Last week, I decided to ask the 1,345 members of the SMALL ACCESS Facebook Group whether they thought it was time to throw in the towel, hang in there longer, or transform ourselves with a new identity and focus.
The reason for this survey was because SMALL ACCESS hadn’t grown large enough to significantly impact the potential revenue of CBS All Access, and as such, would most likely not be able to leverage that financial impact into a justification for CBS to consider revising the fan film guidelines.
After a week of voting, the results were pretty clear that the members want to keep the group going but with a new name, focus, and goal. Here were the results:
- 114 votes -Re-brand with a new name and new focus/purpose.
- 22 votes – Keep our current name and goal.
- 13 votes – Close down the group entirely.
We had a pretty good voter turn-out of 149 members, or about 12%. (We’re hardly a national election, but in direct-response advertising, a response rate of 2% is considered quite good, and 10% amazing.) And over 92% of our responding members want the group to continue…so that’s what we’re gonna do.
With more than three-quarters of our responding membership wanting a new name and identity…what now? The answer is: one more poll! But this one is pretty straightforward.
SMALL ACCESS has two things that brought people to the group in the first place: Star Trek fan films and Star Trek: Discovery. Some members wanted to pressure CBS to change the guidelines because they love Star Trek fan films, while other members simply wanted a place to either bitch about or defend Discovery.
So which are we more focused on…fan films or Discovery?? Obviously, we’re Star Trek, and choosing one option doesn’t necessarily exclude the other. Members can post and discuss whatever they’d like!
But we can only have one name up on the sign over the shop: either Fan Film…something (no, not Factor; that’s taken) or Discovery…something.
One we have a decision on that, we’ll start discussing what the goals and focus of the group will be. But first, which one gets “top billing” for our Facebook group: Fan Films or Discovery?
Discovery is what it is, so, I would say we should focus more on the fan films and what we would like to see done with them as far as the guidelines are concerned… P