Companies and Communities: Participating without being sleazy

Dawn Foster Fast Wonder Consulting

05/22/09 FastWonderBlog.com 1

What is this thing we call community?

In Person Community Activities



Social Media / Social Networking



Corporate / Customer Communities



Virtual Communities


Why Do People Participate?
Social Status &
Fun Recognition
Passion Gift
Culture Financial
Work
Career
Develop Learning
Advancement
Skills

● Motivation is complex (multiple influences)
● If people aren't motivated, they won't participate
● Promotion must take motivation into account


Why Companies Participate in Communities
● People: gives people a place to engage with
your company
● Product Innovation: get product feedback
● Collaboration: work together to solve issues
or come up with new ideas
● Evangelism: help you grow evangelists for
your products from outside of your company
● Brand Loyalty: engagement
can drive a tremendous
amount of loyalty
for your products
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kimtimnashville/58797765/

Guiding Principles: It's All About the People
● Focus on the individuals: Participate as a person, not
a corporate entity
● Be Sincere: Sincerity = believability & credibility
● Not all about you: Community is about conversation,
which is by definition two-way
● Be a Part of the Community: Don't try to control it
● Everyone’s a Peer:
You are not the expert;
knowledge comes from
everywhere


Building Your Online Community Strategy?
Clear Purpose / Goals are Key
● Do you need to build new or can you join an
existing community?
● What do you hope to accomplish and what are
your goals for the community?
● What is your overall strategy and how does the
community fit with it?
● What are your plans for achieving your goals
and how will you measure it?
● Do you have the resources (people & $) to
maintain it long-term?
Answer these questions before you start


Community Ownership
“You may own the software, but the
community owns itself.”

--Clay Shirky

● The community quot;ownsquot; the community
● A company who starts a community:
– owns the infrastructure
– facilitates the discussions
– moderates and keeps people in check
● If the company doesn't play nice with the community,
the community will take discussions elsewhere
● Like hosting a party

Play Nice
quot;I'm the Lorax who speaks for
the trees which you seem to
be chopping as fast as you
please.

NOW...thanks to your hacking
my trees to the ground, there's
not enough Truffula Fruit to go
'round.
Translation:
Play Nice: Be polite and And my poor Bar-bar-loots are
all getting the crummies
respectful in your
because they have gas, and no
interactions with other food in their tummies!quot;
members

Where and How NOT to Participate
● Do not participate on
competitor's sites
(considered slimy &
bad manners)
● Do not participate in
communities solely to
pimp your products.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/victoriafee/2740896609
● Do not mention your
products in every post.
Talk about the industry first
& your products second


How to Participate ...
Listen First: Understand the Norms
● Each site has it's own norms
– Language and terminology
– Acceptable behavior
● Participate gently at first
– Pick one site to start
– Spend more time listening http://www.flickr.com/photos/niclindh/1389750548

– Take the time to understand how people participate
– Participate with an individual account first
– Engage in additional sites as you get comfortable
– Begin participating for your organization

People are Watching You

“My eyes see.
His eyes see.
I see him.
And he sees me.

And so we say, Translation:
“Hooray for eyes! People see everything
Hooray, hooray, hooray... you do in the community.
... for eyes!” Be a good example of
the “right” behavior.


Twitter
● Short messages (140 characters)
– Talk about interesting things, engage in
conversations, and interact with others
– Be careful how often you promote your work
(blog posts, community discussions, etc.)
– Not all about you
● Following:
– You follow people to receive their messages
– People follow you to receive your messages
– Only as interesting as the people you follow.


Twitter Best Practices
● Know what people are saying about you
● Respond frequently and sincerely
● Follow back where appropriate
● Have a personality
● Variety is important
What to Avoid
● Don't be a link spam account
● Don't go overboard with messages
● Don't be self-promotional
● Don't use direct messages to promote anything
● Don't proactively follow too many people


Facebook
● Personal Profiles (private)
– For real people
– Not for your company
● Pages (public)
– Used for products / companies / organizations
– Fans, not friends (anyone can view a page)
● Groups
– Often used to collaborate or organize
– People become members of the group
● Applications

Should You Have a Corporate Blog?
● Can you commit to at least one post per week?
● Do you have people who have interesting
things to say and with good writing skills?
● Can someone manage the process and make
sure that the blog never gets neglected?
● Tips for making it easier
– Group blogs with many
authors (not just execs)
– Short posts are great
– Manage the process and
have a content roadmap

Blogging Best Practices
● Be a thought leader in your industry
● Talk about ideas, passions, industry trends
● Be conversational. Personal posts are interesting
● Manage your content roadmap for variety
● Make it fun!
● Avoid:
– Do not focus on product updates
– Do not regurgitate press releases
– Do not sound like a corporate drone


Make it Fun
Why do you sit there like that?
I know it is wet.
And the sun is not sunny.
But we can have lots of good
fun that is funny!

I know some good games we
could play.
I know some new tricks.
I will show them to you.
Translation: Your mother will not mind at
all if I do.
Have fun! Lighten it up
occasionally!

Monitoring
● Social media is about conversations – you need
to know what people are saying
● Know what people say about you, your industry,
your competitors: critical element of community
management, blogging, and social media
● Information can be used as ideas for blog posts,
marketing messages, competitive analysis, etc.
● Become more responsive to feedback by
proactively monitoring conversations


Community Managers Help Ensure Success

“Jobs of the future, #1: Online What Skills do we need?
Community Organizer
– Patience
... If you were great at this, I'd imagine you'd
never ever have trouble finding good work.”
– Networking
--Seth Godin
– Communication
What do we do? – Facilitation
– Ongoing Facilitation – Technical Skills
– Monitoring Conversations – Marketing
– Content Creation / Mgmt – Self-Motivation
– Evangelism – Workaholic Tendencies
– Community Evolution – Organization

Incorporate into Existing Efforts
● Look at your overall corporate business strategy
● Find the places where community fits in
● Articulate a clear purpose for the community
● Use social media to further grow your
community
● Use the right tools
and technology to
achieve your goals


Be Flexible

Never budge!
That's my rule.
Never budge
in the least!

Not an inch to the west!
Not an inch to the east!

Translation: I'll stay here, not budging!
I can and I will
Be flexible.
Improvements and ideas If it makes you and me and the
come from unexpected whole world stand still.
places.

Q&A
Companies and Communities Book
● Signing copies after my presentation
● http://fastwonderblog.com/eBook

Additional Resources:
● Monitoring with Yahoo Pipes Training

About Dawn:
● Online Community Consultant
● http://fastwonderblog.com/consulting
● Dawn@FastWonder.com
● @geekygirldawn on Twitter

Backup Materials


What Makes a Community Work?
● Open, inclusive and transparent
● A company who listens (to good and bad)
● Actively engaged in the community
● Encouraging new members
● Making it easy for people to participate
● Integration into other relevant areas of the site
● Responding to criticism (never deleting
negative comments)


Companies with Communities to Avoid
● Community is lip service, not a serious
endeavor
● Pushing marketing messages takes
precedence over 2-way collaboration
● Community software / configuration /
policies that get in the way of collaboration
● Neglected communities where no one in
the company monitors or responds


No Community is Perfect
● Things will go wrong
– Your community software will have bugs
– Someone will get defensive or irate
– Companies have PR nightmares (remember Pentium floating
pt issue?)
● In great communities, the company
responds effectively
– Addresses the issue and works to resolve it quickly
– Keeps the focus on summarizing and fixing, instead of blaming
and justifying
– Maintains open communication channels


Reputation Systems
● The Good ● The Practical
– People like points & – Transparency
recognition – Members award points
– Encourages – Adjust over time
participation
– Highlight and reward
key members
● The Bad
– They will game it!
– Does this make it
worthless?

Participate Where it Makes Sense
● Your own community
● Related communities where your audience is
already participating
● Blogging (personal and corporate)
● Audio & video (YouTube/Vimeo/BlipTv)
● Twitter
● Facebook
● Many others


Community Structures and Adoption
● Emergent
– Pros: Easy to implement, User buy-in, Unanticipated
structure
– Cons: Writer's block, Off-topic
● Highly Structured
– Pros: Control, Clear expectations
– Cons: Restrictive, Inflexible, Community resistance,
Structure that doesn't work for community
● Adaptive
– Pros: User buy-in, Some control, Evolve in unanticipated
positive directions
– Cons: Less Control, User traction required


Traditional Promotion (Customers)
● Use your existing promotional vehicles to
reach your customers
● Tell them about your community efforts
● Share your strategy & purpose with them
● Incentivize them to join & participate
● With any new community, run a limited beta
for customers. Get their feedback and let
them help promote it to others


Social Media Engagement
● Augment traditional community efforts with
social media
● Blog about your community efforts on
company & personal blogs (make sure your
blogs are listed)
● Use Audio / Video to share information
relevant to your community. Host it on popular
sites (YouTube, etc.) and embed it in your
community
● Talk about what you are doing on Twitter,
Facebook, and other social sites


On Domain or Off Domain: Strategic Decision
● YourCompany.com
– More focus on your products
– Clarity about who facilitates the community
– Authority source for product info (features, etc.)

● Off-Domain (YourIndustry.com, etc.)
– Focus on a segment or industry
– Accept discussions about competitors
– Possibly better perception of neutrality
– Slightly less authority about your products


Flickr: Community Done Well
● Clear and simple guidelines (ex. Don’t be
creepy. You know the guy. Don't be that guy.)
● Easy to use and intuitive to participate
(comments, favorites, tags, notes)
● Transparency about people (profile, favorites,
groups, etc.)
● Private, public
● Little things: Comments you've made


Dealing with the Difficult
● Negative Comments: Do not delete negative
feedback. Respond constructively
● Spammers: Put aggressive measures in
place to deal with spam
● Pain in the ***s: Put them to work if possible


Don't Feed the Trolls

“oh-oh!” Sally said.
Don't you talk to that cat.
That cat is a bad one,
That Cat in the Hat.

He plays lots of bad tricks.
Translation: Don't you let him come near.
You know what he did
Don't encourage the
The last time he was here.”
trolls. They want
attention. Resist the urge
to give it to them!

Promotion
● Use existing promotional vehicles to reach
your customers
● With any new community, run a limited beta
for customers. Get their feedback and let
them help promote it to others
● Augment traditional community efforts with
social media: corporate & personal blogs,
audio, video, Twitter, Facebook, etc.
● Incentivize people to join & participate


Promotional No-No’s
● Do not use your community to sell anything
– Use your community to get people excited about
your products
– If you get people excited, they will figure out how
to buy it.
● Do not promote your community on
competitor's sites (slimy)
● Do not use social media (twitter, facebook,
blogs, etc.) with the sole purpose of pimping
– Talk about your ideas, thoughts, and products
with a personal spin (what YOU are doing)


Companies and Communities: Participating without being sleazy

Companies and Communities: Participating without being sleazy

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