Yes that's me 3rd from the left...

I am going to put an image of the 80’s in your head and embarrass myself at the same time:  When I was 6 years old my father was going to give me away to some unknown organization because I forced him to go to the movie theater and watch Return of the Jedi nearly 50 times.  I was obsessed, I wanted to be Luke Skywalker and fly an X-Wing into battle.  Either that or I had subconscious desire to get away from my parents. The moral of the story is that there was a vision planted into my creative war chest and nothing could prevent me from living out my every desire in a galaxy far, far away.  How could I have known that one day I have the gift of getting to spend my day writing about the DNA of Social Campaigns.

After all these years I still have this unconstructed vision in my mind of what the glory days would have been like if there was a virtual social connection to the Star Wars community – beyond the standard light saber fights with my friends next door.

Then last week I read an article that raised eyebrows.  From #SXSW: How HBO keeps “True Blood” fans thirsty for more, written by Lori Randall Stradtman (I see the title “Guest Blogger”,  I would like to personally invite her to blog for Crowd Factory!).   The article focused on a session from the South by Southwest festival where a panel from HBO commented on the social success of the wildly popular series True Blood.

It is also a pure coincidence that Crowd Factory may or may not have indirectly been a catalyst for the events that allowed Lori to have even written about HBO’s incredible success (I have to check with our lawyers on this statement, standby).   HBO is a favorite and long standing customer of Crowd Factory.  Our application is just one the many facets of the True Blood community and blogging experience.

HBO clearly understands the most advanced interactive principals. Their campaign team are able to drive into the heart of what fuels the passion for living in a world of vampires (I swear no pun intended).  As Lori mentions in her article, HBO was able to create a whole new community based on three fairly easy to do, but not always so easy to implement principals:

1. 1. Create a good story for people to enjoy and let them participate.
2. 2. Go deep, get into the psyche of those you want to attract.
3. 3. Know your audience (I keep this mind when trying to make the IRS laugh).

Critics might say “it’s a TV show, who cares.”  There are a good amount of people out there who are hard working and well, yea, enjoy getting into the spirit of the vampire world and want to be able to express that passion.  It might come out in the form of a blog, video, pictures, Tweets, forums, contests or whatever else allows them to escape for just enough time to have some fun.  In addition, I know from personal experience some of those same people are having light saber fights with their kids and volunteering a few hours a week at a Soup Kitchen.

HBO created a great story with great characters and understood what would bring followers of this world into the mix.  I honestly believe this wasn’t just about revenue or customer acquisition to HBO it was about supporting and fueling a community.  They gave them exactly what they wanted and everyone just had fun doing it!

Lori’s article also gave me a minute to think.   I am sure one day when I have children (which could be soon as I was recently married), I hope to find new and creative ways to connect with my children.  New communities are constantly formed online and from time those ventures meet-up offline.  I want to be able to intercept them in the middle and add value to their lives – whether my own children, wife, family, friends or even the nice lady I found writing for Smart Blogs.

If you have a thought or question about these insights (or would be interested in becoming a guest blogger) email me at mfindling at crowdfactory.com!