Category Archives: Social Media

Posts related to social media topics that include online communities and social networks

What’s Good for the Company is Good for You

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As I was flying to Chicago the other day, I experienced two things that really made me stop and question whether people really understand the economics of the companies that they rely on to provide them a paycheck and a living. I was on an American Airlines flight that had 140 or so seats and only 90 passengers. While this was good for me – I got to move out of the middle seat I was assigned to an aisle – I didn’t think it good for the bankrupt airline.

I then overheard the flight attendant comment that she liked the plane we were on better then the one she would be on during the next leg of her trip. A co-worker commented that he understood her liking the other plan better. Then the disturbing part – she commented that it was a good thing the next flight only had 40 passengers scheduled to fly.  The two employees then agreed that was a good thing.

Now, although I am no expert in the airline industry Continue reading →

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10 Ways to +1 Your Community this Year

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Cover of "Raving Fans: A Revolutionary Ap...

Long before there was Google+, the concept of +1 was used to address the topic of extraordinary customer service.  In 1993, Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles wrote Raving Fans: A Revolutionary Approach to Customer Service.  In Raving Fans, Blanchard and Bowles cover three areas:  Deciding what you as a business want; Discovering what the customer wants; and delivering plus one.

So what did they mean by delivering plus one.  Here are some of the key points they articulate:

  • Being consistent in your performance to create credibility with your customers
  • Limiting the number of areas in which you want to make a difference so that you have a chance of doing them well
  • Promote more service and deliver more (as opposed to under-promise and over-deliver)
  • Meet expectations first, exceed them second
  • Be flexible

Since one of the primary reasons to have an externally facing online community is to deepen relationships with your customers, it seems that the +1 concept from Blanchard and Bowles fits well for online communities.  Here are 10 suggestions for ways you could +1 your community this year. Continue reading →

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Beware: Members Can HiJack Your Community If You Don’t Do These 5 Things

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A Best Practice of World Class Communities is to Encourage Ownership of the Community by Members

One of the strategies Telligent encourages for building World Class Communities is to encourage a level of ownership of the community by its members.  There are several benefits associated with this:

  • People tend to support the things they feel they have ownership of
  • The cost of managing the community can be lowered with community volunteers
  • Community members can often be more ardent supporters of the community rules and also more effective evangelists of your products than employees

This usually works well because the interest of the community members is in alignment with those of the company sponsoring the community.  The following chart is an example of the typical types of things both a set of customers and a company would be focused on:

The key is ensuring that the community’s interest stays aligned with the interest of the company that is funding the community, otherwise there is a problem.

Sometimes, Community Ownership can Turn into a Community Hijacking

Steve Pavlina had this happen to him with his forums that had been successful for five years.

Click here to read the entire post on Telligent.com and find out the five things you can do to avoid having your community hijacked.

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An Obvious Fit for Online Communities: Associations

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AssociationsIn the recent newsletter that Association Trends™ published, there was an article titled “Social media and how it’s changing associations.” This article focused on the theme of the recent ASAE 2012 Technology Conference, which was how to integrate a social media strategy into an association’s corporate culture. Social continues to be a growing trend, and it is starting to pick up in popularity among associations.

This trend should not come as a surprise since associations are perfect candidates for online communities built via social media.  A group of people with a common interest, that come together regularly to achieve a purpose and to establish relationships.  That is the definition of a community – and probably a pretty good definition of an association as well.

Click here to read the full article how associations should plan to use the Ant’s Eye View levels of engagement to move through Telligent’s social ecosystem layers.

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Pride, Prejudice, and Social Media

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pride_and_prejudice_largeOver the past year I have been adding some of the classics to my reading list.  The book I finished most recently is Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.  One of the things most striking about the book is the extreme focus on the level of civility when engaging with others.  The book is full of conflict, between families, neighbors, and would be lovers.  It is set during a time period that has a major concern over how things were communicated.  There was a real concern for how the message would be taken – what impact it would have on the feelings and reputation of the person to whom it was directed, and what impact it would have on the perception of the character of the person doing the speaking.

While there were a few too weak in character to express their opinions, most, instead, took the time to think through the most appropriate manner of communication.  Given this, I wonder what social media would have looked like in 18th century.  Continue reading →

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The democratization of influence

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AssymetryWhile the advent of the internet led to the democratization of information, social platforms are leading to the democratization of influence.

Information asymmetry is when one party in a transaction has more and/or better information than the other. Think of purchasing a home or a used car.  The seller usually has more and better information about the condition of the home or car – how the previous owners cared for it, and whether or not there are any hidden issues.  In days past, the seller also had more information on what the market thought the actual value of the home or car being sold was than a buyer did.

Information asymmetry creates an imbalance of power during the transaction and  the party with the more information generally does better. Taking advantage of the asymmetry of information has long been a business model for large businesses to compete – that is, until the internet came along.

Continue reading →

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Driving Adoption is the Seed to Growing Your Community

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Growing communityYou have incorporated community objectives into your company’s plan, designed the community to foster member ownership and finally launched your very own community – so now what?

Well, that’s a great start; however you are not at the finish line yet. After the preliminary push to launch the community is complete, you must then shift your focus to a continuous effort to drive adoption.  This is a three-step process, which includes:

• Driving traffic to the site
• Encouraging engagement
• Enabling members to become evangelists for the community

Read the entire post on the Telligent blog.

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Execute Your Community Strategy In Waves

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Community WavesThe first to market, the first one with the answer, or the first one to accomplish a goal are all things that people aspire to be. Finding people who are eager to be the first one to arrive at a meeting, the first one to try someone’s newest food dish, or the first one to express an opinion in a community they do not own is far more rare.

It takes effort to be first in a community – no real culture has visibly been established, so you have to think hard about the appropriate way to contribute. It takes risk – there is no assurance that what you are contributing is on point, whether others will respond in a manner that is personally damaging to your reputation, or whether there will even be any return (a good conversation, increased reputation, a sign of gratitude, etc.) on your investment of time. So why be first?

Read the entire post on the Telligent blog.

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Community Design: An Important Element in Building a World Class Community

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How does peer support and social identity relate to building a community? These two elements are what researchers believe are likely motivations for continued community participation among users. While gathering information is often a key driver for initially getting members to a community, this is not what will keep them coming back and becoming active participants. When launching a successful community, companies need to act more like facilitators than as dictatorial owners. Listen to what the users like and want, then play the facilitating role as they build and grow the community.

So now, let’s talk objectives. With any new venture, whether it is starting a new social media network to try to become the next start-up sensation or something as simple as creating a new app for the iPhone – you have to have an objective.

Read the entire post on the Telligent blog.

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Planning for the User’s Second Visit is Necessary for Building a World Class Community

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Second visit to communityBuilding a world class community requires that you plan for the user’s second visit. Users will come the first time to have a specific information need met. They will come back a second and subsequent time if they can engage in community activities.

When companies are launching communities, they need to think beyond the initial visit and think about how they can ensure that users come back again. They need to figure out how they can allow visitors to see that there are other people that they can engage with around their common interest and that there are people with whom relationships can be formed with over subsequent visits. All communities, even those with a primary business objective of providing customer support, should have the same goal of repeat visits – even when everything related to the product or service is fine.

Read the entire post on the Telligent blog.

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