I’ve been thinking about the recent announcement that Robert Scoble is joining Rackspace to run building 43, a place for people fanatical about the Internet. If you’re not familiar with the name, Rackspace is the hosting company that is fanatical about customer support.

In the same way as there is a difference between talking about the news and being the news, as Louis Gray writes in his post about the announcement, there is a difference between saying you care about customers, and actually doing something about it.

What’s that difference? It’s called making fans of your customers. Here’s how you do it:

• Develop or build on the strong emotional connection you have with those customers who get your business, and what you stand for. It’s quite alright if not everyone likes you.
• Allow your organization to show it has a personality. If there is one thing that both Robert Scoble and Rackspace have, is a personality. It will be interesting to se if they mash or collide.
• Target your effort to the right people - those who are already in your court, they’re your fans. In traditional marketing, we call this customer segmentation.
• Understand the culture you’re appealing to and make sure that your brans understands and is relevant to that culture.

In the end, turning customers into fans is a matter of deciding what you’re business is about, and how you’re going to express that in all your interactions.

Valeria Maltoni | Conversation Agent
www.coversationagent.com
@ConversationAge