The Lessons we Learned from the Event, Finding Your Fans…

Jean-Claude Abouchar, from The Grand Social – a fashion site

Leads through example and offers these tasty treats:

- Offer a service that doesn’t already exist.
- Build and nurture relationships with users/audience to understanding what they need
- Spent time fine-tuning product from the use-end and consumer-end
- Created unique concepts to attract attention
- Get the idea out there cheaply through collaborative networking and social media

Virginia Hyam from Sydney Opera House

Offers the following insight:

- Create an identity
- Work out your audience
- Spend time reaching out to alternative media
- Team up with Marketing!
- Build change slowly and change as landscape changes. Shifted over time.
- Build relationships with the media and with audience through social media

Natalie Tran - Australia’s YouTube Queen

Illustrates that you must:

- Take time to chat with your audience

to help you generate relevant content and develop a community-style relationship with and for your fans.

Adam Ferrier, from Naked Communications

Talks about the importance of the below to success:

1. Make your product/idea remarkable – by making it right.
2. Distribution – make it right for your product/idea.

Four Rules to Make a Product Remarkable:

1. Understand category - Be different and make something no one has made before.
2. Be different with a purpose – to motivate people to use your product/service
3. Be believable – by being credible, realistic and deliver on the promise.
4. Be visionary – don’t think about what’s right for now, think about trends and picture five years time.


Kate Bezar of Dumbo feather, pass it on. – a magazine/book

Kate’s tips to ensure you cut-through to the media by:

1. Getting facts right, names spelt correctly and by researching the organisation you’re targeting to understand what they’re about.
2. Study the format of whom you’re targeting and tailor your press release based on this! This takes time but is more likely to ‘reach’ an editor.
3. Also, craft your words so it makes it easy for the editor to copy and paste, and provide beautiful images, and any other additional info that may be needed.

Tim Brady from Freshly Baked Gallery - a virtual art gallery for artists and consumers

- Freshly Baked Gallery is a great example of matching passion with fulfilling a need
- A unique service accessing cutting edge digital capabilities

Maddi Boyd formed StupidKrap for artists and consumers

- Good example of where a collective/service has been provided for like-minded people/artists, by connecting with the community and then working together to provide a service internationally online.
- StupidKrap have generated collaborations, exposure, sales and a communication platform for artists to just interact and inspire each other.

Almira Pizovic from Picaholic – website creators

Her practical tips on making a good website:

1. Leave an impression!
2. Easy to use
3. Search engine friendly – index easily
4. Browser compatible for optimisation
5. Mobile enable
6. Integration with social media sites – entrance point – social media is an easy way!