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I recently wrote a whitepaper at work that may be of interest to you, fine reader.
The whitepaper is titled “Options and strategies for a safe site and positive experience”, and focuses on how companies can make the decision between pre-moderation and post-moderation of user submitted content. (Pre-moderation is a review process that happens before content goes live on the site. Post-moderation review happens after the content is live on the site)
For many years I’ve talked about three tenets of viral marketing – namely what needs to happen in order to make something "go viral". I realized the other day that I’ve never blogged these tenets so I thought I’d share.
As I’ve found, the three things that make something go nuts and get all kinds of attention… you know, go viral.
Exclusive
An exclusive element needs to be present. Not so much that you’re the only person that will receive this "thing", although that helps. Exclusive can also be a feeling, an inclusion in an inside joke.
Unexpected
In many ways, this is the most important tenet of the three. When we think about companies, groups, people, we tend to believe we already have them figured out even with only shallow knowledge. Being surprised and being made to rethink our preconceived notions is a powerful tool in creating an emotional connection with something. And when we emotionally connect with something we tend to want to share.
This article is a great look at how Netflix pulled off something amazing in building their business: The Five Lessons from the Netflix Startup Story. The article is a long but good read. The short version:
If you’re like me, you get a metric ton of email in your inbox every day. Most of said mails are poorly crafted, to say the least. To make sure you aren’t crafting bad emails, check out this article from the Harvard Business School folks. It’s worth the long read. Love it, live it.
Kudos to Sprint for starting the Sprint Ambassadors Program!
What is the Ambassador Program?
The Sprint Ambassador Program is an exclusive opportunity to try Sprint’s latest products and services made possible by the Sprint Power VisionSM Network.
Who qualifies for the Ambassador Program?
Individuals in select cities across the US who have access to the Sprint Power VisionSM Network. The network is being rolled out in phases and will not be available at launch in every US market. Participation is also subject to availability of phones.
What’s the catch?
No catches. No gimmicks. If you’re selected for the program, you get a free Power Vision phone and 6 months of free Sprint PCS service with no strings attached. At the end of 6 months, you may continue the service but the service will no longer be free. We do appreciate and look forward to receiving your feedback on our latest products and services.
This is a great approach – much better and much more effective than the stealthy, hidden approach that Nvidia recently tried to sneak in. Opening up a process like this shows off how much interest your company has in working with and forming a real relationship with your consumers. When Sprint launched this program, they immediately had a perception boost on their competitors simply because they’re sending a message that they like their consumers and want to work together on something fun.
But like any project, the devil is in the details. As this blogger shows, it’s crucial to put some thinking behind the development of these projects. Here’s a few tips:
As you can see, what may appear on the surface to be a simple process ("Let’s just email out some invitations and drop some product in the hands of whoever replies") can get quite tricky quite fast. Don’t get me wrong, I strongly believe that this type of approach is absolutely the best kind of marketing. It just needs to be approached in the right way to ensure that it doesn’t backfire.
Even though I’m currently on the agency side of the fence, I love my client side brotheren. After all, it’s only been a few weeks since I made the transition. And since I still feel the love for you client side folks, I’m going to share a dirty little secret. You ready to peek behind the agency curtain? Here is goes…
Marketing agencies that offer to run your blog for you so that you don’t have to spend the time yourself don’t care about you or your customers. Not even a little. If they did, they wouldn’t be offering to run your blog with you.
Your blog should be part of a larger strategy to connect to your consumers. It should be part of a process of opening the kimono, of forming a real, long-term, honest to god relationship with the very people who keep you in business.
Any agency that pitches you on the idea that you don’t need to be involved in that relationship building process is not only short sighted, they’re absolutely clueless when it comes to the larger picture playing out in front of us. Consumer expectations and empowerment are changing in massive ways. They’re seeking more, deeper connections to brands and companies. That’s right, they want a real relationship.
Now think about all the relationships in the rest of your life. Imagine you meet someone attractive at a party. You chat them up over the course of the night, and do the phone number exchange. You arrange a date, show up at the restaraunt, and there’s someone else sitting across the table. You’re confused – you inquire.
You: “Uh… I was supposed to be meeting _____ here. Who are you?”
Stranger: “Oh, don’t mind me, I’m authorized to speak for _____.”
You: “So you’re closely connected to ______?”
Stranger: “No, he just paid me to be here and told me what to say. It’s OK though, it’s more about having the communication than the quality of the communication, right?”
Check please.
My approach to this subject is different – rather than the agency trying to place themselves as the “invaluable middleman”, I believe the agency should be more of a marriage counselor helping the two parties to connect. Lesser agencies fear that doing this will result in them getting less future business. The reality is that if you help your client achieve that kind of success, they will not only want to work with you again, but they’ll be in a position to push the envelope even further. This means more money for you, Mr. Agency Guy.
Clients, please remember that marginal agencies try to make money by looking out for themselves. Great agencies make money by looking out for their clients.
I’ve been working on community/company interaction thing for a while now, and I’m continually surprised at how many people ask me what the guidelines are, the rules for working directly with consumers. Perhaps it’s time for a manifesto, something us marketing folks can use as a baseline before charging into social groups trying to meet our revenue objectives. The focus here isn’t on building online community as a company rep (Guy covers the basics of that wonderfully). Rather the focus is how, as a company rep, to interact with existing online and offline communities, social groups.
NOTE: I’ll be continually updating this as I get feedback and tweak the language. I would very much like to hear your feedback on this manifesto in order to create something larger that just my opinions and approach.
So without further ado I present:
The Customer Interaction Manifesto
Honesty is not only the best policy, it’s the only policy
As I’ve blogged about before, honesty (and openness) is the basis of your entire interaction with consumers and colleagues. It’s not just about lies or lack thereof – it’s about the free exchange of honest information. “Open and honest” should be included in your new employee handbook and should be a mantra for company culture. This doesn’t mean that you should start sharing company secrets – quite the contrary. It means that if you can’t share company secrets, simply say that. It means employees need to understand that nothing they do is hidden or secret anymore. And it means that we all need to really stop and consider what’s really a “secret” and what’s simply bothersome to discuss.
Survey the landscape.
Before you start any interaction with consumers, make absolutely sure you understand the landscape. Fire up Google. Talk to you call center/customer service folks. Pick the brains of colleagues who have been around for years. Read up on the company history. Learn about what’s going on inside your company. Learn what your colleagues think of consumers and consumer groups. Figure out what the consumers are saying about your company. The moment you start interacting with consumers, they’re going to have questions – lots and lots of questions.
Their cause is your cause. Join it.
Once you understand the landscape, you’ll should know what their higher cause is. People don’t form and interact with communities in order to support a company. They do it to serve their own emotional needs. It’s not about Apple, and it’s not about the Apple iPod. It’s about helping others find and listen to music. It’s not about helping Fox make money off of the show Firefly, it’s about ensuring that others can experience the joy of watching the great show Firefly. If consumers feel strongly about something, whatever it is, then you should feel strongly about it too.
Listen. Always.
The moment you step into any community/consumer interaction you better be ready to listen. Every single time you get in front of consumers, physically or virtually, you’d better be taking notes, engaging in active listening techniques, and overall paying complete and total attention to what the consumers are saying. For every point you make, you should be listening to 20 points they make.
Share. A lot.
As part of an open and honest relationship, you should be sharing answers to questions, company news, and anything else that consumers are asking about, or you think is important to them. Small, pointless details to you are gold to your fans. They don’t get to see all the activity inside your company like you do, don’t forget that. And if you don’t know, just say it. Saying “I don’t know, but I’m happy to look into it for you” is an amazingly powerful message.
Drive the process, but stop for directions
Your consumers are a powerful force when they link up (whether in online forums, offline groups, or personal blogs), and there’s no question about their ability to do amazing things. But after forming a relationship and interaction with them, your job as the company rep is to help drive the process forward, support the cause. You get to work all day long on things that fans only have time for in their free time. You should be seeing the entire community holistically in a way that few people do. That means you should be able to see the future, to some extent. It’s your job to help push the community forward, after all. But don’t forget that the journey you’re on requires that you stop for directions, constantly.
Walk a mile
You can’t be remotely effective as a community liaison if you’re not a community member yourself. You can’t work effectively with an iPod community if you don’t own an iPod or understand the online music scene. You can’t represent a gaming company if you don’t play games on a regular basis. Not only do you not have any street cred, you simply don’t have the information and “resources” to be at all successful in your liaison role. Go to community events, volunteer to moderate the online forum, meet the fans in person. If the community members aren’t asking “Is this a company employee or a community member?”, then you’re not integrating yourself deeply enough.
Learn to take a good beating
That’s right, you’re the lightning rod for all upset, problems, and irritations community members have for your company. Take it personally, but only as far as it drives you to solve the problem. When you complete the circle of feedback (they give you feedback, you acknowledge, you address it, you share the outcome, they give you feedback again), they’ll begin to see that you’re looking out for them, and things will get less adversarial. Stick with it, it’ll get better and easier with every passing day. Remember – you’re not only overcoming any issues that consumers have with your company, you’re working on overcoming negative consumer perception of all companies.
It’s your family – fight for it, defend it
Above all else, your role as a community liaison is one of support. Your main function is to fight for your consumers. As marketers we’ve all been taught that it’s “not personal, it’s business”. But that belief falls apart when your company starts forming real relationships with real people. Think of your role as the older brother/sister, looking out for your younger sibling.
“It’s not what you know or who you know, but who knows you.” Susan RoAne.
Guy Kawasaki opens his blog entry "The Art of Schmoozing" with that quote. I’ve included the full list of his points, and have added in a few comments about how it relates to my work as a community liaison. Enjoy!
That is such an incredibly perfect quote. Working with community is all about the mantra "everybody goes home happy". And what makes you, the company rep, happy is seeing people do more with your product, being brand ambassadors. So that means your task as the community rep is helping them to stay interested and identify opportunities you know they will enjoy. You meet your goals by ensuring their goals are priority 1.
In the more than 5 years I was at LEGO, I racked up 450,000 American Airlines miles. I attended events all over the world, from large 40,000 people event hall events to small 4 person garage events. Much of this is simply showing "I’m here – the company is, in fact interested in you". You loose much of the "big company" stigma and stink when you willingly go have chips and salsa and beers at some fan’s house while looking over his LEGO creations.
Spot on. I’ve taken a few colleagues with me to events who have spent most of their time there trying to correct misconceptions that fans may have about certain issues. One tactic I always try first is to ask leading questions and let the fans get to the answer on their own. Tends to work more times than not.
For me, there’s two pieces to this. Yes, you need to ensure that the community members see you as a human rather than a community rep. But it is also extremely important to know your game. If you show up in front of hobbyists and don’t know as much or more about the hobby than they do, then it’s way to easy to write you off as a "marketing schmoo". Don’t talk about only company business, but be really ready when the subject comes up. Which leads to the next point….
As in the point above, it’s absolutely good to have a rounded knowledge. But ensure that you’re keeping up with all community activity and discussions. Even if one part of the hobby interests you more than another, you’d better be fully versed in all aspects of the hobby.
My colleagues always ask me: "How can you give out your cards? Aren’t you worried you’ll get a flood of emails or phone calls?" The answer is a simple: no.
First off, I had some methods I employee to combat any possible contact overflow. First, I had two sets of business cards – one with my full contact details, and one with only my email address. Both worked equally well for getting the point across that I was interested in hearing from the fans. But while 90% of the fans were respectful of my weekend time, 10% weren’t. So giving out my cell phone or desk phone was not something I did much. There was a sliding scale of contact. Everyone had my email, some had my instant messenger, and very few had my phone.
But over the years, I too have given out my contact info a great many times. And it resulted in nearly 17,000 incoming emails from fans. But as strange as this may sound, that was fairly managable.
From a practical standpoint, make your "community friendly" email address easy. I had to fight the LEGO IT tooth and nail to get jake@lego.com in addition to my standard jacob.mckee@america.lego.com, and it was well worth it. People can actually remember the first off the top of their head, even if they completely forget it. The second one…well…..
When talking about community, it’s also a culture thing. You have to make it clear that it’s OK to contact you. One of the reasons I had 17,000 incoming emails is because I made it clear over and over and over that it was OK to contact me. That 90% of fans are completely polite and respectful and don’t want to bother you while you’re working… even if your job is to be bothered.
This has come in so very handy over the years. This is as much about having the favors returned as it is creating a culture of support. You do something nice for community Web site A, then when they received leaked photos of your new products, they’re much less inclinded to post them without asking you if it’s OK. Favors are the juice that makes your job possible.
This is also how a relationship is formed. And since relationships are the core of a community person’s activities, you can’t wait to start building them.
5 Tips from Ubisoft’s Nate Mordo
Here’s 5 good tips for working with online communities from Nate Mordo, Mananger of Online Marketing for Ubisoft.
Internet communities are notoriously good at smelling a rat. If you’re not honest, even by omission, you can get in big trouble.
Tip #2. Provide tools
More and more media is not simply being passively consumed but being remixed. Give a community tools they can use to upload artwork, create their own blog, or join a message board. For example, if a person is able to upload a picture of himself dressed as a character from a game, he feels like he’s actually doing something rather than just passively viewing a trailer of the game.
Tip #3. Don’t try to control the message
A brand used to be able to carry a company through hard times. Today, brands can’t trust that anymore, because the minute a company does something "wrong," it’s dissected online. If you decide not to put up a message board because you’re afraid people might write something negative about you, you’re simply hiding your head in the sand. Instead, learn from what is being said.
Tip #4. Hierarchy is important
In a community, "elders" begin to emerge, and their opinion counts more than the opinion of someone new. Communities like bragging rights, so find ways to make status clear. You might assign points based on how many times a person has posted or how much they read on the site. A certain number of points signifies a certain rank.
Tip #5. Differentiate between blogs and message board
A blog is a soapbox, mainly for a single person, with a small number of people who give feedback. It’s "one-to-many." A message board is more of a roundtable, "many-to-many." The difference is subtle but important, and if you want to foster community you might want to consider both.
Steve Rubel pointed this story out:
I’d bet Allchin got more pointed feedback out of that few hours and few hundred dollars over dinner than he could have gotten with a $50,000 focus group. And PR…. here I am writing about how Microsoft is doing something right. Can you imagine such a thing just a few years back? There’s a very key message here:
Marketing (and even PR) people tend to see things in terms of how much the budget is. The first step in any new project is asking "What’s my budget". When it comes to interacting with consumers, money is a second step. The first step is to figure out what you’re trying to do, who you’re doing it it with, and who to talk to.
Probably about 60% of my (fairly tiny) budget each year is focused on travel costs (hotel, rental cars, planes). Yes, only about 40% of the budget is divided up on "activities". This isn’t because I don’t have enough money, it’s because working with community is about the conversation, the relationship not the glossy programs.
This isn’t to say that glossy programs don’t have their place. It’s all part of a integrated approach to accomplishing a mission (usually to sell more products). Glossy campaigns are part of what fuel interest in the product line overall within the community. (Think Apple commercials and the Apple iPod community)
Colleagues always ask me "How can we actually talk to consumers". I make a funny hand/arm motion representing me picking a person on my left and moving them to my right. It’s literally that simple - if you want to talk to someone, ask. If you’re asking the right people, they’ll be happy to join you. After all, everyone likes to feel like they’re the expert on a subject and their opinion is valuable.
Jake McKee is the Chief Idea Officer and Ant Wrangler at Ant's Eye View, a customer experience strategy practice focused on helping clients escalate their customer experience. With a rich background in customer collaboration, online communities, and fan groups, and Web development, community management, and product development, Jake helps organizations understand how to act like groups of people, rather than soulless money making machines.
