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to the different strata of an audience interact with them and put forth the company line. Not as shills, so much, but rather as trusted members of the community. In comics, you’d have folks who evangelize your point of view to the cre ators, to the retailers, to the fans. It’s a simple thing, and it very much helps the different pieces of the value chain get behind your business strategy. I mean, I do this all the time, for my company, and I’m just one guy. Sure, I’m a one-man cross-market customer task force, and all, but I can still do it in my spare time. Can you imagine if Marvel and DC and Image and Dark Horse and all the rest had a department of folks who were out in the world evangelizing their points of view? It’s so easy (and, to me, so vital a part of marketing) that I kind of can’t see why they’re not doing it already. Take when AiT/Planet Lar made the swap-over to a trade paperbacks-and-original graphic novel publishing plan a few years ago. Even though there are still a few Johnnies-Come-lately who insist on telling me this sort of thing can’t work, the rest of the peo ple watching went through these three stages when they heard the news:

1. Annoyance, because it was a new thing and they just didn’t understand

2. With some patient explanations, understanding and clarity of the mes sage was reached

and then

3. Active support of the message, and a furtherance of message to like minded audience members

The end result of guiding the message becomes that the most vocal part of the community gets the rest on board, and everyone sails smoothly into happily-ever-after. I want somebody representing Marvel to whom people can direct their questions about no overshipping. I want somebody visible over at DC we can ask about book cancellations. I want to know who we can write to at CrossGen so we can ask them why they felt the need to publicly shame their printer. You know? A community manager solves many more problems than he would cause, just by prioritizing the audience. Having one person (or, of course, a department) who could be effective by not treating everyone the same, but by finding out who the influencers are and what it is, exactly, that influ-

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