The Attribution of Fandom
The attribution of fandom, a birds-eye view of discovering Nick Bare
If you’re an entrepreneur, this will be the most important thing you read this week.
Quick context:
Attribution is how brands determine what drives a sale.
For example, if you click an IG ad and buy a product, that brand knows with 100% certainty that the IG ad is what “worked” to convert you.
This helps give them signal that IG ads are working and they should put more spend behind them.
But typically, attribution is hard to measure online.
This is because you might hear about a brand on a podcast, see an ad in the subway, get texted a link from a friend, see an organic video they made, and then type the brand URL into google and buy.
This shows up as “organic search” for attribution, but that’s a bit misleading.
The brand has a hard time knowing that all those other marketing sources fractionally contributed to earning your trust and helping to drive the sale.
This makes it hard for them to know where to spend more money to convert future prospective customers like you.
Here’s why all of this is relevant…
Recently, I went down a rabbit hole on Nick Bare, a hybrid athlete, founder of supplement company Bare Performance Nutrition.
I went from zero awareness to a fan in about 3 days. By the end of that 3 day period, I had converted and bought a product from Nick.
What’s interesting is analyzing how that happened…what were my points of exposure that converted me to a fan?
I call it the attribution of fandom.
This will help inform your perspective on why fans become fans.
I’m going to go through the full journey, what I thought in the moment, and why Nick won.
The context will be in yellow, my thoughts at the time will be in blue, and my analysis of Nick’s positioning will be in white.
Discovering Nick Bare
The only exposure I had to Nick Bare at the beginning of this was hearing his name mentioned a couple times from Sam Parr, co-host of My First Million.
Sam had said Nick Bare was a freak athlete, so in my head, that’s what I thought of him as. Other than that, I had never seen anything from Nick.
First Exposure: I saw that Nick Bare and Sahil Bloom were guests on My First Million, a podcast that I enjoy. So I started listening.
Pretty quickly I learned that Nick was:
A hybrid athlete (spends a lot of time both running and lifting)
A business owner (runs a successful supplement company)
A content creator (uses content to drive sales for supplement company)
A good dude (seemed like a nice guy, trustworthy and authentic)
As I listened I was thinking, “I like this guy.” He comes off smart and super likable. He’s also very applicable to me as someone that’s interested in health, trying to add running to the mix and focused all day on using content to build businesses.
As a guest on a podcast I already liked, my guard was down and ready to learn about someone new. Nick did a really good job of being his authentic self and talking about the topics that permeate through everything he does…hybrid athlete, content creator, entrepreneur.
So Learning #1 is that if you’re trying to convert fans, you should always be sharing your perspective around topics and ideas that will show up in other places across your ecosystem.
Learning #2 is that it’s helpful to go on other platforms where there is already a warm audience.
Trying to convert new fans through an algorithm is neutral at best, but going on podcasts where fans are already excited to hear their favorite people (Sam) talk to their favorite people (Nick) is a big advantage.
Learning #3 is how important it is to be likable. When you’re likable, people will magnetically gravitate towards you sooner. It’s a big advantage to be default likable.
During the podcast, Sam referenced being a guest on Nick’s podcast as well as his favorite YouTube video that Nick created, a documentary about him running a 100 mile race in Leadville.
Now what’s important is that Nick didn’t bring up these things actively trying to promote them.
Sam (the person I trust) is the one that brought them up, gushing about how great they were and how the quality was so impressive.
Learning #4 is that it helps to build a library of super high quality content that is so good others can reference as they talk about you. Don’t actively promote your stuff unless people directly ask you to.
People don’t like being sold to. They’re happy to buy when a high quality product organically solves their problem, but they hate being sold to directly.
Because of this MFM podcast, the next day, I searched for Nick’s podcast. I was looking for his episode with Sam Parr, couldn’t find it, but saw that he had an episode with Chris Williamson (host of Modern Wisdom), someone else that I trust.
So I listened to the full episode (90 mins).
By this point, I’ve now consumed nearly 3 hours of Nick’s long-form content and have already made up my mind that I trust and like him.
This is what I call, the conversion point.
Notice that it only took 2 long-form content pieces before I was fully bought in that I liked this person.
When you’re the intended audience for someone, that is often how quick the conversion can happen if the messaging is strong, the content quality is high, they’re being authentic, likable, and not trying to sell or scheme them.
After listening to Nick’s episode with Chris, I found his episode with Sam and listened to that whole piece as well…I’m now 4.5 hours of content in on Nick Bare.
Throughout the episodes, Nick’s guests (specifically Sam) bring up his other businesses, the supplement company as well as his training app for hybrid athletes.
Again, Nick is not actively pushing these things. His guests are the ones bringing them up and then he candidly and openly talks about them.
Nick realizes his goal is to make you want to be more like him, by visualizing and describing his life.
If you do want to be like him, he’s made products (supplements/coaching) that will help you do that.
Learning #5: He realizes his job is not to open the door to those products. His friends, colleagues, guests, and other fans will open the door for him. His job is to make sure those products are messaged correctly and above the expected quality threshold when the door is opened.
Again in this episode with Sam, he mentioned the Leadville 100 documentary and how amazing this piece was.
This time, Nick provides more context around what it was, why it was so hard to film, etc.
Nick also mentioned his marathon prep videos and Sam talks about how those were the first ones he watched.
So naturally, I go to YouTube, find Nick’s channel and watch his video about running under a 3 hour marathon for the first time.
Now to this point, I’m a fan of Nick the businessman and the athlete, but I’m not yet really bought into him as person.
On podcasts, he is really good about spreading his beliefs and covering topics he cares about, but it’s on YouTube where you really become invested in him as a person.
So I watch his sub-3 hour marathon video. Then I watch his sub-2:50 marathon video. Then I watch his sub-2:40 marathon video. Then I finally get to the Leadville100 documentary.
It’s 2am at this point.
Of course, each of these are breadcrumbs tagged at the end of other videos (which is great optimization from him and his team).
What’s most important is that as you watch these videos, you become invested in him as a person and want to be like him.
These videos show you who he really is. Who is wife is. Who his team is. His coach, etc. He built a world of characters with him at the center.
Again, in these videos, he’s not trying to sell product. He’s trying to sell a lifestyle.
If you want to be like him, you’ll want to take the products he takes…which he happens to sell.
It was at this moment I realized why YouTube and long-form content is so much more powerful than anything else (if done right).
It drives narrative and storytelling around a journey. That journey builds trust. That trust build fandom. Those fans buy products and amplify the narrative.
Now that’s a flywheel.
Learning #6: Once I’m in the flywheel, eventually I’ll come across his products at the right time. Which is exactly what happened.
I watched a different one of his videos, saw him walk through his training app (which has running + lifting workouts) and subscribed.
This is how real fandom and attribution works on the internet. And it happens everyday across thousands of creators for millions of fans.
Here are the learnings distilled and how I plan on adapting my content to leverage them:
Be likable. The fastest way to convert a fan is to be on topic for what they’re looking for and likable enough for them to be willing to go down the rabbit hole
Lean long-form. If it takes 60 content minutes to convert someone, it’ll take fewer long-form pieces to get there. I’ve gotta go much heavier into long-form
Drive narrative around a journey. People like following journeys much more than fact-based stories. Find a way to show more of the journey
Be consistent in the messaging. Across my own platforms and as a guest on others, be consistent about the things I’m known for and what I like to talk about
Grease the rails. The reason Nick’s content funnel worked so well is because he spent time to make sure everything connected (messaging cross platforms, one youtube video leading to the next, talking about one medium on another, etc.). Help lead people from one thing to the next
Optimize for quality. The reason I kept watching his YouTube videos until 2am is because they were really really good. If you try to game this with low quality and volume, it will not work in the long-term. Keep quality high
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