I see many digital agencies falling into the trap of thinking they are online community management ‘experts’ just because they have created a great campaign in Facebook with 50,000+ fans or have generated 10,000 Twitter followers for their client.
Don’t get me wrong, numbers are good. Big numbers are a great starting point, but they do not equate to “community”. So, before I take you through my community management grid, I’d like to define what I believe “community” to be.
I’m not a sociological expert but rather tend to form my thinking from experiences that I am exposed to in life…
Being a Spurs fan and fighting off the taunts of failure from my mates, with the only other 2 Spurs supporters in my class – that was a community of three. It was then attending matches and sitting in the Paxton Road stands and feeling part of something way bigger than I could comprehend, but knowing that my voice made a difference, that I was a vital cog in the wheel. If I wasn’t chanting the team wouldn’t play as well – that was a community of 35,000.
Community wasn’t about the physical location and it wasn’t about the numbers. It was about a group of people with a common interest – a cause to follow. But more than that it was a group of people with energy, opinion and belief.
As marketers this is the holy grail. Having a group of people that provide feedback, have true loyalty and evangelize about your brand.
In order to achieve this “community” in the online space your strategy has to include following steps:
1) Enticing new potential members behind a cause they believe in
2) Convert those interested into interactors, willing to share their opinions
3) Turn interactors into followers/believers who will spread the word
In terms of the practical implementation of these steps, action needs to be considered using:
a) Content Syndication
b) Monitoring of noise and engaging in the conversation
c) Creating new opportunities for engagement
The three steps and the three types of action form what I call my community management grid, which can be used to help create an appropriate online community strategy. Below is a grid showing how the different components can make up your strategy:
Community Management Grid
Hopefully, this grid will help marketers to clarify thinking on the various critical aspects of community management, and focus on the day-to-day tasks involved.
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i love how you give structure to the hype. Very pragmatic.
You do talk about having a ’cause’ to follow though and I cannot help but wonder how a business/brand can identify that cause that stays true to it’s brand values, whilst resonating with it’s customers? Easier said than done I believe….
Nice article. I frequently have disagreements with people about numbers vs interaction – Quantity vs Quality.
On the one hand you have people just be happy if they have 10 000 followers, while I prefer 1000 followers who interact. On the other hand, sometimes you need that initial 10 000 to get to some quality 1000 and then build from there.
In complete honesty, I will have to read this about 5 times before grasping it completely, but just wanted to say that I am a loyal, long suffering, cape town born SPURS fan myself!
If I get some of this correct though, its about quality versus quantity, opt in versus opt out, and actually being onvolved in something bigger than ourselves as apposed to being part of a massive coffee chat group. How far off the mark am I?
@ AJKock: I totally agree. From an agency perspective you also have to throw the clients expectations into the mix. Social media is still a very new element of digital marketing and as such we find ourselves educating the client through the process as well. Many of them want to (or have to see) the numbers in order to justify the spend to the person holding the purse strings. Its easier to get sign off on a budget if you can say “we’ve generated 10,000 new Facebook fans” than it is to say “We’ve had 100 great conversation taking place this month and have developed 50 great brand ambassadors”. That is also why it is important to have clear call to actions and objectives so you have agreed performance indicator to reference back to.
@Rory Berry: Most importantly, I feel your pain. It was probably even harder to find someone else at school or work who was a Spurs fan in Cape Town than for me growing up in the UK – so you probably had it worse than me!
With regards the community management grid, it does take a bit of understanding. I like to keep a copy on the wall as a reference point. But you are quite right, it’s about quality not quantity, although as I mentioned above unfortunately quantity does sometimes become a factor.
I don’t believe it is necessarily about being involved in something bigger than ourselves rather than a coffee group chat. that coffee group chat is also important, the key thing being “chatting” is taking place. If people are talking they care. For me the most important thing is having a “cause” that people want to follow. One cause may have 10 people that care about it another may have thousands or millions. But for those 10 people it means something and add value to their lives, therefore that small community is important to them.
Its interesting this whole quality vs quantity argument.
I guess that once your client(when looking at it from an agency perspective) understands it properly then you have less issues. When they understand its better to have 10 people that genuinely care (your chatting reference above) as apposed to 100 000 people who have “liked” their fan page on facebook they can actively turn those 10 into 1000 by making them effective brand ambassadors.
From an entrepreneurial stand point if you understand this from the get go, you can turn your first 10 quality customers/visitors/users into brand ambassadors from day one and then you can grow “organically” with a higher quality of individual which can ultimately be more cost effective but potentially take a little while longer.
Reading Emanuel Rosen’s “Buzz” and Malcolm Gladwell’s “The Tipping Point” has helped me to understand how to best use those 10 quality users to create long term lasting relationships for my fledgling company….now its just a case of finding those 10!
Mike, as always COME ON YOU SPURS!
@Rory: Spot on!
But as you say finding those 10 is now the challenge – Good Luck!
Very true. Often people forget that your online community is your clients and the same principles find application to them than to those walking into your office / shop
If there is no interaction, there is no community, only followers. There’s more value in interaction.
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From wikipedia
Traditionally a “community” has been defined as a group of interacting people living in a common location.
Since the advent of the Internet, the concept of community no longer has geographical limitations, as people can now virtually gather in an online community and share common interests regardless of physical location.
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