The jury appears to be out, at least for now, on whether building a community around one's brand is a good idea, with most in the field stressing the importance of social media as a marketing tool.
But for companies looking to develop a consumer community, it may be worth it to consider the prospect of a private community versus a public one.
Two companies in this space, Lithium Technologies and Passenger, have different approaches to helping brands leverage the power of community. Lithium, a vendor of enterprise products, develops public online communities around brands, allowing consumers to provide feedback on products and tech support for other consumers. While Passenger, conversely, hosts only private online communities through which consumers provide feedback straight to executives.
And each company (of course) has reason to believe its solution is better prepared to help consumers get at what they want while helping a brand gain feedback and put on its We Really Care face.
According to Lyle Fong, CEO of Lithium, private online communities are inferior in that conversations between small groups of invited participants and company executives are kept under wraps and not searchable on search engines.
"It's harder to build a real community, and you also don't get people finding you," says Fong. "If someone were out there trying to find a solution to a problem, they'd never find it, because you need to be invited in order to participate."
Fong says Passenger doesn't so much create communities as it does "user groups," a model he says is outdated.
"I can see why some companies who are afraid of social media may want to start there, but in the end I think it's just a transitional thing," says Fong. "To create a customer community that is internal where you only handpick a few customers doesn't resonate with this world we're in today."
Justin Cooper, chief innovation + marketing officer of Passenger, on the other hand, says it's important to involve customers in the process, from idea-generating to implementation, by giving them access to company executives.
"The client, the insight they capture, helps them to make better decisions and empowers the customers by involving them in that process. It's very different from 'invite everybody and I'm not going to show up,' " says Cooper.
"People [on Lithium] are there answering each other's questions. Big
open communities, specifically in this case -- support communities --
are really not set up for people to talk to decision makers at the
company."
According to Cindy Commander, analyst at Forrester Research Inc. , choosing a type of community depends on your company's goal. "If you're just trying to generate a lot of ideas, a public forum, like Dell's IdeaStorm, works very well, because it builds general brand awareness, and it gives a whole lot of different types of people the ability to share ideas," she says. "I think private communities work better when you're looking to engage and to get input of a certain subset of customers."
What's the right answer? Who knows? In fact, if someone claims to know, it's likely that person is wrong.
"At this point, anyone that claims to be an expert in social media is likely to mislead someone at some point," says Cooper.
Well it will be difficult for us to reach the same conclusion as you did since you fail to present any meaningful comments to the thread. I'm not saying some of the comments have misconstrued the intent of the post but i was also expecting that you should have given us your own interpretation of what you think the blog was basically trying to reference. Trying to slate people's comments that they went off topic does not help the situation either.
I think what the headline "One media does not fit all" was basically suggesting that there is a place for both private and public online communities depending on what the corporate objective of setting the forum. I agree with you that the word "media" as used in that phrase was probably misplaced as it may connates various media like internet, tv. etc. An ideal subject would have been "One Strategy does not fit all".
Do you have any experience to share with regards to corporate bodies leveraging the power of social media???
(I wish I could find the threaded view of this discussion - tips?)
The title "One media does not fit all" really caught my eye. This is my first couple of hours in this site and once I did find the replies, I've enjoyed them although I had a different expectation of the conversation (based on the initial title).
Is it still possible to call a group of people that is built around a brand public? Public is build around the common good, that's what I believe. Whereas consumer cares about his satisfaction in exchange for money.
I agree with most of what everyone has said in this thread...it's on an individual basis what type of community one is going to choose. I can be a member of both...I like the security of knowing that a group of my peers is sharing my conversations on some sites, I like being able to choose at other times who sees my Notes on Facebook and who doesn't; and I also like being able to share my opinion with a ton of people, not only those in my network.
As for moderation, I agree there probably should be somebody watching and sometimes they are. As a journalist, sometimes I join social media groups to introduce myself and see if there are any candidates willing to be interviewed for an upcoming story. One site that I was posting on for this purpose, asked me to stop doing it. So I packed up my bags and left the site. I didn't like that at all...the web is an open space and I should be able to play how I want, right? Wrong. If there are rules, I'll respect 'em, but as Tom pointed out...not all sites have moderators or members who respect those rules.
On the other hand, I think privacy in "closed" communities is about as real as the tooth fairy. If you're online and even if you think you're in a private medium, you aren't. Okay--maybe your information isn't accessible to anyone through Google, but the company who's hosting the site is feeding your info to their ad folks who are in turn looking to get ads for your demographic. In the end, social media are great, but it's still one gigantic fishbowl and we can all be seen (one way or another).
As it is said there is no right answer whether public community is preferable to private community or vice-versa. It depends on your interest and how confortable you feel with the on-going debates. We can expect every kind of people to get involved and nothing prevent us from dropping from the forum if this doesn't meet our expectations. I also dropped from many community sites when I noticed that those were not the places I wanted to "be".
I think the success of any public OR private community lies in part in how well it's moderated, and if the guidelines even permit moderation. I've dropped out of communities (one on LinkedIn, for example) because the communities were being hyjacked by members with special interests and the overall goal was completely disrupted.
That, in my experience, has been a big problem with public forums. Special-interest membership bodies are less prone to the problem but not totally immune. It would be nice if you could expect people to discipline themselves on forums for the good of all, but it doesn't happen much of the time!
i agree that primarily it depends on the objective of the forum ,plus even within public forums you can have private members sections e.g facebook groups. i think this is even better than entirely private forums as this is like killing two birds with one stone. On one hand you can have a closed group conversation, while on the other you can collect public views on a given subject.
That does make sense. Most people stay active until they get what they want out of it - only a few find joy and interest in helping others; increasing that group is key in maintaining a successful online community.
Creating an independent forum that gathers information about everything would help keep everyone involved but it complicates things exponentially (and maybe too complicated to be useful)
Social media can also be a useful SEO tool. But, if the design comes across as hookie or disingenuious, I don't think it really does anything to help the brand, since people are adverse to forced social interactions--online and off. So, who know's for sure, but I don't think selected user groups do much to help a brand in conversing with their user base. That seems like more of a focus group, rather than an open invitation for customers/users to engage in conversation.
The ThinkerNet does not reflect the views of TechWeb. The ThinkerNet is an informal means of communication to members and visitors of the Internet Evolution site. Individual authors are chosen by Internet Evolution to blog. Neither Internet Evolution nor TechWeb assume responsibility for comments, claims, or opinions made by authors and ThinkerNet bloggers. They are no substitute for your own research and should not be relied upon for trading or any other purpose.
If you've been exhibiting signs of IE Radio withdrawal, today is your lucky day: IE Radio picks up yet again, this time with Dale Fuller, CEO of MokaFive. Fuller joins us at 2:00 p.m. ET.
Earlier this week, the Los Angeles Times posted a story entitled "Blogger, beware: Postings can lead to lawsuits," discussing the growth of lawsuits in the era where everyone is a publisher. The article points to some recent cases where bloggers wrote some racy things -- like the blogger who said that three Chicago judges "deserve to be killed" -- and were taken to court.
Getting to Work on Smart Work: How IT Is Transforming the Implementation of the 'Internet of Things' Organizations in all industry sectors are becoming more instrumented, interconnected, and intelligent -- and that's changing the way they approach virtually every facet of their operations. It's up to IT to help organizations adopt a "Three I's" approach that leverages the emerging Internet of Things and enables them to work smarter. READ THIS eBOOK
your weekly update of news, analysis, and
opinion from Internet Evolution - FREE! REGISTER HERE
Wanted! Site Moderators Internet Evolution is looking for a handful of readers to help moderate the message boards on our site – as well as engaging in high-IQ conversation with the industry mavens on our thinkerNet blogosphere. The job comes with various perks, bags of kudos, and GIANT bragging rights. Interested?
To save this item to your list of favorite Internet Evolution content so you can find it later in your Profile page, click the "Save It" button next to the item.
More companies are trolling social networks to find and vet potential job candidates. Beware the pitfalls of blurring the line between personal and professional lives.
When Reiter gets incensed over incompetent Verizon FiOS order-taking and support, he broadcasts it via Twitter. Did it do any good? How should your company offer Twitter support? Watch this for all the answers.
As enterprises leap into the Web 2.0 world of blogging, commenting, and social networking, just 'being there' won't deliver ROI. You may want a 'Web Evangelist' to systematically harvest the feedback in order to polish your product or service.
What can users today do to protect their online privacy? The simplest and most obvious option is to not use the Internet – at all. However, once all digital information is consolidated over the Internet, trying to protect digital identity by simply unplugging from the Internet becomes impossible – a fact that has manifest implications for civil liberties, Saunders says.
By 2011 the number of Internet-connected sensors will exceed 1 trillion, making your chances of doing anything or going anywhere unnoticed pretty much zero. Saunders talks about how the 'sensortization' of the Internet is eliminating the traditional divide between online and offline populations.
The 20th Century Internet was characterized by the ability to interact with other people and information on the Internet largely without anyone knowing who you were. The Internet of this century, conversely, will be defined by identity. Saunders explains how Internet users are unwittingly contributing to the demise of the anonymous Internet.
Steve Saunders talks about the risks inherent in uncontrolled, widespread profiling of Internet users, and how one day this practice could form the basis of a new industry, the Outernet, which in economic terms will have outgrown the commercial value of the Internet itself.
Search companies and social networks are collecting incredibly detailed information about their users, says Steve Saunders, who predicts that these 'profiles' could one day become commodities to be bought and sold by companies on 'profile markets' or 'identity exchanges’ – the digital DNA equivalents of the financial and commodities exchanges on which stocks, oil, and gold are traded.
One of the most important Internet issues of all time is being ignored by the media. In this three-part video series Steve Saunders explains how search companies are turning the tables on their users by creating user profiles for financial gain, and how soon this trend will explode into full scale profiling.
Nielsen’s recent numbers on the increasing use of texting bode well for enterprise networks. Shunning the phone in favor of text messaging could mean reducing bandwidth.
RIM is giving in to demands by India to snoop on encrypted BlackBerry data. It's time to develop cheap or free encryption software for BlackBerrys and other cellular phones.
Two studios have filed suit against an ad broker for placing ads to help monetize P2P sites suspected of copyright infringement. That's taking a dangerous step toward what might be a worthy goal.
By 2014, mobile devices will overtake laptops as the appliance of choice for consumers. But device makers still have some wishes to fulfill, including mobile app simplification and the ability to better perform word processing/spreadsheet functions.
Google's foray into pay-for-view movies may be an indicator that the days of free ad-sponsored content are numbered, or at least that ad sponsorship won't fund nearly enough content.
Online education, improving to better replicate the interactions that occur between teachers and students face-to-face, grew in double digits during the recession. Still, there’s more work to be done.
Google's decision to link VoIP calling of PSTN numbers with Gmail, and to let Google Voice "call" Gmail VoIP clients, will devalue the PSTN and force telcos to fund unprofitable services or create their own VoIP transitions.
Digg
Del.icio.us
Reddit
Email This
TWEET THIS
