Cultivating a Honey Pot

Your ecosystem will be as unique as your company and the culture it serves. So there is no one, perfect formula for turning that ecosystem into your Honey Pot, but there are some best practices, which you may want to follow. The easiest way to understand those is to look at examples of the kinds of things that typically work well.

This isn’t, by any means, a how-to guide; it’s just meant to get you thinking. Whenever you’re trying to decide whether a tactic makes sense in your ecosystem, ask yourself two important questions: “Does this align with the core value of my company?” and “Does it add value for my customers? “

It’s easy to over-think what will and won’t work on the web. The reality is simple: even though the web can be a viable revenue channel when used as an extension of an existing business, there are really three primary areas that work well on the web: content, commerce and communication. You may find examples that fit neatly into just one of these categories, and you may find hybrids that have some element of all three.

• Content (Information, Education, Entertainment): This was once a simple advertising (placement or sponsorship) or subscriber play. Now many content providers have found that the abundance of free proxy content combined with lower-than-expected volumes (and/or corresponding CPMs) requires a different monetization model. Those different models include everything from intertwined commerce and product placement to incentivizing user-generated content. There are a number of players that have made it in this area as pure plays, too; however, more prevalent success can be found with the hybrids – those companies that own a lifestyle brand and leverage content to build value for their constituents.
• Commerce/Savings: Across the board, commerce online works and alternative commerce (such as auction sites and social shopping) is growing at a faster rate. It isn’t just Amazon. Savings and/or niche products also do quite well.
• Communication: Even though the field is crowded, the potential for this type of venture isn’t tapped out yet. There’s still room for expansion of online communities and social networks. Collaboration platforms, in particular, offer major opportunities going forward.