Social Media, the importance of Communities (and how to get one)

Social media and the new conversations of e-commerce Thomas Purves, April 22, 2007 More: http://thomaspurves.com 3rd Annual Visa E-Commerce Summit Toronto, On

Customers are getting smarter

Capturing attention is getting harder

Costs of production are dropping but also reducing barriers to entry

For e-commerce, constant innovation is key to survival

New Gatekeepers emerging: iTunes, google etc.

Network effects matter (more than ever) … how strong is your community?

If, right now, all of your customers could be having a great big conversation with each other… Photo by denkrahm http://flickr.com/photos/station_nord/10340948/

What might they say? Photo by presta http://flickr.com/photos/presta/101334755/ NewMindSpace Pillow fight Flash Mob NYC

Costs: People time, all other costs insignificant

Positive ROI of executive blogging (200k/year)

Standard Corporate Blogging, nowadays a no-brainer.

New Trends, video segments and user-generated video (If BYO don’t forget to make it linkable, embedable)

http://www.dellcommunity.com/supportforums/ Great, so long as you don’t mind quite how they phrase it. cprieto87 Bronze Posts: 2 Registered: 04-18-2007 Viewed 1011 timess Koaz: You're a GOD! I was having similar problem with rolling back a Vista machine to XP - changed the SATA drive and voila XP loads! Yeah - I called Dell Support, and they were useless. confused and bewildered

It turns out, the kids are crazy for Linux. (but consider, how representative is the audience?)

NCIX managing Many, many SKU’s

User community helps maintain product info, upload images, post reviews, discuss and recommend hardware

Active users rewarded with “points” as recognition and redeemable for product

Photo by Brian Oberkirch, by way of Davidcrow.ca “ Crazy Awesome” “ Sorta Awesome” “ Crazy Awesome”

SkinnyCorp and Threadless

Entirely community-centric model

From Sorta Awesome to Crazy Awesome in just a few years

Other lessons: sellT-shirts

Disruptive Marketing: The Specialized Angel 1,125 blog posts 260k google hits 53 facebook group members http://www.flickr.com/photos/kwc/127795364/

Chris Matthews, Specialized’s Marketing Guru

Over 10,000 members in 5 months (all demographics)

Premium membership: $50

Combines online + offline experiences.

Metrics are an issue

Connects dealer network as well as riders.

100% positive feedback

Sample Ride Profile Page

Value to Community

Find rides in your area

Socialize with fellow riders

Learn about the sport

Post pictures, journal entries, rider and bike profiles

The secret: letting customers talk to each other

I’d never heard of “Blendtech”, but how could you *not* want to see what happens with iPod in a blender, or:

hockey pucks

Light bulbs

Glowsticks?

Ipod in a blender: 3.3 Million views

I really want this blender

Kayak.com

Mashing up travel data

Standards, APIs, and data accessibility allow for sometimes great stuff

The sematic web is an ecosystem

New media Trends to Watch

The consumer controls the format, the channels

Email is dying, static web content is dead already

RSS goes mainstream, feedburner gives you metrics, is the glue for everything

Social presence: status updates, twitter, jaiku, plazes

Source: Mad dog in the fog http://www.mdoeff.com/blog/2007/03/21/the-future-of-twitter/ Conceptual Vision of Twitter as a Marketing Channel . What realtime status updates could drive value for your customers?

Key Early players in Social Presence:

Twitter.com

Jaiku.com

Facebook

Plazes, Last.fm

(this list will change)

“ One of those stupid little floor polishing droids almost just tripped me. The Death Star R&D department will pay dearly for this” - darthvader

Internet Web 2.0 Communities including end customers, stakeholders, public Channel 2.0 Communities including business & channel partners, etc Enterprise 2.0 Communities of employees. Intranet Extranet