Learn how to conversate online…from Mike Skinner

To give you one example (of many): The Streets announced a new tour in the UK, but there were no dates in Newcastle. A number of his fans tweeted that they were really disappointed to see The Streets had forgotten Newcastle. Now a lot of artists would probably not even acknowledge these tweets. A lot of them might acknowledge the tweets, but would answer with a tweet making a short meaningless statement.

Mike Skinner answered with a video on his website/blog. In the video he personally addresses the fans that tweeted, and apologizes. He even goes one step further and says they will organize concerts in Newcastle because of their tweets. Result : they had to do 9 shows in 9 days.  He does this kind of stuff regularly, answering journalists and fans by video. And the videos are stylish too, as a bonus. He actually made a song and video about a dream as a response to one of his fans tweeting that he should make a movie about his dream. So apparently he’s got crowdsourcing down as well.

The message is not that artists have to make videos or organize concerts because their fans ask them to in tweets. No, the message is that it’s possible to really conversate with your audience. Acknowledge and respond, and don’t just respond for the sake of responding… respond with an authentic message. Mind you, Mike Skinner had to learn as well. He used to tweet only about parties and being drunk. But somehow he discovered the positive power of the internet.

In my opinion Mike Skinner does 3 things that make him well and truly conversational.

1. He doesn’t just communicate, he conversates. He actually talks to his fans about things they tweeted. He doesn’t just put out meaningless statements.

 

2. He makes it personal. It’s not his twitter-account talking to everybody, it’s him talking to you. He probably made those fans from Newcastle fans for life. Imagine your idol speaking to you directly in a video post.

 

3. He’s authentic when conversating. His videos aren’t commercial messages plugging the latest album, they’re genuine ideas and answers to questions. Sometimes his posts and videos are actually quite art-ish, but that’s Mike Skinner, that’s who he is.

 

4. 

So in short : acknowledge and respond authentically, like Mike Skinner.