult. Finding the right thing to say and the right way to say it requires a clear understanding that many brands fail to grasp. This challenge is made even greater when the group is bound together by a shared passion for something and has formed certain unspoken rules, regulations and ways of conversing that marketers are unfamiliar with, making it difficult to adapt to. These groups are now most commonly known as fandoms and the internet has helped them grow in size and become hugely important to marketers.

In this article, Fast Web Media explores what fandoms are and the difficulties and benefits brands can experience in marketing to them.

As the name suggests, a fandom is a group of people who are fans of the same thing. So, fans of One Direction are part of the One Direction fandom, and fans of DC Comics are part of the DC fandom. Simple, right? Well, not really. While all fandoms have fans, not all fans are part of a fandom. Firstly, fandom is something that’s emerged in the internet age, and largely around pop culture. We wouldn’t say, for example, that Arsenal fans are part of the Arsenal fandom, or those who enjoy the works of Beethoven are part of the Beethoven fandom. It’s just not appropriate for what fandom really is.

Fandom is a particular kind of being a fan, one defined by ravenous passion, a sense of camaraderie, a dedication to expertise and a certain level of creativity. Most fandoms focus on pop culture properties (films, TV shows, musicians) and have a special name given to them (usually by those in the fandom). Beyonce fans are known as the BeyHive, followers of the actor Chris Pine dub themselves Pine-Nuts and Glee viewers call themselves Gleeks. There are even subsets. Older male fans of My Little Ponies are known Bronies, while female fans of Nicki Minaj are called Barbz. The list is endless and always growing.

Such names aren’t a new phenomenon — Beatles fans were called Beatlemaniacs, while Star Trek fans are Trekkies (or Trekkers if you wanna be picky about it) — but they have taken on extra meaning and intensity now thanks to the internet, where it’s easier than ever for fandoms to share amongst themselves and grow. For brands looking to engage with these fandoms, or those who have managed to gain a fandom around them, it’s critical to create the right kind of messaging and campaigns. Understanding what “the right kind” is, however, is no easy task.

The first thing brands should do is go where fandoms congregate. Forums, subreddits, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube — almost any online platform that encourages social interaction, even — maybe especially — if it’s specific to one particular fandom (Twitch, for example, is a critical one for gamers). Don’t just gloss over these platforms and don’t treat them all the same (Reddit, for example, is dramatically different from Twitter, and each subreddit within it has unique rules and ways of interacting). Analyse these spaces and seek to understand where fans are congregating, what they’re saying and how they’re saying it.

It’s very easy to dismiss fandoms. The obsessive love, the acronyms, and the cosplay that goes hand in hand with these fandoms makes it very easy to mock them. But fandoms are sincere and while sincerity is easy to laugh at, brands would do so at their peril. Those involved in a fandom are smart; likely much smarter than you. They know their fellow fans better than you and they probably understand digital technology better than you too. These are the people who create the memes, make the GIFs, put together the videos that you see filling up Buzzfeed on a daily basis. They’re the grassroots of the internet, and if you, as a marketer, have ever derived a piece of messaging from some piece of content that’s gone viral, you’ve already stolen from someone in a fandom.

When it comes, that punishment can be swift, brutal and deeply unpleasant. The problem with online fandoms is that there can be a sense of entitlement and arrogance that emerges from the passion, and that in turn can lead to a toxicity that’s damaging for the fans themselves and any brands involved. This was clearly witnessed recently when fans of the Adult Swim animated series Rick and Morty descended on McDonald’s restaurants in the hope of securing one of the limited edition Szechuan Sauce packets that the brand released in honour of a reference the show made to it in the first episode of its third season.

Throughout all its marketing, Netflix has talked to its fans in their own language, engaged their creativity, and ultimately understood them and what they love about the show. By doing so, the company has effortlessly achieved what McDonald’s couldn’t. It defused any toxicity, generated authenticity, and treated the audience as what they are: not just consumers, but part of the family.

Plenty say such things, but Missguided genuinely means it, and if other brands want to engage with online fandoms, they need to mean it too. In the world of fandom, there are no half measures: you either succeed like Netflix or fail like McDonald’s. Authenticity and understanding are key, and as we found with esports, it’s vitally important to research to get those things. It’s a long journey, but an important and rewarding one. Ultimately, the entry qualification for a fandom is both incredibly simple and annoyingly difficult at the same time: you just need to be a fan.

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