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April 28, 2009

Hooky & Sticky Social Media Ideas - our first e-book!

Here it is folks.
I'm calling it a wee-book: readable in 15 minutes!
Have fun.
Download Hooky & Sticky Social Media Ideas

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April 23, 2009

Thoughts on Community Nurturing

As we plan a project which will involve the cultivation of a user community, I've found myself looking around for best and worst practices on the subject. I found the newbie issue interesting. Here' a few things I've learned.
Support Newbies
Have a community manager actively support new arrivals, like any social situation they need to feel at home. The conversion of new members to established members is a critical transition point for any social system.
Newbies Need a Low Risk Environment
Once the threshold has been crossed, and the hero's journey begins, there is a lot of unease and fear of failure. A bad experience or negative connection can cause a user to detach, and possibly become a detractor. Establishing a sense of belonging and attachment at this point is THE MOST CRITICAL, if you explore attachment theory.
Newbies Must be Comfortable to Ask Stupid Questions.
'There are no stupid questions' has to be one of the commandments, respected by community managers and the group at large. Get a friendly FAQ going immediately, make it readable. The Slashdot community has a great one, it's a full education.
Get the Community Supporting Each Other
I suppose this is the essence of self organization, but the sooner newbie get involved in helping, the more solid the community will become. There's a great story about the Delancy Street Foundation from the book Influencer. The mission is one of the most successful 'rehab' communities in the world. Mission Director Dr.Daniel Silbert discusses how she quickly throws new members into a supporting role for even newer members. This causes them to learn, commit and attach faster to the values of the community. This self organization is key to the health of your community.
Social Intelligence Coaching
There must be strict 'be nice' policies in place, ecouraging the kind of emotional and social intelligence that any real or virtual community thrives on. Documentation on 'how to help' or teach or learn can be helpful, and celebrating the top helpers goes a long way. This documentation can be a white paper or ebook that has value beyond the specific community.
Look at Reward Strategies
Establish levels of rewards for people who are active in supporting and facilitating. Badges are one idea. Or reward them with funded 'real world' meetups. The support community should be a micro community in it's own right.

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April 21, 2009

Productivity & Inventing Tomorrow

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April 20, 2009

What Would Google Do?

Here's a few of the brain nuggets that stuck in my cranium from the first half of this brilliant book.
(i'll get to hyperlinking this piece soon)
• Customer as Partner; Be careful when you hand over control, (not that you have a choice) because the game is changed; Jarvis takes us through his Dell Sucks story. He points out that control is no longer a reality. Partnership is.
• The Age of the Hyperlink; a hyperconnected universe means you need to be a network or join a network, but connections are key. This is how you get Google Juice. Google juice is that wonderful elixir that gets you respect in the Googleverse. Jarvis points out that GJ might be how companies are evaluated one day. Funny. But possible.
• Be a Platform. Help people accomplish their goals. Be useful, thoughtful, add value. Link to things that people want and need. Have a fresh perspective. Make live wonderful, easy, longer for people and they will reward you with their support and their returned attention. The attention market demands this relationship.
• Get Distributed. Give stuff away, it's the free/gift economy. The more you give the more you get. Back to Google Juice. The key is, within this network, to have one thing your platform is built on that people can only get from you. And link to the rest. Get to know the words and phrases your audience uses. Use them in your content. Be them. Hire them.
• Life is now Public. I love the idea of Publicness; the act of offering your wares and ideas to the world, letting people know who you are, what you do and what you believe. The Cluetrain Manifesto pointed out that humanity and voice will be key to adding flesh to an otherwise intangible creation in the virtual world. But publicness is also about the 'socialization' of your offering, letting everyone see what you and others are up to on your platform.
• Your Customers are your Agency; more than ever, a happy customer is gold. In the world of Twitter, a great experience can be tweeted to hundreds of people. Yesterday, someone tweeted the brand of beer they were about to relax with, and I chose that brand when I made my purchase a few hours later. Talk about top-of-mind! Jarvis is not a fan of ads, he point out that the generation that was bombarded with Yahooooo ads is now Googling feverishly.
• Elegant Organization; FaceBook wunderkid coined this phrase, referring to the concept behind his platform. Elegant org is giving seamless tools to people to organize themselves, their lives and their interests. It's flexible and respectful of the fact that community is something you facilitate, you don't own.
• The Post Scarcity Economy; is a world where we have enough of everything, so we need to enter the gift economy, where adding value is a must. But really, this is social intelligence. You give to get. The 'long tail' or 'mass of niches' is the new reality, where 'gifts' of value and expertise can position you as a platform to 'true fans'.
• The End of the Middleman; The internet hates inefficiency. CraigsList is a great example of connecting classifieds to people without the need for newspaper in the middle. Elegant organization meets the Gift Economy...
• Life in Beta; beta is Googles way of never having to say you're sorry. The beta idea allows you to innovate quickly, make mistakes swiftly, and fix them rapidly.
• Find the Problem Before the Solution; Google is a utility company. They create things that people need. Then they give it away. (they make money as essentially an advertising entity)
• Simplify! Once you figure out the business you're in, get really focused. Compare their home page to Yahoo's. (they actually had issues in the early days, because people kept wanting to scroll down for the content...
That's it for now. Part 2 later.