In the modern world, smart brands must focus on building three things: trust, awareness, and a strong connection with their fans. Just ask Seth Godin, who says: “The new era of modern marketing is about the connection economy.”

But with distractions everywhere, holding an audience’s attention long enough to build that strong connection can be tricky.

Fortunately, there’s a very easy solution to the distraction problem: feature your fans in your brand’s content. Successful brands are recognizing this as a key part of their marketing strategies, taking content beyond a simply passive experience and delivering intense emotional engagement that forges long-lasting connections.

Using Cinebody, Las Vegas rock band Escape the Fate is currently making a crowd-sourced video for its track ‘I Am Human’. To encourage participation, it is actively highlighting fans throughout the creation stage, giving away special prizes to those hitting the mark with their videos.

Featuring your fans not only encourages collaboration, it also skyrockets engagement. When metal band Motionless in White released the fan video for its track ‘ Voices ’, engagement levels were well above almost all of its other social media content. The video generated almost 600 shares and attracted comments with emotional depth that went far beyond typical fan engagement.

One of the most remarkable moments came on Instagram, where a fan spotted himself as the first face on the video. “I’M SCREAMING,” he wrote.

He quickly produced his own post to call out his on-screen stardom – and attracted comments from other fans in the process.

It’s clear that featuring fans in content provides deep, direct engagement (just look at the reaction sports arenas get when they use the jumbotron!), but many brands still overlook the power of involving their fans.

Yet with Cinebody, it’s never been easier to involve fans in your content creation and collaboration, building relationships, excitement and goodwill at unprecedented levels.

Even simple things, like sending pushes in Cinebody to fans who contribute clips, has a significant impact. “Sending direction, even just words of encouragement, develops an instant connection with fans,” said Travis Page, Director of Growth at Cinebody. “It feels like a pat on the back from the brand and inspires you to want to keep filming for them.”

If you think your fan base is lifted up by your content, imagine what they could do to elevate your brand. Featuring fans in your content is no longer a slightly strange marketing choice: it is the only way to generate the trust, interaction and emotional connection successful brands need. In these days of the “connection economy”, the pay-off is enormous.