You make time for your fans.

That’s what I found myself saying last night. This isn’t optional. You make time for your fans. It’s going to look different for every company, every blogger, every individual.

(Overview: This post is an exploration, through personal anecdotes, of ways you can honor your base of supporters. If you’re short on time, skip to the end of the post to get my top five tips.)

Since the start of the year I have been a cheerleader for umpteen (mostly tech) startups. These companies, and I love them dearly, sometimes take off and occasionally sputter to a halt. Honestly, like a mother loves her children, I love them all the same. Some of them are more relevant to my life, so I take time with them - help cultivate them through design feedback, creative brainstorming and evangelism. Others, less relevant to my life, are always near the front of my mind when conversations come up at conferences or in cafes when I find they might serve someone else well.

You could call me a startup evangelist. Or a startup cheerleader. I’m going to put down the pom poms right now to give a little feedback. I’m going to give it in a public forum, which is a little different than how I’d usually do this. The question is coming up so often that it seems like this is a great place to address it.

Now, let me be perfectly clear. This isn’t aimed at one company or another. It’s meant to be taken as a suggestion, as guidelines on conduct if you’re going to play in the online world and expect folks to continue playing with you.

Rule Number One: You Make Time for Your Fans

Last night, I leveled the accusation at someone for not commenting back on corporate blog posts. As a rule. The person on the other end of the argument said, rightly, he doesn’t have time. I said, ok, you know what? You make time. Or you give the comment-answering responsibilities to an evangelist. Whatever you do, you make sure you are having a dialog with your fans, beta testers and devoted followers. That’s it. The end. Period. Otherwise, you risk losing them. Short-term? Nah. Long-term, when the competition stiffens up? Better believe it.

Superlatives

One of the companies I’ve worked with (behind the scenes) this year asked what a good way to reward beta users might be. I sent them this:

I really think the best thing would be to highlight even the top 10 in a blog post. Give superlative “prizes” to users who

…I think the recognition is important, even if there’s not a physical prize. But if you really want to raise the bar reward each of the 10 w/a monetary prize or new nano or something.

Give. Give, give, give, give, give. When You Think There is Nothing Left to Give, Give.

I wish I had more to say here. Look at the examples of leaders who give and those who withhold. Withholders shrivel up. Givers grow in their giving.

Hold contests (as many of my blogger friends do), give advice, share your time. Be generous and watch it come back to you a hundred times over. Success isn’t a reason to stop giving. In fact, it may be a reason to give more.

All it Takes is A Bottle of Wine?

Ari Newman is the bicycling fanatic founder of Filtrbox, a Boulder-based startup. When I was at TechStars as an evangelist, we did some talking about the look and feel of his beta site. He incorporated some of my suggestions and I found, a week later, a bottle of his favorite wine on my desk.

Now. I don’t use Filtrbox on a daily basis. But I do mention it when I run into a frazzled PR person trying to handle multiple accounts. The Filtrbox team threw a bug squashing party and fed us pizza. We helped the code base, they fed hungry startuppers. Ari and I don’t see each other that often, but when I think “Filtrbox” I think - “fed and inebriated while broke.” I may be a cheap date, but I’m a customer for life.

Is it Time for You to Take Tea with Your Favorite Fan?

I met Bliss on Twitter. We’ve never met in real life, but judging from his tea and coffee tastes, the fact that he’s lived in Japan (in two of the cities I lived in, no less!) and attention to the tiny details, we’d get along well.

After a conversation on Twitter about how I fell in love with Mighty Leaf while detoxing during yoga teacher training about five years ago, he offered to send me samples. I got the package a week later. In it, three boxes from their new offering of teas (including my new favorite, Green Dragon, not even in stores yet - awesome) and nothing else. Nothing fancy, no pretty Mighty Leaf stationary. Just tea. Perfect and simple and lovely.

Am I going to become a Mighty Leaf Exclusive tea drinker? Not a chance. That’s not what Bliss or anyone else would ask of me in exchange for the gift. I see it as an offering. No strings attached. Just a little box with a lot of goodness in it.

It’s Time for You to Get Satisfaction

I’ve spent a lot of time on Get Satisfaction (usually when Twitter goes down). Get Satisfaction makes it easy for company employees to answer questions, listen to feedback and generally dialog about the company.

Ultimately, it’s about serving. It’s about providing a rockin’ service, yes. But beyond that, it’s about serving and giving back to a community that desperately wants to dialog with you. Can you answer every single question? Certainly not. But you can hire someone to answer the questions, you can answer 3 out of 30 questions, you can remember to honor your best customers/beta testers/commenters.

This applies to you, blogger. To you, CEO-person. To you, customer service person. We’re all in marketing now. We’re all customer service people. And it’s up to us to make sure needs are met, voices are heard and people are paid attention to and LOVED back. We’re each responsible and I think we could all practice appreciating those who help us. More. Daily.

5 Simple Practices to Incorporate Today to Show ‘em You Love ‘em

1. Remember to be social with your userbase. More together time. We’re a family, we’re in this together, so let’s at least have meals together.

2. The Influencers aren’t the only ones that matter. I heard someone at BlogWorld this year say that today’s nobody is tomorrow’s rock star. Something along those lines. I’d add only this: there is no such thing as a nobody. We’re all somebody special (not to go all Mr Rogers here). Treat everyone as an equal.

3. Choose your tools. Use them well. Are you and your team on Twitter? No? Ok, how about Get Satisfaction? No? Ok, then, Facebook at the very least? It’s no longer a question of “must we?” It’s now a question of “which?” Choose it. Learn it. Use it. No excuses.

4. Give something away. It can be your time in the comments section. It can be a box of tea or printer (thanks in advance, Epson). It can be a brand new car (thanks in advance to you, too, Lotus!) (Hey, it could happen; Ford’s doing one-week test drives…) Give and give some more. From the tiny to the huge. This matters a heck of a lot.

5. Do it now, do it now. Why wait until next week to start loving your supporter base back? Why wait until 2009 to start caring about your blog commenters? Why wait when you can do it now? Need some ideas on how to? Leave a comment and ask. The great thing about social media is that we love to share. Let’s keep doing that and up the ante while we’re at it.