OK, let's get passionate....or perhaps just learn from passionate fans. A panel consisting of: Kathleen Hessert, President, Sports Media Challenge, Daphne Kwon, CEO, Expo TV and Jake McKee, Lead Samurai, Big in Japan talked about the lessons they've learned from passionate fans.

Kathleen was the first to speak and focussed on sports. Kathleen's firm focuses on athletes and sports franchises, i.e NASCAR, Shaquille O'Neal, Peyton Manning, etc. Their audience are fans, so they study fans quite a bit. Fans are passionate about the things they're interested in, so they're ripe for WOM.

There are a number of fan loyalty levels: Sport, Conference, Team, Athlete. For example some people are Brady Quinn fans, others might just be a fan of Notre Dame. These loyalty levels create a number of opportunities for teams/athletes to interact with their fans.

Fans trust fellow fans before marketers. As such, they're measuring the cross-links among sports blogs to track what they're interested in. Of course fans love to talk about their teams and the rivalries between teams.

Some sports get the fact that fans are the customers, others don't. Fans generate media for sports. However fans are easily swayed by influencers.

Next up was Daphne from ExpoTV. Expo is a relatively new company, their core focus is to help companies build better UGC videos. One of their products is Videopinions. Videopinions allows users to easily create video-based reviews of products. They've built up a library of over 20,000 segments.

One of the big issues is making sure the consumers don't feel exploited, after all they are building content around their work. How do you make the consumers feel validated? People that submit the videos feel a sense of empowerment since they're sharing

A new distribution program for them is Video on Demand (VOD). They selected 40 of their Videopnions and compiled them into a Holiday Shopping Guide that aired on VOD.

The last presenter was Jake from Big in Japan. Jake wanted to spent most of his time discussing some topics that he finds himself constantly addressing. Jake used to work at LEGO and he showed a photo of a LEGO event and asked, "Can anybody tell who works for LEGO and who does not." The audience couldn't. The photo was a great example of a company working closely with the fans.

First point: Everybody goes home happy. How do you define happy though? Consumers and companies both have their definition of 'happy' but they can be balanced.

Second point: Control through participation, not directive. With community, when you participate you do have some level of control since you are interacting with your customers/fans.

Recently LEGO sent their CEO to a small fan event. Some questioned the ROI of sending a highly paid executive to talk to 200 fans. However, those 200 fans are a representation of the thousands of fans out there that can't attend. Those 200 will quickly spread the message via blogs, message boards, etc. Often it's the sense of individual communication, not necessarily individual communication itself.

Third point: They're not weird because they like you. Too often companies begin to question the passion of their fans...why?

Fourth point: Ego: Lose yours, play to theirs. When you step back and really think about them, they will see that and appreciate that.

Firth point: Join the cause. Find out what their issues are and help them.

Sixth point: Start what you can finish Fans don't think in terms of projects or budget cycles so you need to adapt your programs to extend beyond traditional business thinking.