It's a great time to be a baseball fan in Toronto.
After a series of impressive trade-deadline deals that landed the Blue Jays David Price, Troy Tulowitzki and a handful of other useful players, Toronto's baseball team has been red hot, and now finds itself in the thick of a playoff race for the first time since the glory days of the early nineties.
It seems that everyone is jumping on the Blue Jays bandwagon. Merchandise is flying off the shelves, Sportsnet is setting new audience viewing records and parent company Rogers Communications has sold more than 300,000 new tickets since the deals were made.
However, with so many people coming on board, the Jays are facing the age-old challenge of sports organizations: striking a balance between reaching out to new fans and ensuring that the diehard fans don't feel left out.
It's a great problem for brands to have. But they run the risk of a "J.C. Penny situation."
Long known for its reputation as a retailer that served budget-conscious and savvy shoppers, J.C. Penny famously started chasing a more upscale clientele, with the addition of new luxury brands. Unfortunately, those new luxury consumers couldn't get past the J.C. Penny reputation and core customers felt alienated as the deals and budget-friendly bargains dried up.
Just like a good lineup or a dynamite pitching staff, it's all about balance.
I've seen this kind of alienation up close. A few weeks ago, I overheard my teenage daughter lamenting how one of her favourite YouTube stars, Bethany Mota, had become "too famous."
Now, my daughter loves Ms. Mota, who has more than nine million subscribers on YouTube. She watches all of her videos, follows her fashion advice and has spent countless hours making her recommended DIY crafts and projects. My daughter loved Ms. Mota because she felt a connection with her. She loved how she would respond to fans and be continually posting new content.
But my daughter believes that after Ms. Mota received a great deal of mainstream attention, including an appearance on Dancing with the Stars, her stream of new content has slowed and she seems more focused on her new-found fame while neglecting her core YouTube fans.
Of course, that's just my daughter's opinion. But whether you're a sports team or a YouTube star, fans won't hesitate to turn their back on you when and if they feel scorned.
It's not just about listening to fans, it's about both understanding their expectations of the brand, and setting their expectations for what you can deliver.
Good brands implicitly know the value they present to their users, and they understand why it's critical to set expectations for new fans in the wake of a successful public-relations stunt or marketing initiative to let them know what they're in for.
In this one regard, brands can take a lesson from Kelly Keegan, the New York woman who gained Internet celebrity last week by live-tweeting a public breakup taking place across the aisle from her on a flight from North Carolina to Washington, D.C.
As the argument between the couple continued and Ms. Keegan provided the blow by blow on social media, the hashtag #planebreakup began trending on Twitter, and she soon found herself with more than 7,000 new followers. Perhaps tongue in cheek, she tweeted to her new followers: "I hope all 7k of my new followers like drunk tweets about wine and Netflix."
If your brand is lucky enough to hit the exposure jackpot with its own #planebreakup moment, it's important to set expectations for your new followers while ensuring that your hard-core fans aren't left out in the cold.
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