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Is It Better To Have 100 Die Hard Fans, or 900 Fans + 100 Die Hards?

July 17, 2012 3 Comments

Getting to use hot pink font for a Bruce Willis picture? Priceless. :-)

This questions came up during a discussion between myself and one of my favorite people in the whole world, Dan Cristo.

At first glance, the answer may seam obvious. Why wouldn’t you want 1000 fans, some of whom are Die Hards, and some of whom are just casual participants, curious observers, or generally picky when it comes to Dia Harding for you. :-)

Alas, the answer is somewhat unintuitive. You want 100 Die Hards. The other 900 will only dilute the pool. Let me explain.

We Like Sheep Are Prone

There are numerous studies that show this, but we only need to think it through to realize, that any group of people tends to find it’s own equilibrium.

Any group of people tends to regress towards the mean. So you have to ask yourself, WHAT is that mean?

For a group of 100 Die Hards, the “mean”, the equilibrium, the natural stasis, is to stand fervently behind you, and support you no matter what.

For a group of 1000 people, where every 10th person is a Die Hard, the pool gets diluted too much for Dia Hards to truly run the show.

Of course, some studies find that Extremists are more likely to share their opinions, but the fact remains that a drop in a bucket may not get that far.

Leeeroy Jennnkins!

When one of your Die Hards let’s out a battle cry, do 99 people go “YAA-AAY!!!!” Or do 900 people go “meh”. Because it makes all the difference.

People who understood this piece of human psychology have managed to assemble cults, armies, religions, corporate teams that outperform others, and have generally accomplished more, with less.

The Context

Dan and I spoke about this in the context of a blog.

Is it better to have 100 Die Hards that will do your bidding, or 1000 people, 900 of whom will infect the small 10% with their luke-warm response to your battle cry?

You can change the world with only a few Dia Hards. I will take TEN Die Hards over 1000 regular fans any day.

How many Dia Hards you have will be a pretty solid indicator of your blog’s success. Hell, it’s a pretty solid indicator of your success in life in general. So…

How many Die Hards do YOU have?

CREATIVITY, Mind Hacking
  • radiojaja

    Like the atomic tribe idea and have signed up in that mindless drone way i know my friends love about me… As for the answers: 
    1) Alert the opposition to what? This is akin to the apathy ‘fear’ is it not? what real world impact does the intellectual ‘meh’s’ have on your blog / movement / other 
    2) I mean NON Die Hards drift away, Die Hards clearly dont. As in most ‘tribes’ you’ll have zealots, die hards, and those more loosely affiliated. What negative impact do the loosely affiliated have if they drift off? I run a radio station. we have P1′s P2′s and P3′s Ok so far? 
    P1′s are our core audience, listen to us first and no one else. for P2′s we are second choice and so on 
    we look for 70% of audience to be delviered by 30% of P1′s
    And relise growing our P2′s is the way to build and replace our P1. P3 add ‘listing hours’ but can fragment the target market. important, but need to be treated with care
    3) I accept neglecting the base is a flawed plan. as in with radio and most other marketing scenarios. But neglecting the base is not the same as having some sort of destructive Meh Heads? 

  • http://bloggingwithsuccess.net Ishan

    I was thinking of 900  + 100 as answer but was really surprised to find that answer was other way around.

    Now that I have read the post, I agree that 100 die hard fans are much better. Unfortunately, I have 0 die hard fans as of now! :/ 

    Looks like I need to work hard to get more!

  • http://taylormarek.com/ Taylor Marek

    Also known as “true fans”. I love em more than the rest. ;)