Over the years, I’ve realized as I talk to community interaction professionals, whether internal employees or external firms, the issues we all struggle with are basically the same set of core challenges.
When I was at LEGO I found myself repeating certain things enough that I was eventually known for them. These mantras have stuck with me, and I’ve written about a few of them in the past.
Perhaps the most crucial mantra was quite simple: Everybody goes home happy.
The idea is simple – when creating connection between consumers and there needs to be a balanced maintained. Brands shouldn’t be giving away their time and product for no reason, and community members shouldn’t be volunteering to help a company for no other reason than "they asked". Both sides should be getting something fulfilling out of the interaction.
But here’s the all important question….what is "fulfilling"? Who knows! That’s up to each party to determine, and then communicate. The goal is that whatever the fulfillment, at the end of the day Everybody goes home happy.
This is a scary concept to businesses who are not used to interacting with their consumers. You don’t get an answer through a focus group, or surveys. You can only get real answers (rather than strictly data) by interacting with fans directly. Interacting isn’t only about asking questions, it’s about watching patterns, learning the inside jokes, and looking for potential benefits.
As a related sidenote, Tara was on a panel yesterday here at Blog Business Summit and shared basically the same theme, with different words. I love the fact that I’m clearly not alone in this way of thinking.
Tara says: "Community is a non-zero-sum outcome: everyone benefits"
More coming later, but I’m at Blog Business Summit today and tomorrow. Meeting great people and hearing some great discussion. Oh, and partaking in too many late night Seattle microbrews…
In the meantime, check out some of the live blogging happening:
There’s a ton more coming shortly if they’re not up already. Check out the Technorati search for more linky goodness.
I’ve posted another Big in Japan podcast interview. This one was more fun than usual as it focused on my favorite time waster: Battlefield 2.
At first our latest interview may seem a bit out of place for the Big in Japan podcast. After all, what does Battlefield 2 have to do with social media and community building? Quite a lot, actually. The gaming industry has been connecting with consumers and building communities around their products for years. Most brands could learn a metric ton from the gaming industry.
The latest interview on the Big in Japan podcast is with Michael Lewis of Combat Studios, the creators of Battlefield 2 Combat. BF2C is an amazing community system that adds a new level of play and community interaction to the Battlefield 2 PC game. Michael shares his experiences working with his community, and shares some great pointers we can all learn from.
That’s right, the iPod 5GB music player was unveiled 5 years ago today. 5GB ….ha. I’m debating whether the 80 GB is worthy of my purchasing dollars or if I should hold out for the 120 GB. We’ve come a long way.
I’ve been saying for a while that the future of social networking isn’t in larger, mass-appeal sites but in smaller, niche sites. Here’s some of the growing number of niche social networking sites:
Jake McKee is the Chief Strategy 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.
