Community

It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood: Some thoughts about community.

July 7, 2009 by Susan Getgood

What makes a community?

The most important element of community is conversation. You don’t need to log-in to a website to have a conversation online with friends, colleagues and peers. Software, authentication, “enabling technology,” a fan page or a URL all play a part in how we use or access our communities online, but they don’t make the community.

Communities form around shared interests and common problems. That doesn’t preclude products, but most product-based communities are transactional rather than social. We drop in with a question or to see if there’s someone we can help, but we generally don’t “hang out” to talk about products. For example, computer and consumer electronics manufacturers Dell, Sony and HP all have community sites. While a few expert volunteers will literally set up shop within forums like these because they like to help and they like the recognition they get from both the companies and fellow consumers, most users will flow in and out depending on information/support needs and purchase plans.

Successful company-sponsored social communities establish around shared interests, not the product per se. An example is National Geographic’s WildCam community, originally hosted on the site but now using a Facebook fan page. The conversation in the community is about the animals, not National Geographic, but the brand is reinforced continually and subtly.

What do online communities look like?

Let’s take the common picture of online community and break it down a bit.

The simplest online communities form around blogs of like subject matter, with the conversation happening on blog comments, in blog posts and across the public networks like Twitter and Facebook.

When we think about online community, though, our minds usually turn to more formal social networks. With a username and password and features such as forums, discussion boards, in-system mail, blogs and friend lists. But these communities are not a homogeneous lot by any stretch of the imagination.

You’ll find enthusiast or advocate sites. Some are barebones, others are more sophisticated, and while they may monetize with advertising or grow into businesses, they generally start because somebody cared and so did her friends. They had passion about something.

Businesses of all sizes are adding community features to their websites. Some by simply adding a discussion board or customer content area, others by building full-fledged community sites.

The tool set is just as varied, ranging from simple tools like open-source forum/discussion board software and content management systems to free community platforms like Ning to comprehensive solutions from companies like Powered.

Layered over the private networks are the big public social networks, Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn. Of these big three, Facebook has the most traction as a consumer social network and multiple options for companies to use it as part of their social media strategy: advertising, fan (company) pages and Facebook Connect. LinkedIn seems better suited for business-to-business strategies, particularly referrals and networking and I’d put MySpace at the opposite end of the spectrum from LinkedIn — strong in entertainment, particularly music, and definitely consumer, skewing younger than both Facebook and LinkedIn.

If a company wants to actively embrace or create a community, what should it do?

The very first question you need to ask — even before where are my customers and what tools should I use — is: Are we willing to make the long-term commitment to the community? Do we have a plan for sustaining the engagement? It’s one thing to start a conversation with the customer. It’s another to keep it going.

If you aren’t certain you will be able to sustain the engagement, you are much better off doing a short-term campaign with a defined beginning and end. This sets the right expectation for the customer while giving you some experience with the community. Blogger outreach is a good starting point. Read my blogger relations category for strategy and tactics.

Let’s say, though, that everyone has deeply drunk the kool-aid and wants to charge ahead and build a social media base site beyond the company website. It’s time for questions two, three and four:

Where are your customers? Facebook? Twitter? Some other social network? Waiting for someone (like you) to build a space that’s “just right.” Or has someone already built a social network or online space that meets the same need, attracts the same consumer? If so, you may be better off exploring a relationship with that site.
How active are your customers likely to be? Active creators or passive consumers? You’ll want to tailor the content of a community site to the needs of your customer. You don’t want to create a slick (and expensive) site with video mashups and interactive games if your consumers don’t like to do that sort of thing. It’ll look like you threw a party and nobody came. Starting point: check out the Pew and Forrester demographic models.
Do you have, or can you create, regular content for a site? Blog content. Video. Podcasts. Case studies. FAQs. Educational content. Content about interests you share with your customers. Things they will want to use and share with others. This is very important when considering the scope of your online site. The more of this “stuff” you have, the more you can do with and on a community site. If the pickings are slimmer, you need to narrow your scope to something you can execute flawlessly and with flair. In doubt? It is always better to start small and expand the scope as you experience success.

The answers to these questions will form the base of your strategy. Some general thoughts:

Odds are pretty good that many of your customers will be on Facebook, so it should form part of your strategy.
If you have the content to populate a rich community site, you might benefit from incorporating Facebook Connect to allow your users to easily share content with their friends on Facebook. Other benefits of Facebook Connect: simple authentication using Facebook credentials and increased potential to recruit new members at a lower acquisition cost. BUT: there has to be stuff to share. Worth sharing. Product Spec Sheets do NOT count.
If your content is a little slimmer, you should start simply. Perhaps add a single forum or discussion board to your company website or build a Facebook Fan Page. Use it to test the waters, including the capacity of your firm to generate robust, share-worthy content and the level of potential participation of your market.

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I was briefed recently by the folks at Powered about their Facebook Connect functionality. For large companies with the budget (typically $250K and up), a social networking company can cut the learning curve and lighten the management burden of a big community site. As the saying goes, they can do it all for you. Smaller to mid-sized companies that don’t have that much available budget? You can still learn a lot from what the big boys and girls are doing. Check it out and adapt what works for you. Need some help? Call me. 🙂

My Facebook Page Experiment, initial results

June 17, 2009 by Susan Getgood

With all the hullaballoo about Facebook Pages, I thought it was time I experimented with one for myself. As I wrote in yesterday’s post, there are a few instances where it may make sense for a blogger to have a Facebook Page. One is for a multi-author blog such as Snapshot Chronicles Roadtrip, the family travel blog I launched about eight weeks ago. Each author can be an admin, use his/her own Facebook following to help build the brand and share the load of adding unique content — beyond just the blog posts that get fed automatically.

I’m still experimenting but I want to warn readers to be very very careful when selecting the initial category for their page. There are three basic categories, each with sub options, and once you’ve selected your choice, there is no going back. The only way to change once you’ve created a page is to START OVER. If you’ve actually published the page and started publicizing it, this means losing those fans, and hoping they follow you.

Why is this so important?
Two reasons. First, discoverability. Facebook uses the categories in search, and if you are in the wrong one, fewer people will find you in general searches, versus specific ones based on your blog or brand name.

Second is that the options under the Info tab are different for each basic category. Local Business allows you to list your physical address, hours of operation, website address and information about parking and public transit. No free-form fields. For a Brand Product or Organization, you can list typical business information, including company overview and products in free-form fields. Artists, Bands & Public Figures are presented with options very similar to the ones in the personal profile. These cannot be changed or added to.

The Facebook Page for Snapshot Chronicles Roadtrip ended up in the wrong category – Local Other Business. Not because I didn’t pick the one I wanted (Brand, Travel). I did. However, I initially typed my electronic signature with my middle initial; Facebook wanted my Facebook name exactly, without the initial, so it posted an error message. I realized the error, fixed it, and saved.

What I didn’t realize was that in the refresh Facebook had also reset the category to Local Other Business. I pulled a similar sequence of screens to illustrate this for you.

Initial Screen:

Signature Error:

Refresh:

The good news? I mostly did the fan page to find out what might go wrong when creating one, and lo and behold I was not disappointed. Not having the right options on the Info tab is not a big deal for my family travel blog, but it might be for your company or brand.

What should you do?

Take a look at the three types of pages and pick the right one for your brand, blog or business.
When you are filling out the initial creation screen, check the box, type in your profile name correctly and carefully review the selection of category before you hit Create Page.
If you get the error message, check twice.

You can start over at any time until you actually publish your page, but in my case, I just didn’t notice that the category had defaulted to something else until I started trying to customize the info page much, much later in my process.

I’ll just chalk it up to one of those things I do, so you don’t have to, and hope that my experience helps at least one other person avoid the same mistake. I do know I am not the only one who has run into the problem, as there is a support topic in the Facebook FAQs.

So pick carefully!

Some additional nits:
I wish you could have a different image for the thumbnail and the main graphic. Unlike headshots, which most people use on their personal Facebook profiles, logos don’t always size down to something acceptable in a teeny thumbnail square, and certainly not when the same image is used for both with no resizing possible.

I have a devil of a time getting back to my page to edit it. I hope I am just missing something obvious, but the only way I’ve found so far is to navigate to all the pages I follow and then pick mine. There has to be an easier way….

The great Facebook URL grab of 2009

June 16, 2009 by Susan Getgood

Giddy-up cowboys and girls.

As of Saturday morning, you can get a Facebook URL with an intelligible username instead of a bizarre sequence of numbers and letters. For example, my profile is now facebook.com/sgetgood.

Organizations and brands with more than 1000 fans of their fan page BEFORE May 31, 2009 could also protect their brand name with a custom URL last Saturday, but everyone else – fan pages created after May 31 or with less than 1000 fans – has to wait until June 28th, although there are mechanisms for protecting your trademarks.

The Facebook URL Grab

This simple Facebook change has resulted in a mad rush to recruit fans and create fan pages, even though at this point, there’s no way to reserve the name for a fan page. Everyone has to wait until June 28th.

Now I’ve already gone on record that I think nearly every business in America should have a Facebook page, because, point blank, your customers are there. If you’ve already been thinking about setting up a Facebook presence, and the June 28th deadline moves you ahead faster, there’s no reason not to go for it, full speed ahead, and try to get the Facebook URL you really want.

But if you haven’t:

Identified an initial customer/fan base that is on Facebook or can be invited easily (from a listserv, email list, Twitter, website etc.);
Developed a plan for updating your Facebook page on a regular basis;
Developed a plan for integrating Facebook into your other promotional efforts, on and OFF line,

STOP!

Take a deep breath, and let’s start at the beginning.

Why do you want a Facebook page? Are your customers on Facebook? Do you have a plan and the resources for engaging with your customers on Facebook once they become your fans? Do you have a blog or other online content, such as video, that you can link to Facebook to keep it fresh? If not, how will you engage the customer? No one likes to be invited only to have no one else — not even the host — show up at the party. Are you willing to develop promotions for your online fans?

Take the time to answer these important questions about your Facebook fan page before you start, and worry about the unique URL afterward. If your brand is a registered trademark, you have solid ground for booting any cybersquatters. If it’s not, ask yourself — what does more damage to my business? Customers seeing a lame inactive Facebook page for my company or waiting until I’ve got my stuff together even if that means my URL isn’t the “perfect” one?

I think it’s the lame inactive page that does more harm. Your Facebook page doesn’t stand alone; you promote it on your website, in your email signature, in company collateral. Take the time to create something your customers – your fans – will want to engage with. The time you need to do it right. If it is not your first choice name? So what. Your website URL probably isn’t either. If lack of URL choice — that you didn’t get your first choice — is your excuse for not succeeding? You deserve to fail.

Just don’t take too much time…. or your competitor will get there first. Your company or brand DOES need a Facebook page. Just don’t rush to do it before you are ready to commit to continue doing it.

What about blogs?

Should bloggers create a fan page? The answer is…maybe. Facebook created the fan page as a home for companies, organizations and groups. Institutional identities versus individual identities. It may make sense for an individual blogger to have a fan page in addition to a profile page [a fan page administrator must have an individual profile] under a few circumstances. Otherwise, I wouldn’t bother. It’s just one more thing to update.

Here’s when a fan page may make sense for a blogger:

If the blog is a commercial business entity. Example: Cool Mom Picks, Alphamom
If the blog is a multi-author blog. Example: Snapshot Chronicles Roadtrip, my new travel blog.
If the blogger wants to have a clear delineation between friends (profile) and fans (page). Example: celebrities, high profile bloggers, professional service providers.

Otherwise? My advice is to think twice before adding another thing to your social media plate. There are already ways to promote your blog through Facebook – Networked Blogs, linking your feed to Facebook, setting up a group. Only do the Facebook page if you are willing to make at least a small commitment to feeding the beast.

Engaging with your community, your customer

February 23, 2009 by Susan Getgood

Engaging the customer. It goes well beyond those stalwarts of mass marketing, the original 4Ps: product price place and promotion.

Certainly we start there, because our product is the first place we’ll find a shared interest with our customer. The customer needs or wants it and the company wishes to sell it.

In a mass market, we could stop at this and use our traditional tool chest of advertising and public relations to communicate at our prospective buyer.

But strictly speaking, the mass markets of Darren Stephens and Don Draper don’t exist anymore.

Long tail products find their buyers online and mass market products find value in niche marketing.

Nearly every mass consumer product is sliced diced and tailored to ever smaller focused needs. Just look at laundry detergent. At my last count, one side of an entire aisle at Target was devoted to Tide. Multiple varieties, each available in multiple packaging options to meet a perceived multiplicity of laundry requirements. Overkill? Almost certainly. Nevertheless it is the market reality.

Amidst this continued clutter, brands needed new ways to attract the customer.

They found it online. Through online advertising and websites. And the motherlode. The ever expanding communities of their customers engaging with social media – blogs, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, online portals.

Companies and their PR agencies began pitching bloggers about their products. Some well. Most not so much. But pitching isn’t engaging the customer.

To engage implies a closer relationship than the simple exchange of gelt for goods. To engage implies a conversation, not an advertising campaign or product pitch. To engage expects mutual respect and a balanced exchange – everybody gets value out of the deal. As I said at the Mom 2.0 Summit Friday, nobody gets screwed… unless of course they want to.

In my opinion, engagement demands that the company bring more to the table than just its product. In the offline world, we generally don’t have conversations about products, unless we are highly invested in them. Entertainment products, video games, cars. Perhaps. Cereal, laundry soap and soup? Not so much. Why should companies expect it to be ANY different in the blogosphere?

If you want to have a conversation with someone, you need to engage over something that both parties care about. Otherwise it is a very short conversation.

When I do workshops I often show this Technorati data. Technorati’s rankings may be rank, but the 2008 research offers some good data about bloggers. Scan down this list of reasons why bloggers blog. I’m sure you’ll notice that “help companies promote their products” isn’t on this list.

Likewise, people generally don’t form communities around product features. Around products, yes, but not as a channel for promotional messages from the vendor. Around the passion for what the product lets them do, make, achieve.

This is where the concept of relevance comes in. You have to make your product relevant to the needs of the community, the needs of the blogger. Put the product in the blogger’s context; get beyond how someone uses your product to the why of it. Why does the customer want to use your product? How does it fit into her life?

This puts you down the path to discover the values you, the brand/company, share with your customers,. These values form the basis for better pitches and a long term sustainable relationship with your customer.

How to find the shared values

For some products – for example entertainment and technology where trial might be a draw or folks do get caught up in exciting new features – you may be able to build an outreach campaign on features. Some of the most successful campaigns I’ve seen recently are indeed for entertainment franchises like Wii and amusement parks, and trial or trip forms a big part of the program.

But consumer product goods are a bit harder. Many product marketing folks get caught up in features, but to be really effective you’ve got to go beyond that and relate to something the blogger is doing. How the product fits their life, not how they can make their life fit your pitch. Relevance. Context.

Here’s an example recently sent to me by a mom blogger, a pitch for mouthwash.

(click on image for larger size)

I can’t be any clearer than this: the bullying example in the pitch is totally lame. It is a made-up problem.

And it’s a shame because they could have done a much more relevant pitch related to a parent’s desire to establish good oral hygiene habits with the kids. Sure, it’s been done before – most good ideas are not new, just new or better executions – but so what…. It is relevant, and that’s what really matters when reaching out to an online community. It doesn’t have to be new, just “new to you.”

In this economy, budgets are going to be a lot tighter. Relevance isn’t as critical when you can offer an all expenses spa weekend in exchange for sitting through a few product pitches. Still important , but we can easily imagine someone who doesn’t care that much about the product going if the event is slick enough. That won’t fly anymore.

Events of that scale have always been out of reach of small to mid size companies, and increasingly won’t be in the budget for big ones either.

We have to be more clever.

We have to meet the customer, the blogger in her context. Not expect her to blithely sign up for ours.

I have been working on a model that explains HOW to do this. How to find the context or shared values. It’s hard to explain it in a blog post, but here’s the mind map.

I’ve promised to share an example of how to apply this to consumer products. My next post will apply it to cotton swabs, as close to a commodity as I think you can find in the consumer markets.

This post is based in part on material prepared for the Mom 2.0 Summit panel on Communities.

Four years, wow!

November 10, 2008 by Susan Getgood

This week marks the fourth anniversary of Marketing Roadmaps. It’s also the first full month at the new WordPress site.

So, first things first: thank you to all my friends and readers, especially those of you who have resubscribed to the new feed.

I thought it would be fun to look back at the archives and link to some of my favorite posts from the past four years. If you have any particular favorites that I missed, please share with the class in the comments.

Why corporate websites suck and some ideas for fixing them (January 2005)

When is a blog a “fake blog” (February 2005)

A good B2B website is… (February 2005)

Personas and fictional blogs (April 2005)

Rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated said the press release (March 2006)

Bloggers aren’t journalists (June 2006)

Open your eyes: blogs and gender (August 2006)

What’s so viral about marketing? (September 2006)

The ethics lesson from the Wal-Mart Edelman flog fiasco (November 2006)

Viral Marketing…not: Boston Bomb Scare (January 2007)

The Jet Blues and Social Media (February 2007)

More Blogger Relations (April 2007)