Photo cred: http://www.flickr.com/photos/skinnyde/146763376/
The sacred cows I mention below have been on my mind for sevral months
now, but I was inspired to take action after a community management
panel that I attended at SxSWi. My intention with this post is not to
suggest that we do away these sacred cows, but to start to be critical
of them. I fear that these 3 cows, in particular, are being accepted
as gospel, and those new (and not so new) to online community building
really don’t challenge them.
As with many good things gone wrong, these cows all began with good intentions.
Cow #1: You don’t own the community, the community owns the community
Original intention: To stop (mostly brand) community hosts from being
overly-controlling of the community, and being too directive of
community interactions.
Why this cow should be challenged: No ownership = absolution of
responsibility, and weak or no long term stewardship. The host *does*
own parts of the community experience, and certainly has the
responsibility to create a virtual “clean, well-lit place” for their
brand or organization. Perhaps a better cow would be: “You don’t own
the community, but you have a responsibility to be a good host, leader
and listener”.
Cow #2: Start by listening
Original intent: Listening was an easy (and fairly passive) way to get
brands and organizations familiar with the social web.
Why this cow should be challenged: Ok, this one isn’t necessarily bad,
just a bit misguided. My recommendation to clients is to start with a
conversation about your goals for engaging on the social web. A
listening strategy is key to managing a successful online presence,
but brands and organizations also need to interact. Another disturbing
trend I see with “just listening” is that some brands are wholesale
farming out listening and interaction to their agency of choice, as
opposed to creating direct brand to customer or organization to
stakeholder relationships.
Cow #3: Go where your community is
Original intent: Don’t just buy a platform and expect your community
to show up – (a.k.a. Build it and they will come).
Why this cow should be challenged: Many organizations are doing a poor
job of evaluating the opportunity for community on their own domain,
and are setting up outposts on large social sites like Facebook
because it is relatively easy and (initially) inexpensive. In our
“Participating int he Social Media Ecosystem” research project from
January of 2010, we saw that only about 1/2 (56%) of the participants
had a comprehensive social strategy in place – meaning, only 1/2 of
the organizations had spent time assessing and researching where their
community currently was, and the opportunities for on and off domain
engagement.
Assuming that the best place to engage members of your online
community is offsite (say, a Facebook fan page) is probably a big
mistake, and a lost opportunity to help transform a static corporate
site into a more social experience.
Those are my top 3 Sacred Cows. What do you think? And, more
importantly, what are yours?
Posted via email from Social Architect
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