Page 298 - Social Media Marketing

c h a p t e r 10 : ╇ S ocial O bjects╇ ■a decision to build around an existing social object versus creating one of your own—
and remember too that you can do both—think through the decision from the perspec-
tive of your customers and other expected participants. Does your brand represent a
“near-lifestyle” aspiration? If so, consider building around that. Are your customers
interested in sharing their knowledge around very specific applications of your prod-
ucts or services? You can build around that product or service, and then facilitate (and
learn from) those conversations.

Brand Communities

Building a community around a brand implies that the brand itself is big enough—or
has been made big enough—to anchor the social interactions of that community. For
brands that are either sufficiently big themselves (such as GM) or sufficiently novel or
talkworthy (such as Cannondale’s commitment to cyclists or Tesla Motors with its
electric automobiles), a brand-based community may well be viable. Tesla, GM, and
Cannondale all connect to their customers in sufficient ways to support social interac-
276 tion. Cannondale might build a discussion forum around terrain exploration and rid-
ing safety, while Tesla and GM might build around their own insight and innovation
programs for future personal transportation using an ideation platform. For business-
to-business applications, a company like EDS (now HP Enterprise Services) might build
a community of suppliers and contractors, for example, who have a direct stake in the
benefits of collaboration aimed at process improvement in the delivery of higher-valued
IT services.

In each of these examples, the key is placing the community participant at the
center, and encouraging interaction between participants that offer a dividend—like
learning, insight, and a spreading of the brand presence—to the company or organiza-
tion. If your strategic plan for a brand-based social community includes this specific
provision you are on solid ground. Note the nuance here: The community (in this case)
is built to emphasize a specific aspect of the brand. However, it is the participant, and
not the brand, that is at the center of design and the activity that follows.

Product (or Service) Communities

By thinking about participants—rather than your brand, product, or service—as the
central element you will avoid one of the biggest mistakes made when approaching
social media marketing from a business perspective. That mistake is putting the brand,
product, or service at the center of the social effort and then spending money—very
often a lot of money—pulling people toward what amounts to a promotional program
in the hopes that they will talk about it, and maybe even “make it go viral.” This rarely
if ever works over the long term, and even when it does it still fails to drive the sustain-
able social bonding and engagement behaviors that result in collaboration and ulti-
mately advocacy. Be especially careful of this when implementing a community at the
product or service level.