Ralph and Carol Lynn, owners of Web Search Social, have taken the podcast world by storm. They have somehow managed to generate a base of raving fans who amplify their message – for free. Who wouldn’t want to have people promote their business for free?

Ralph and Carol Lynn call these promoters “Fred” – and you can hear how that came about on the show.

What's a Fred - and Why Would You Want Some?

Freds are people who are interested in the material shared on the podcast and blog – they could be fellow marketers, customers, potential customers. You have those people!

A SuperFred is a superfan. They actually bring things to Ralph and Carol Lynn to talk about on the show. No need to worry about running out of ideas!! If you are trying to utilize content marketing for your business, you know how important this is. And you can have this Army of Freds, too!

Freds give them the ammunition to continue the conversation. Even if they aren’t your ideal customer, you can get the “I know a guy….” Impact. People get to know you as an expert, and when someone they know needs your help, Fred will tell them about you by name and with a great endorsement.

Oh, and then there are the gifts.

Right click here to download the mp3 file to your desktop

What About Niche?

Creating a niche is so important for generating qualified leads. If you focus your content towards potential customers, you might find (as did Ralph and Carol Lynn) that your traffic drops. BUT, your leads will increase, and your qualified leads will grow tremendously.

How to Get Your Own Freds Who Promote You

Be relatable

Freds love themselves. If they can see themselves in you, that you have similar challenges and are still learning as you go, they will relate to you and that common ground is incredibly powerful.

Share your successes and your failures. Relating to each other is a bond that people respond to really well. In fact, sharing a rather spectacular failure on air and in detail generated tremendous support and comradery. They all got to learn from the failure and how to recover from it! Far from diminishing their reputation, this willingness to share lead to a potential new customer.

Bring people in to the conversation

When you facilitate a back and forth conversation, you’re helping people feel involved, even invested in your content and your success. When they spark and idea of give you a great quote, make a big deal about it – mention it on air, or make a fun image of it and share it on social. Let them know they matter.

Ralph and Carol Lynn just finished “Fredruary” a month of featuring some Super Freds on their podcast. Check out some of their Monday February shows.

Can You Create Brand Advocates Without a Podcast?

Sure! It depends on your audience, your business, your goals. There are other conversations you need to have before you can choose the platform that will work for you. It could be podcasting, but it could be something else! This is where a good marketing agency is worth its weight in gold. Get a strategy in place and then bring your Freds in.

How One Small Local Business Owner Created Brand Advocates

Green Sun Energy’s Glen Koedding created SuperFreds by allowing his customers to be part of the conversation. He is very personable, a great communicator, and is dedicated to exceptional customer service. At the end of the job, he gets a picture and shares it on Facebook, generating Freds who then say, “I know a guy!”

The rules of good business have not changed. The means of communication has changed, that’s all! Be good to your clients, your prospects, and everyone else and that will speak for itself.

Triberr and Scoutle Announcement

Triberr, a content amplification program, acquired content virality prediction company Scoutle. It's all very hush-hush and we will probably get in big trouble for sharing this, but we like to live on the edge.

About Ralph and Carol Lynn

Carol Lynn is a writer, community manager and your go-to person for planning, strategy and ultimately getting your marketing done. As co-owner of both Web.Search.Social and  Rahvalor Interactive, she builds WordPress sites, manages social communities, writes for email campaigns, blogs or websites, puts together marketing plans and manages the rest of her creative team of writers, designers and developers. She is also the Editor-in-Chief of Web.Search.Social. She has been in the digital marketing business since 1999 and has professionally studied project management as well as search and social marketing.

Carol Lynn loves reading, writing, sunflowers, cupcakes and being able to work with her husband and business partner, Ralph.

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Ralph is a programmer and web developer who is the co-owner and technical genius behind both Web.Search.Social and Rahvalor Interactive, where he’s in charge of keeping his team of programmers, coders and developers on track building custom websites and applications. If you need to make things happen on the web in a way that ties into your big-picture marketing goals, Ralph is the one to do it.

He’s been in the business of creative digital services since the late 1980s. He is also an educator, offering his experience and expertise to businesses as they strive to make sense of the world of online marketing, and he teaches web development to inquisitive young minds at Manhattan College in New York City.

Ralph loves whiskey, playing guitar, Halo and relaxing weekend afternoons reading great science fiction by the fireplace.

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