MackCollier.com

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Katy Perry’s Firework Contest Shows the Power of Fan Engagement and Empowerment

Last year, artist Katy Perry launched a contest based around her latest hit single, Firework.  Tying into the theme of the song, she asked her fans to create a video telling her who was a ‘Firework’ in their lives.  Someone that inspired them, and for what reason.  The winner and their Firework would get a trip for 4 to London to meet Katy and watch her perform in a concert there.  Thousands of videos were submitted from fans across the world, before Cory Woodard from Georgia and his mom were announced as the winners of the contest.

But let’s be honest; this is NOT a contest, it is a promotion for Katy Perry’s song Firework.  It’s just that Katy turned the promotion over to her fans.  She created a way that fans could create content that would give them a reason share their stories of the people that inspired them in their lives.  A contest built around emphasizing the themes of the song Firework, and that would galvanize and inspire her fans.  The fans would then turn and promote the video they had created to their friends and networks.  And by extension, this contest exposes more people to Katy and her music, and that creates MORE fans for Katy.

But it all starts with Katy being brave enough to put the promotion of the song in the hands of her fans.  As you watch the video above, you’ll see how passionate her fans are in the videos.  Yes, some look goofy as hell (cue dude dressed as Katy), but the underlying theme is they are all passionate about what they are doing.  Katy found a way to connect with the people that are most passionate about her, and she inspired them to share more about someone that inspires them.  She found her fans, and inspired them to share their passion with others.  Which gives those fans even more reason to love her.

When I see a rockstar connecting with and empowering their fans like this, the question I always ask is ‘Why aren’t companies doing the same thing to connect with their fans?’  And before you answer ‘Because most companies don’t have fans like rockstars do’, ask yourself if rockstars have fans because of what they are, or because of what they do.

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10 Keys to Having an Amazing Marketing and Social Media Conference

Over the past 3 years I’ve spoken at and attended a few dozen marketing and social media conferences.  Luckily, most of these events have been solid, and even when I have spoken at events, I try to stay around for the rest of the event as an attendee.  Now is the time when a lot of events are gearing up for Fall planning, so wanted to share some of what I’ve learned over the years as a conference organizer, speaker, and attendee.

How to make your event better from the speaker’s point of view:

1 – Pay your speakers. Seriously, don’t you dare ask your speakers to work for free, so that you can profit.  I put in an average of 40 hours of time in preparing and rehearsing every session I lead at an event.  That’s a full workweek of time, and any speaker would having at your event will do the same, or more.  Yet there are many events that will charge $500-$1,000 per attendee (or more), and not even offer to cover travel for speakers.  If you are charging $1,000 a head and can’t afford to compensate your speakers, then you shouldn’t be organizing events.  And no, offering a free pass is NOT considered compensation, it’s expected from the speaker’s POV.

Now sometimes you can’t pay speakers.  I get that, so what you need to do is make every effort possible to make your speakers comfortable and make them feel appreciated.  Pick them up at the airport so they don’t have to get a cab.  Leave a gift basket waiting for them in their room with a thank-you note.  Make sure they know where their room/venue is, and that they have all the equipment they need.

2 – Give speakers as much information as possible on who will be attending your event, and what they want from the speaker’s session.  Work with them to make sure that the content they are creating will be consistent with what the audience is expecting.  If the speaker is better prepared, then they will deliver better information, and the attendees will get more value from the event.  And it will save the speakers time.

3 – Make sure all Audio and Video equipment is working BEFORE the speaker arrives.  Check with each room and make sure the setup is correct.  This should be done in the morning before each day’s sessions start.  Then throughout the day have as many people as possible going to each room and making sure each speaker gets their laptop set up properly.  And check with the venue and see if they have any additional Powerpoint clickers that your speakers can use.  Most speakers will have their own, but a few always seem to need one.

4 – Introduce the speaker when their session starts.  This isn’t a huge thing, but it saves the speaker from walking around the room at 1 min prior to starting and telling the room to please be quiet because it’s time to start.  And it saves us from reading our own bio, which really isn’t something that a lot of speakers look forward to.

5 – Record each speaker’s session and offer them a copy of the video.  This is also an incentive, so if you absolutely cannot afford to pay speakers, remind them that they’ll be provided with a copy of their presentation that they can use for their own promotional purposes.

 

From the attendee’s point of view:

1 – Let the agenda dictate the speakers, not the other way around.  Too many conference mess this one up.  You need to pick speakers based on their background being suitable to the topics covered at the conference.  You don’t want to pick a ‘name’ speaker and then tell her ‘you can speak on whatever you want!’  Your attendees aren’t paying to see popular speakers, they are being sent there by their company to learn how to improve the company’s marketing and social media efforts.  You need to give them speakers that will help them learn how to do this.

2 – Give attendees the opportunity to interact before, DURING and after the sessions.  A lot of events have gotten much better about adding in networking opportunities as well as tweetups/meetups at the end of each day’s sessions.  That’s great, but you also want to build ways for attendees to interact into the actual sessions.  And it goes beyond having Q&A in the last 10 mins of each session.  At the events where I have worked with the organizers, I have always pushed for sessions that follow a ‘core conversation’ format, where the session isn’t led by a speaker, but rather a moderator or 2 that are there to facilitate a free-flowing discussion among the attendees.  Because attendees learn more by discussing with each other what they have learned.  For example, in the morning there might be separate sessions on creating a social media strategy, and the ROI of social media.  Then in the afternoon, there could be a ‘core conversation’ on how to improve the ROI of your social media strategy.  Where the attendees carry over the thoughts and questions they had from the morning’s sessions, and discuss them with the two people that led the morning’s sessions.

3 – Make sure the venue has space available where impromptu meetings can be held, and work can be done.  A happy byproduct of attendees connecting with each other, is that they might actually get some work done.  Attendees might discover a potential partnership, or they might want to connect with a speaker about hiring them.  Or some of us introverts might simply need to duck out into a quiet hallways for a few minutes on a comfy couch to check our email 😉 Big hallways are also a great place for a speaker to meet with a few attendees to give them more personalized help dealing with the topic they spoke on.  The bottom line is that you don’t want to make sure that all your attendees are in every session, you want to make sure that when they leave the event, they feel like it was a good business investment.  This year’s SXSW was easily the most valuable event I have ever been to from a business perspective, and I attended a grand total of TWO sessions in FOUR days.

4 – Encourage speakers to attend and participate in the sessions of other speakers.  Let’s be honest, not every audience feels comfortable asking questions, and there can sometimes be a lull, especially waiting for that 1st question.  If this happens, it’s a good idea to have a few speakers in the session (who are likely fellow experts on the topic of the session), that will have a good idea of some of the questions that the audience will likely have, and can jumpstart the conversation around those points.  Additionally, attendees may want to reference a point raised in another speaker’s session, during their answer.  For example, if an attendee is making a point about mobile marketing, she might reference the discussion that occurred that morning in CK’s session.

5 – Give attendees something unexpected.  The 1st Small Business Marketing Unleashed I spoke at in 2008 was held in a hotel that was a replica of The Alamo.  At one of the evening dinners at a Marketing Profs event, we were entertained by a magician.  Most events are very boring, you are shuttled from one session to another for 2-3 days.  Give attendees a unique experience, do something different to make your event stick out from the others they will attend this year.

 

What other things have stood out to you from the events you have attended?  What are some examples of events that delighted you?  What has been disappointing to you?  If you were in charge of organizing a marketing/social media event, what would YOU change?

UPDATE: Speaking of speaking, I would be remiss if I didn’t let you know that the latest LIVE #Blogchat event has just been announced!  It will be in September in Atlanta as part of #SMIATL.

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Lessons From the Bookshelf: Marketing Lessons From the Grateful Dead

One of the things I’ve tried to make an effort to do in 2011 is read more books.  I am lucky enough to constantly be offered review copies of books that friends and colleagues have written, but rarely have time to get to reading them.

But at the same time, I didn’t want to do a simple book review like everyone else.  So I decided instead to give you ONE key takeaway from each book.  And the first book in this series is Marketing Lessons From the Grateful Dead, by David Meerman Scott and Brian Halligan.  Anyone that’s read my writing for any amount of time should know what a fan I am of how rockstars connect with their fans, and what companies can learn from them.

This book has a ton of great marketing and fan-empowerment examples, but the one I wanted to focus on was give your biggest fans the best experience.  Scott and Halligan detail how The Grateful Dead controlled access to their tickets at live shows (fairly unusual for a major band), so they created a way for their biggest fans to get the best seats to shows.  What they did was they held aside blocks of tickets (usually the best seats closest to the stage), and they sold these tickets to fans that reached out to them directly about ordering tickets.  Die-hard fans discovered that they could contact the band directly, send in a money order with a request for tickets, and if any from the block were still available, they would get seats.

And how was the availability of these tickets made aware to fans?  By good old-fashioned word of mouth.  Fans that had the best seats told other fans about how they got them, and word spread that way.  This also brings up another interesting point, the Dead gave their biggest fans the best seats, but they also made them work for them.  The fans that just wanted to attend the event could jump online and order tickets, or in the pre-internet days, call Ticketmaster or a similar service.  But the diehards that wanted to be near the stage had to jump through a few extra hoops to try to get there.  And this works out perfectly because the diehard fans are the ones that would WANT to make that extra effort for the better seats.

This example really resonated with me because I tried to do something similar with the tickets for the first Live #Blogchat at SXSW.  Due to the size of the location, there would only be 100ish spots available for attendees.  I wanted to make sure that as many regular #Blogchat participants as possible could attend the event, so a couple of days before tickets were available, I started asking #Blogchat regulars that would be at SXSW to DM me for info on the event.  Then when they DMed me, I let them know that tickets would be going on sale in a day or two, and asked them if they wanted me to notify them when they were available.

About 25 people (mostly #Blogchat regulars) told me they wanted to know first about the tickets being available, so when the EventBrite page went live, before tweeting out the link, I let the people that had reached out to me know about it first.  So the #Blogchat regulars that were going to be at SXSW and that made the effort to reach out to me about attending, got the first tickets.

What about your company?  Are you making any special efforts to connect with your biggest evangelists and advocates?  Are you giving them a better experience or more access to you and your products?  This was one of the many lessons I learned from reading Marketing Lessons From the Grateful Dead by David Meerman Scott and Brian Halligan.  I think you’ll enjoy it as well.

PS: If your company has done something similar to reach out to your biggest fans/advocates and give them a better experience, please do email me about it as I am always looking for great case studies to profile here (hint hint).

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Announcing my partnership with Content Marketing Institute

I’m very excited to announce that moving forward, I will be working with CMI (Content Marketing Institute) to help them provide content marketing strategy and editorial services to clients.  CMI Founder Joe Pulizzi and CMI’s “Strategist in Residence” Robert Rose have created a wonderful team of consultants that I have a great deal of respect for, including Lisa Petrilli, Jason Falls, Jay Baer, Dianna Huff and Ardath Albee, along with myself.

This team will be called upon to help CMI provide help to clients in three areas:

  1. Content Marketing Strategy – assisting an organization to discover the power of their content and how it can help to achieve marketing goals.
  2. CMIC’s Advisory Services; designed for clients that want to engage CMIC consultants for very specific, short-term engagements across the spectrum of content marketing.
  3. Editorial and Content Production services.  For those clients that need to source editorial or writing services, CMI works with its sister company Junta42 to help source the best content marketing agencies for enterprise clients.

If you would like to learn more about CMI’s consulting services, and how to hire us, please click here.

Even though I will have an ongoing working relationship with CMI, this will not change my status as an independent consultant.  I will still be providing consulting services to companies that need help creating and executing social media and customer engagement strategies.  In fact, I still have a limited amount of time available for the current quarter, so please email me if you’d to discuss how we could work together.

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Every piece of content you create should have a specific goal

A friend teased me yesterday that the posts I wrote on Monday and Tuesday here hadn’t gotten as many comments as most of the posts here do.  I told her that I wasn’t writing the posts for comments, but for search engines.

What?  Yes, the primary goal for my post on creating a Social Media policy on Monday, and on Blogging policies on Tuesday were designed to do as well as possible for a specific search phrase.  Monday’s post is now the #2 Google result for the phrase creating a social media policy, while Tuesday’s post is now the #1 Google result for the phrase creating a corporate blogging policy.  And my own blog analytics show that Monday was a record day here for search traffic, and then I broke that record with yesterday’s post.

But I wanted to focus on the search value of those two posts because I knew that they were covering topics that companies have real questions about and need direction around.  I knew these were topics that people are looking for help with, and doing so via search engines.  So I made a point to optimize those posts to do well in search engines, and it’s worked very well.

Does that mean I didn’t want comments on those two posts?  Of course not, but my thinking was that those posts were ones that readers here would be more likely to bookmark and save for future reference, rather than comment on.  Other posts, such as my recent post on why introverts love social media WAS written primarily to get a discussion started in the comments, and it worked beautifully.

The point is, you need to give thought to what you are trying to accomplish with every post you write.  For me, it doesn’t make sense to write EVERY post to win a specific search term, just as it doesn’t make sense to write every post in an effort to get 50 comments.  For me, I need a balance, because I benefit from having higher search traffic as well as more interaction here.

This can help you as well, go back and look the posts you wrote in March, and make note of the primary reason why you wrote that post.  Some examples could include:

  • To generate comments
  • To do well in search rankings
  • To generate email contacts
  • To send traffic to the company website
  • To generate sales/leads

Now go back to your primary goals for your blog, and see how those goals compare to the goals for the content you have created.  For example, if the top goal for your blog is to improve search rankings for company-specific terms and you haven’t written any posts with that goal in mind since March 1st, then that sounds like a disconnect.

This approach will help you stay focused on what your larger goals are for your blog, and help you track if the blog posts you write are helping you reach those goals.

 

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Creating a Corporate Blogging Policy? Here’s Six Areas to Consider

Creating a blogging policyYesterday we talked about considerations when creating a social media policy for your company or organization.  But if your company or organization is planning on launching a blog, you also need to consider what policies and guidelines (both internal and external) will be in place for your efforts.  Here’s six areas that you should consider when creating a corporate blogging policy:

Internally

1 – A formal blogging policy.  Similar to your broader social media policy, the blogging policy should govern specific issues associated with your blog, and be relevant to the blogging team and the content created there.  It should be governed by your social media policy, which should be governed by your employee guideline/code of conduct.

2 – A blogging schedule and guidelines for writers.  This will communicate to bloggers what is expected from them as far as output and timing, and also the focus of the content and the tone that they should use.

3 – Comment policy for bloggers.  This will let the bloggers know exactly how to respond to comments from readers.  A framework should be provided to bloggers on how to respond to comments, and the Air Force has an excellent flow chart for how to handle comments.

 

Externally

1 – A solid About Page.  This communicates exactly what the focus of the blog is to readers.  It can also reinforce to the bloggers what is expected of them.  A wonderful example of this is Patagonia’s About Page for The Cleanest Line.  It not only tells what the blog is about, but gives the blog’s comment policy, and outlines exactly how readers can contact the bloggers, and even how to submit posts if they want.

2 – The blog’s comment policy.  This should always be included on a blog so that there can be no confusion later on.  The comment policy should clearly communicate to readers what type of comments are acceptable, and which ones are not.  If comments will be moderated, that should be mentioned as well.

A great (and lengthy) example of the guidelines for readers commenting is on the Code of Conduct page on HomeGoods’ OpenHouse blog.

3 – Bios and pictures for all bloggers.  The blog should have a bio and pictures available for all bloggers.  This helps the readers connect with the bloggers and literally helps put a ‘human’ face(s) on the blog.  Here’s how SouthWest collects the pictures of their bloggers all on one page on their blog, and you can click on each picture to read that blogger’s bio.

 

These six areas will help you flesh out your company blogging policy.  If your company has a good example of a blogging policy, what does it look like?  Please share with us in the comments.

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10 Considerations When Creating a Social Media Policy

social media policy, blogging, twitter, facebookMore and more companies are adopting the Nike philosophy of ‘Just Do It’ when it comes to social media.  And while there is value in jumping in the water, companies and organizations are increasingly seeing the need for a social media policy that will help employees understand how these tools should be used on behalf of their employer.  If your company or organization is considering creating a formal social media policy, here are 10 areas to consider:

1 – Defining what ‘Social Media’ is to your business.  You can ask 10 different people what the term ‘social media’ means, and gets 10 different definitions.  Your employees are no different, you need to define exactly what sites/tools/etc fall under the ‘social media’ umbrella for the purposes of your policy.  For example, most people consider Twitter and Facebook to be social media, but what about email?  Your blog?  Your website?  See how clarity can help?

2 – Make employees aware of any special communication considerations involving your industry.  The pharmaceutical industry, for example, has strict guidelines as to what company representatives can and cannot say to current/potential customers via social media channels.  Make sure your legal team is involved to make you aware of what the boundaries are.

3 – Define what ‘acceptable behavior’ is for your employees via social media.  What language can they use?  How does their tone and the way they respond reflect on the company’s branding and culture.  Will what they post on the personal Facebook account impact their employment?  Spell everything out so there can be no confusion later.

4 – Define what employees should and should not disclose.  For example, employees should always disclose their affiliation with the employer when posting content to social media sites, and shouldn’t disclose financial information about the company that ‘isn’t for public consumption’.

5 – Make sure employees understand the ‘chain of command’ and who owns what.  If different groups/departments should handle responses based on content, etc, then clearly spell that out so the intern in product design doesn’t respond when the manager in PR should be.

6 – Spell out copyright usage in content creation.  Make sure employees understand and respect copyright laws regarding the usage of other people’s content.

7 – Make sure that employees understand they are responsible for the content they create and the responses they make.  Remember these three words: ‘Google Never Forgets’.

8 – Create stand-alone policies for additional social media presences that the company maintains.  For example, if your company has a blog, it should also have a corporate blogging policy.  Different tools have different audiences and goals, and require a slightly different approach.  For example, the Air Force has a fabulous flow-chart for responding to online comments.

9 – Make sure all employees understand what your social media strategy is.  Help them understand what you are trying to accomplish via social media, and that will help them understand how their efforts feed into that ultimate goal.

10 – Make sure employees understand that their social media usage on behalf of the company will be monitored.  Also remind them of employee guidelines, and how their behavior using social media is governed by this.

 

So if your company or organization is ready to start creating your social media policy, these are 10 points to consider.  If your company or organization has a formal social media policy for its employees, what other areas should be considered?

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How do you know if it’s ok to use someone else’s picture on your blog?

Chris asked me a great question:

What’s a good policy on using photos from other sources when you blog?  Can you use other sources as long as you credit them?

I am no expert on copyright, so what follows is mostly ‘common sense’ advice.  What happens if you find an amazing picture on a site that would be perfect for your post?  Do you use it?

My advice is you should use the picture ONLY if you can find on the site where the owner has given you express permission to use their pictures.  If they don’t list this somewhere on their blog, look on their About page, or they may have a Creative Commons logo that will tell you if you can use the content on that site.

So if you can’t tell if it’s ok, assume it is not.  And if you DO use a picture, always make sure you include a link back to the source.  Even if the person doesn’t ask for this (they should).

Now, what’s the best source of pictures you can use on your blog?

My favorite is Flickr.  Flickr has hundreds of millions of amazing photos posted by its users.  When the user uploads the photos, they set whether or not everyone else can use their photos, and under what license.  Not everyone will give you permission to use their photos, but when you are talking about hundreds of millions of photos, the odds are you can find something that will work for you.

Each picture you find will list on the bottom right of the screen either ‘All Rights Reserved’ or ‘Some Rights Reserved’.  If it says ‘All Rights Reserved’, then you can’t use it unless the owner gives you explicit permission.  If the photo says ‘Some rights reserved’, then you can use it, but under the terms of its license.  You can click where it says Some rights reserved to learn exactly what those terms are.

Here is an explanation of the different types of Creative Common licenses:

Attribution: This license lets others distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation. This is the most accommodating of licenses offered. Recommended for maximum dissemination and use of licensed materials.

Attribution – ShareAlike: This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work even for commercial purposes, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms. This license is often compared to “copyleft” free and open source software licenses. All new works based on yours will carry the same license, so any derivatives will also allow commercial use. This is the license used by Wikipedia, and is recommended for materials that would benefit from incorporating content from Wikipedia and similarly licensed projects.

Attribution – NoDerivs: This license allows for redistribution, commercial and non-commercial, as long as it is passed along unchanged and in whole, with credit to you.

Attribution – NonCommerical: This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, and although their new works must also acknowledge you and be non-commercial, they don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms.

Attribution – NonCommercial – ShareAlike: This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms.

Attribution – NonCommercial-NoDerivs: This license is the most restrictive of our six main licenses, only allowing others to download your works and share them with others as long as they credit you, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially.

 

So how do you attribute works on Flickr?

The photo above came from Flickr, from a user that licensed the photo via the Attribution license.  That means I am free to use the photo, and could have also adapted it if I wanted to.  For example, if I want to later use it in a slidedeck, I could, as long as I added attribution.

How I attribute photos from Flickr is via this method.  I add the following at the end of the post ‘Pic via Flickr User (User’s name)’.  I then add two links to this, where ‘Flickr User’ is, I add a link to the CC license that covers the picture.  Where the user’s name is, I add a link to that user’s Flickr photostream.  Now you can do this, or link to the picture itself.  And for some pictures, the user will specify exactly what link they want you to use, and in that case you should if you use their photo.

So that’s where I go for amazing photos, what sources do you use?

Pic via Flickr user Life House Design

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Want to know what’s next in social media? Listen to your customers

On Monday I was lucky enough to speak to students and business owners from across the state of Alabama at the PRCA State Conference in Birmingham.  During my second session (here’s the slides), an attendee asked me ‘What’s next?  What will be hot in 5 years, or the hot tool in 5 months?‘

I answered by saying that she shouldn’t be focusing on the tools, but on how we use the tools.

Why did blogs rise in popularity?  Because they gave us a quick and easy way to create initially text-based content.  Then, over time, the platforms evolved and new functionality was added.  Then we could more easily add pictures, and video, and then widgets.  The concept of the blog itself evolved, now businesses could use the tool as a more traditional blog, or as a website.  Or some could combine elements of the two.

But at its heart, the blog gave us a tool to more easily create content.  That content might be our thoughts and opinions on a personal blog, or it could be our marketing and promotions on a business blog.  Or a combination of the two.

Then add in things like RSS (Really Simple Syndication) and ReTweets on Twitter, and Facebook Like buttons, and all these ways we have to more easily distribute our content.

So that presents a new consideration:  If everyone now can easily create and distribute their content, that means we all have a lot more information accessible to us, right?  Maybe even too much, so maybe we now need filters and ways to better organize that information.  We need sites like AllTop that will organize all this blog content by topic so we can find what we are looking for.

Then what about technology?  Smartphones and continuing to become more sophisticated, as mobile networks are trying to meet users’ demands for more bandwidth.  As the networks become more robust and even faster, that will change how we consume and interact with content while on the go.

So if you want to know what is next in social media, don’t focus on the tools, focus on why your customers are using the tools.  Why do they like Facebook now, where they used to love MySpace?  What is it about the experience or functionality of Twitter that they love?  Don’t think about what the tools offer your customers, but think about what your customers get from using those tools.

For example, 3 years ago if I had a major customer service issue with a company and wanted to get their attention, past traditional channels (contact them via website, toll-free number, etc), I might blog about my issue.  Now, I would go to Twitter.  Why?  Because I know that I can probably get their attention quicker via Twitter.  But if another channel existed that would let me get a quicker response and resolution to my problem, I would go with that channel.

Because I don’t care about the tool, I care about getting my problem solved as quickly, easily and satisfactorily as possible.  Whatever tool helps facilitate those outcomes, is the one I will use.

What do YOU think is next in social media?

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6 Reasons Why Your ‘Online Community’ Stinks

community building, building an online communityIn the past couple of years a lot of companies have tried to create an ‘online community’ of and for its customers.  A lot of these efforts are really bad, and a most of the time they are scrapped within a few months, if not sooner.

If your company is wanting to launch a community site for your customers, here’s some pitfalls to avoid:

1 – You can create a site, but you can’t create a community.  The ‘community’ half of ‘community site’ has to form organically, and from your efforts.  Those efforts have to resonate with the people you want to connect with.  Otherwise, all you’ll ever have is a lonely site, waiting for its community.

2 – Focus first on building a community, not on monetizing a community.  There are few absolutes in the world of online marketing and social media, but this is pretty ironclad: Communities do not form around the idea of being monetized.  There is no group of your customers that are biding their time and waiting for the day that you will create a community site that they can group and give you money.  If you want to monetize a community site, then the monetization has to be a byproduct of the experience you create for the community members.  Give the community an incentive to form, then the money will come.

3 – Value creation must be baked into the site from the get-go.  Why are people going to come to your community site?  What value are you creating for them?  That will play a huge role in whether or not your community forms, and it will also play a huge role in your ability to monetize that community site.

4 – You need to give your members the ability to connect and have fun with each other.  Also known as ‘Where do we account for the ability to throw sheep in this plan?‘  If you want a community to form on your site, you need to think about ways to give members to connect with each other.  To learn more about each other, to have fun with each other.  You want your members to instantly recognize other members when they see their names each time they return to your site.  So much of the success of your community site won’t have anything to do with the functionality you offer members, but rather the connections that members make with each other.  You want to think about adding ways to make the connection process easier for members.

5 – If your community starts to form, you MUST spotlight your advocates.  As your community begins to form, some of your members will take on a leadership role, and will try to accelerate that growth.  They will be the ones that are explaining to newbies what the site is for, what the rules are.  They will be the ones trying to make sure that everyone finds the right information. They are the ones that have ‘bought into’ the community here, and want to see it succeed.  These are your rockstars, and you should treat them with the respect they deserve (all your members deserve respect, but you must spotlight your advocates).

This is all about rewarding the type of behavior that you want to encourage.  You want to see your members take on an active role in growing your community, and you want to communicate to the entire community that you appreciate the efforts of your advocates in doing this.

6 – Building a community is HARD work.  Were you expecting a turn-key solution to your online community-building efforts?  Bless your heart.  You’re going to have to love the people in the community, and the ones you want in the community.  You’re going to have to love the idea of creating something valuable for these special people.  Because it really will be a labor of love, and that’s what will give you the incentive to stick with it.

 

So those are some pitfalls to avoid if you want your Online Community efforts to be a success.  It won’t be easy, but then again you didn’t really believe that social media was all rainbows and unicorns, did you? 😉