C-K Thought Expo:Building Communities Before You Need Them

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Community: An enduring self-selected group of actors sharing a system of values, standards and representations (a culture) and recognizing bonds of membership with each other and with the whole. Brand communities are characterized in shared consciousness, rituals and traditions, and a sense of moral responsibility.

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- Albert Muniz Jr. and Thomas C. O'GuinnJournal of Consumer Research, 2001

That means communities aren’t necessarily

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Branded sites, forums…

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Facebook pages, or Twitter accounts

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But they could be

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Your community consists of those people who:- Advocate for the brand- Defend against attacks- Forgive mistakes- Provide constructive feedback- Evangelize to non-community members- Share stories with each other

Do you have friends or “friends?”

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People don’t like to feel like they’re being sold something

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But marketing and community building don’t have to be mutually exclusive

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These communities of influencers, ambassadors and champions have an obvious impact

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• Brand advocates spend 2x as much $ as average customers (Deloitte study, 2010)

• 64% of online users are talking about brands on social networks because the brand has provided a useful piece of advice worth sharing (Zuberance study, 2012)

• When online users have a positive experience with a brand, more than ½ of them share their experiences (Zuberance study, 2012)

Unfortunately, communities aren’t built with money or technology

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Communities are earned, not bought

Social media can build these relationships just as quickly as destroy them

Communities don’t care about “online” and “offline” budgets, org charts, or contracts

There’s a time and a place for soft selling, hard selling, and not selling

The brand is a member of the community, not the Emperor

Success is not measured in terms of “likes,” “fans,” or “followers”

Make Friends, Not Ads, Right?

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“If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail."

- Abraham Maslow

Broadcast media was all about the brand

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Consumer

The Brand

Social media is all about the consumer

Consumer

The Brand

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The Brand

Consumer

People talk to people, not to brands

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“More than half of Twitter users worldwide expect a personal response within two hours of Tweeting a question or complaint and 51 percent of Facebook users expect a same-day response to questions or complaints”

- Oracle’s "Consumer Views of Live Help Online 2012"

“It is what companies do with fans that create value, not merely that a brand has fans”

- Augie Ray, Forrester“In our study, when brand advocates were asked for the most important factors in determining a favorite brand, three ranked as extremely or very important across the consumer product categories surveyed: authenticity, honesty and transparency, and sharing a point of view.”

- Deloitte, “A New Breed of Brand Advocates”

“Content calendars suck. Do you go to a cocktail party with a script?”

—Gary Vaynerchuk

She’s not going to marry you on the 1st date

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Become a part of the community

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And then watch as that community

embraces you

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However, don’t think you can build it and people will come

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Foundation

•Identify your goals•Identify your audience•Define your personality•Identify your community manager

•Educate, Equip, and Empower

Conversation

•Add value•Discuss current issues•Join other communities•Take it offline•Advance the industry•Stop Selling•Go above and beyond

Adjustments

•Measure •Adapt•Don’t take yourself too seriously

Build your community foundation

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Identify your goals (hint: a million Facebook likes isn’t a goal)

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Identify your audience

DIYersPros

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Figure out who you are and what you stand for

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Identify a community manager, not a social media content manager (and yes there’s a difference)

Community Manager Social Media Manager

Social media are a means to an end Social media is the end

Public Relations / Customer Service Marketing

Integrated into entire company Silo’ed

Focus is on the consumer Focus is on the brand

Deep relationships Shallow relationships

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Educate, Equip and Empower• Strategy• Top Cover• Social Media Policy• New Processes• Integration Points• Crisis communication plans• Long-term plans

Remember that you’re a member of a community, not THE community

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Foundation

•Identify your goals•Identify your audience•Define your personality•Identify your community manager

Conversation

•Add value•Discuss current issues•Join other communities•Take it offline•Advance the industry•Stop selling•Go above and beyond

Adjustments

•Measure •Adapt•Don’t take yourself too seriously

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Add Value

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Discuss current issues

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Join other people’s communities

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Take it offline

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Advance the industry

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Stop selling and instead embody your personality

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Go above and beyond

Creating a Community Takes Patience, Hard Work and Humility

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Foundation

•Identify your goals•Identify your audience•Define your personality•Identify your community manager

Conversation

•Add value•Discuss current issues•Join other communities•Take it offline•Advance the industry•Stop Selling•Go above and beyond

Adjustments

•Measure •Adapt•Don’t take yourself too seriously

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Measure

Output

“Our Twitter followers increased by 134% and Facebook fans went up by more than 90% over the last month.”

Outcome

“Leveraging its Facebook page, Twitter account, and YouTube channel, we launched a loyalty program awareness campaign to increase Insider sign-ups by 50%. The promotion resulted in a 75% increase in total Insider signups, with 67% of those signups resulting from Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube referrals.”

Social Metrics Business Metrics

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Adapt

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Don’t take yourself too seriously

If you’ve built a website, platform, Twitter account, Facebook page, community, it will be there for you when you need it the most

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Questions

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