Passion and Content Creation (Red Nation)

 

I talk a lot about passion and "the most passionate."

I do so because I believe it is a critical component to building vibrant and healthy communities, brands and movements.

And by studying the most passionate, we can learn things about our products, our organizations and our communities that we never considered possible.

But it requires us to rethink how we define our audience.

It's no longer about demographics, no matter what the research company says or how many technographic reports we run.

Which is not to say demographics don't matter.

Demographics tell us not to be surprised that a bunch of middle aged guys love sports.

What it doesn't tell us is who is likely to become a passionate producer of unique content.

It doesn't give us any insight into who is developing authority or a growing audience of their own.

A couple of weekends back, I spent a few hours with 3 guys who spend their free time railing against the Toronto Football Club.  

It's hard to spend more than 5 minutes with them and not think they are anti-Toronto FC.

But I'd say that these guys are actually just really passionate about great soccer.  

And they are frustrated that their local team is not being setup to win.

So they started recording their drunken rants post game.

And something happened.

Other people shared their views and started subscribing.

They recently broke the 2,000 subscribers mark and have over 20,000 listens to date.

I was given a free seat for the game.  The seat they reserve for the writers they get to do the blog post writeup for each episode of their show (in trade for a seat to the game.)

These guys are no longer just a bunch of guys venting about the game - they are now trusted personalities on this subject.

I'd go so far as to say they have blurred the line between consumer and professional.

When I arrived at their "house of operations" post game for a beer and for the podcast recording, I could only gawk as they set into well-rehearsed motion.

A spare bedroom was quickly transformed into a full blown recording studio with giant folding baffles they made themselves, wall art that upon closer inspection is actually a set of hanging sound reducers and two Audio-technica mics hacked into Garage Band.

Here's a link to the podcast.  If you are into the content and stick around, you'll hear me around the 8 minute mark and then yelling in from time to time as I get drunk in the background.

Dark Clouds over Toronto

Stephe Perry, Ian Clark (Sparky), Tim Vickery (and on this episode, moi).

 

[Image credit: wvs (note that wvs is my FAVORITE Toronto photography.  Bar none.]