Communities and Platforms

The first rule here is that you can’t build a community. They grow organically. The second rule is that communities are also fundamentally tribal. Thus, the tribe leaders are the big influencers. If you, by some strange twist of fate, become one of those leaders, remember that dictators die hard. So allow dissent. In fact, hug it. Hug it until it no longer exists. You will have a new client/customer and respect from all in attendance. One thing to keep in mind is not to foster a community around your brand if it already exists elsewhere; this may actually threaten your legitimacy.

Platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, WordPress, wikis and other similar networking platforms can be enormously helpful. But we’ve seen too many marketers put up a Facebook page on their company and then ask all their employees to go and become fans of it. It’s obvious the company is forcing its employees to be fans and that gives a negative impression.

It’s more important to consider whether Facebook is even the right outlet for your brand. Does it lend itself well to brand loyalty? Everybody wants to have brand loyalists. But you need to think about what your product does, think about the culture it serves. Is that culture truly intertwined with your brand on a regular basis? If so, maybe Facebook is the place for you. If not, leave it alone.

LinkedIn on a B2B level is a little bit stronger for marketing, sales and human resources efforts. There is definitely potential for creating applications that can improve the business workflow there; that might be interesting enough to ultimately yield some activity for you. Just don’t lose sight of what the brand value is.

Social opportunities aren’t a magic bullet that will solve all of your marketing problems. Product won’t suddenly be flying off the shelves just because you do a Facebook page or app. But it is good if you do create an application that has great value. It should have that value first and foremost, and the value should be closely aligned with your core brand value. That will get some exposure and has some viral potential, too.

It’s really the same story with Twitter. It’s about getting some exposure. Twitter is interesting in that there’s this great uptake, but there’s also huge attrition. And you need to consider the ongoing maintenance that is required if you have your CEO or another prominent member of your team constantly tweeting. There is also potential negative fallout if the activities of some of the core people within the organization are not necessarily aligned with some of the messages that you’re trying to deliver to the market.

Imagine you’re out there knocking on doors at the Department of Defense, saying, “We’ve got a really squeaky clean team and that’s why we’re great for government contracts.” Then your executives are tweeting about being out all night drinking and partying. Don’t pass up on the exposure if it makes sense. But consider how it’s going to tie in with your brand and whether it’s really worthwhile.

The same is true for seeding activities that occur outside your brand ecosystem (or at least outside the areas of the ecosystem that you maintain.) This includes things like postings to forums and conversations via commenting fields on other sites. Make sure the people who act as social seeders understand their role as brand stewards. See that they have the right messaging and are able to converse in real-time with people while keeping brand values and beliefs intact through the conversation – as well as the ability to proactively solve problems as they come up. The latter is particularly important. If your representative engages with the public and then can’t deliver a solution, you’re going to lose credibility.

When they see issues come up in message boards (and they will) those seeders have got to have the authority to be able to solve the problem or at least fix it (up to a certain budget limit or a certain crisis level.) They have to be able to fix things immediately, without red tape, because by the time it needs to go through multiple levels of approval, the conversation has already moved on. Readers will be left with the negative idea of whatever the issue was and a negative association with your brand stamped in their minds.

Can’t you go back and fix it? Yeah, but it’s probably going to be too far down the thread to make any difference. That’s why it’s so important that you be able to address those types of things immediately and give people the authority to do so. Have individuals active in the blogosphere and make sure they identify themselves are members of your company. This is necessary to maximize your exposure in blogs and maintain credibility.

There are many opportunities to do that as well as tie in directly with your corporate blog. If you have something to say on a regular basis, it’s a great way to get it to the market. It’s a good opportunity for expression in an informal setting. You should not use the blog as a way to publish, say, key medical studies, but it can be a way to give people insight into your brand in real time. You can use it to show them what some of the possibilities are.

A corporate blog is still very much an informal gateway to your brand, however. Keep in mind that if you start to formalize it and put structure in place there, you may be losing the pure purpose behind the blog itself. Once it’s subject to the same controls and pressures as your main corporate site, it’s going to have less value.

The other important aspect of the corporate blog is overhead. Make sure before you start that there’s a long-term commitment to keeping it freshly updated. This is a multi-year commitment that may not pay dividends for months or even years. There’s nothing sadder than seeing an abandoned blog, where no one’s posted or commented in months. That tends to say nothing much is going on anywhere in the company – even though it’s probably due to the fact that you are too busy to post.

Another aspect of the corporate blog that can be challenging is making sure you have outside links coming in as well as comments going out to other blogs. This stimulates activity between bloggers and also helps you in terms of search visibility. But it also takes a fair amount of time. One final bit of advice… seeding is fine, but remember that you want a solar-powered machine or at least a hybrid, not a gas-guzzler. If you find yourself having to put gas in the tank too often, then reassess your strategy. The topics need to be engaging for your team as well as the audience which will keep everyone engaged.