Social tech, future rock stars and brand fans.

One way or another, everybody wants a fan base of some sort. Could be your parents, your spouse/partner, if you're lucky, your kids. Ask any rock star, nothing is more valuable than your own legion of loyal fans. Social technology is creating, and reinforcing brands faster than ever. You don't have to look far for the evidence. Robert Scoble, Jeremiah Owyang, and Seth Godin are by all appearances building nice brands for themselves using, reporting and evangelizing social media and technology. 

And now, smart marketers are asking if, when and why they should sit up, listen and engage their customers in the course of building a brand fan base. Look, the Genie is out of the bottle. People, and companies are all benefitting from deploying a social media plan.

Is it luck, or can you orchestrate the building of brand fans through social technology? I like to think it's a little of both. Frankly, you can build a fan base if you have some social technology out there and good plan to use it. Here's a simple and true example:
Over the weekend of April 25-27, the school my children attend has their annual Spring festival. I run the entertainment for the weekend and was lucky enough to book a fantastic alternative rock band, called Punchface. These guys are fun, entertaining, great musicians, in other words, deliver on their brand promise in spades. They also had every teen and a lot of parents in a rock frenzy. By the end of their 2 hour set, I heard at least two new fans tell the lead singer that they had already visited the band's myspace page and signed up to be Close Friends of the band.

Two hours, two new super fans (who each bought a t-shirt and probably the iTunes downloads). Not bad, and it happened because the band was ready with the brand, product and social tech.