MackCollier.com

Archives for April 2012

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The Two Keys to Building an Online Community That You Need to Remember

community building, online communityReward the type of behavior you want to encourage and model the type of behavior you want to encourage.

Reward the type of behavior you want to encourage.

Think about what behavior you want from your members.  Maybe you want more comments on your blog or forum?  Then think about how you can reward people that leave comments.  Find ways to put the spotlight on them and make them feel (and look!) special for leaving a comment.  That way, others will look at how you are treating the people that leave comments, and it will encourage them to do the same thing!

One way I do this sometimes is by ‘spotlighting’ a great comment.  What I’ll do is edit the end of the post, and add something like: “UPDATE: Jim made an amazing point in the comments, and I wanted to make sure everyone saw it….”  Then I would add Jim’s comment, plus add a link to Jim’s blog on his name.  This is a great way to thank Jim for leaving an awesome comment, but it also alerts everyone to the fact that there’s a great conversation happening in the comments!  Which only further increases the chance that there will be MORE comments!

Model the type of behavior you want to encourage.

When I started #Blogchat, I wanted to make sure that the community was helpful and friendly to everyone.  But most importantly, I wanted to make sure we were welcoming to newbies, or people that were just joining for the first time.  Because the chat moves SO fast, it’s easy to become overwhelmed.  So whenever I see someone tweet that they are joining for the first time, I always respond to them and welcome them, and encourage them to ask any questions they have!  I also make a point to constantly remind everyone that if they are new to #Blogchat, that they should feel free to ask any questions they like, because the group will be glad to help them.  By being helpful to others, especially newbies, I am modeling the type of behavior I want to encourage with other #Blogchat members.  And to their credit, the #Blogchat community always steps up and helps out other members!

Hey, all the cool kids are doing it!

The great thing about rewarding and modeling the type of behavior you want is that if you do your job, you’ll begin to see that several members of your community are engaging in the type of behavior you want to see.  This helps encourage even more members to engage in the same type of behavior, because they see that everyone else is!

Now the one problem this can create for you is laziness.  Just because your blog is now getting comments on every post doesn’t mean you can now afford to not respond to readers that are leaving comments.  At some point if you stop rewarding and modeling the type of behavior you want to encourage, your members will pick up on this, and they will also stop engaging in that type of behavior.  This also forces you to prioritize your time and really consider which activities are best for the long-term growth of your community, and how you can encourage that.

So are you rewarding and modeling the type of behavior you want from your readers, on your blog?

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Should Marketers Use Social Media Personally Before They Use it Professionally?

social media, companies, marketing, ceoI recently read an emarketer article on a study BRANDfog did into how employees viewed their CEO, if the CEO tweeted.

The study found that 51% of employees were more likely to trust a CEO that tweeted, while another 31% were much more likely to trust their CEO, if they tweeted.  The study also found that 82% of respondents said they trust a company more when its C-Suite is using social media.

Does this hold true for you?  Are you more likely to trust and view a brand favorably, if its CEO is active on Twitter?  I tend to agree with this, because it makes me feel that the CEO is at least familiar with the tool, and is likely encouraging their employees to be active in social media as well.

So to flip this around, instead of companies cutting off access to Facebook and other popular social media sites at work, should they instead be encouraging employees, and especially executives to use social media?

A big problem I see with how many companies use social media is that they view it as a marketing tool, instead of a communications tool. They learn about how popular Facebook and Twitter are, and think ‘Ohhh….shiny new marketing channel!’  When of course, we are using these tools to CONNECT with each other, not to market to each other!

What if a company was wanting to start using social media, and the CEO called her executive team in and told them to start a Facebook and Twitter personal account, and pick one other account.  It could be a blog, Plus, Pinterest, whatever.   Let’s say the CEO just told her team to use the tools for a month, and then everyone would report back with their thoughts on the tools, and their experiences.

If a company took this approach and FIRST used the tools personally, would that make their efforts in using the tools professionally more or less effective?  What do you think?

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Live #Blogchat is Coming to the Bazaarvoice Social Summit!

bazaarvoice, #blogchat, social summit

The first Live #Blogchat of 2012 is just 8 days away and will be kicking off Bazaarvoice’s Social Summit!  Social Summit is a fabulous conference that Bazaarvoice puts on annually to showcase how companies and their clients are leveraging social data to improve business processes and the customer experience.  I’m really looking forward to attending the Summit as it will be like looking into the future, as more companies get a better handle on how to better connect with their customers and collect their feedback.  And then act on it.

The event itself will be stellar, with three tracks and a great lineup of speakers including Wired’s Chris Anderson,  data visualization expert David McCandless, Ed Keller, CEO of WOM firm the Keller Fay Group, Andy Sernovitz and over a dozen more.  The Social Summit will be held next Weds-Friday, the 11th-13th, and you can see the agenda here.

And Live #Blogchat will kick off the event at 5pm Central on the 11th!  The Topic is TBA, and I’ll have a bit more information in a followup post next Monday or Tuesday.  The event is actually sold out, but Bazaarvoice has managed to set aside a few tickets for any of y’all that want to attend PLUS if you use code COUNTMEIN when you register, you’ll get $100 off!  Here’s more details on how to register.

Pretty cool, huh?  So I can’t wait to see all of you in Austin next week for the Live #Blogchat at the Bazaarvoice Social Summit!  Wait, what’s that?  You say you can’t make it to Austin next week?  Then we’ve still got you covered because this will be the first Live #Blogchat to be streamed live online!  That’s right, even if you can’t make it to Austin next week, you can still follow along online and not only that, you can participate in this special Live #Blogchat!  Bazaarvoice is going all out, and will have monitors set up streaming the conversation on Twitter as well, and periodically we’ll be pulling in tweets from y’all into the discussion we are having during the Live #Blogchat at the Social Summit!  Pretty damn cool, right?  That way you can follow the streaming online, and then if you want to make a point, just add #bsocial12 and #blogchat to your tweet, and we’ll see it!

In fact, the majority of the Social Summit sessions will be streamed live, so bookmark this page, and shortly before the Summit starts, you’ll see information there on how to view the sessions online.

So to recap:

1 – If you want to attend the Social Summit next week in Austin (and of course the Live #Blogchat!), use code COUNTMEIN to get $100 off registration here.

2 – If you want to watch any of the sessions including the Live #Blogchat, watch this page starting next Tuesday.

3 – If you want to participate in the Live #Blogchat discussion, add #bsocial12 PLUS #blogchat to your tweet.  We’ll be watching those tweets, and will pull as many as we can into the conversation.

Pretty cool, eh?  So happy that this Live #Blogchat will be streamed online as I know many of you haven’t been able to experience a Live #Blogchat yet!  And BTW, there are more #Blogchat announcements coming soon!

UPDATE: Thanks to James for catching this in the comments, but the sessions that are streamed at the Social Summit can be viewed for FREE!   So there’s no excuse for y’all not to join us and participate 😉

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What’s the Difference Between a Brand Advocate and a Brand Ambassador?

ManWMegaphoneLet’s say Stacey, Jennifer and Tara are on lunch break at the mall, and are headed to the food court.  Jennifer asks where they should eat, when Stacey points out that Olive Garden has their unlimited soup, salad and breadsticks lunch, it’s delicious, and well under $10.  Jennifer agrees, that does sound pretty good!

Stacey is a brand advocate for Olive Garden.  She loves the restaurant and eats there at least once a week.

But right when they are set to go to Olive Garden, Tara says “Well I think I will go to Chick Fil-A.  I tried their new spicy chicken sandwich combo and it was delicious!  It comes with fries and a drink for only $5.89.  Plus, I have three $2 off coupons, so we could eat at Chick-Fil-A for about half what it would cost at Olive Garden!  Y’all want to come?”

Tara is a brand advocate for Chick Fil-A but she is also a brand ambassador for the chain.  The difference in this example is that Chick Fil-A has reached out to Tara and is working with her to help her get the word out about the chain.  By doing things like giving her coupons on products that she can share with friends.

So you could say that Stacey is a brand advocate for Olive Garden that the franchise hasn’t connected with in order to see if she wants to become a brand ambassador.

The basic difference between a brand advocate and an ambassador is that a brand ambassador has a formal relationship with the brand.  The brand has connected with them and is in regular contact with them.  Typically, the brand does this in order to help the ambassador better promote the brand and educate their friends and people they come in contact with about the brand.  This can be very powerful because as we all know, we trust our friends and other customers more than we do brands.  It’s just human nature.

However, there’s a big caveat to this approach.  Notice I said that most brands want to leverage ambassadors as a way to promote their brand.  What many brands don’t spend enough time on is focusing on the feedback that their ambassadors can collect about the brand.  Since their ambassadors are constantly talking to customers about the brand, it’s a wonderful way for the brand to get real feedback from customers on the brand, what they like, and dislike.

So if your brand is considering launching a brand ambassador program, think about how you can empower your ambassadors to promote your brand, but also think about how you can encourage your ambassadors to get feedback from customers on the brand.  Then make sure you find a way to collect that feedback from all your ambassadors, so you can act on it.

If your brand wants to launch a brand ambassador program, here’s 10 things to remember.