Canadian Marketing Blog

Once Upon a Time

Every story begins with one word; and with this, I begin to tell mine. This is my first of what I expect to be many more entries as a contributor to the CMA blog. It will be a place where I will seek to share and gain knowledge from the marketing community at large.

As a member of the Digital Marketing Council I am tasked with supporting the association’s efforts in closing the knowledge gap that exists in the marketplace as it relates to the digital realm. The space is changing so rapidly that it becomes difficult for marketers to keep focused on all of the moving parts while translating it back to how it impacts their business. Understanding these inherent challenges, I will attempt to address some of the pressing issues and look to shed light on how to tackle others.

Traditionally blogs are based on the views of one, the contributor, yet I will seek to incorporate industry guests when relevant and possible. Their inputs and perspectives will provide valuable insights within the context of true case scenarios aimed to provoke thought and spur dialogue. I will be leveraging social media where appropriate to gain insights, feedback and contributions from other industry professionals and will serve as the content facilitator and filter to ensure that readers are able to gain value from the content being delivered.

The first topic of discussion will be how to develop successful online communities. With the explosion of social media and technologies enabling consumers to evangelize and share their views with their peers, marketers are looking for ways to nurture and build off this type of consumer behaviour which has resulted in an increased demand for the development of consumer based communities online.

As much value as they may provide the challenge of understanding and developing one raises a series of questions such as:

1. What is a community?
2. Why does my brand need one?
3. What type of community should we create?
4. What resources are required (financial, human, technology, etc.) and who will be responsible for managing it?
5. How do we create one?

I will be providing different perspectives into the answers to these questions over the next several posts with input provided from conversations with industry leading brands. I encourage you to participate in the discussion and to become engaged.

I look forward to creating a great story with you!

Jeff Pontes, Director Digital Strategy, FUSE Marketing Group

I think if you're looking to create a community, the first question you have to ask yourself is why.

Brands like dell and Intuit have done so to support their products, but unless you have a loyal following like some fashion labels or beer brands, you might simply go with a Facebook fan page.

Creating a community is a huge endeavor, from support and management to content specialists and moderators, it takes a dedicated team. Then there is the need to market and advertise on top of it.

While working with a client recently, I found that their community (one of top in UK) was very focused on user value. And marketing was the last thing on their minds and everything was about the user experience.

This client averages over 10,000 members on just one of their sites (at the same time, not total for day, which is more like 350K) and their commitment to their community was a big part of their success.

My takeaway was if you want to create a community, you need to put the member's needs before marketing. Create an area where you can market to them, and others that serve their needs, but keep them separate. Members will be there for different reasons and will visit your offers if inclined to learn about it. Even if you own the community, don't pollute with marketing messages at every opportunity. It's a big turn off for many users.

A community is a group of like-minded individuals bound around a common goal or interest. As human beings, we have a natural affinity and desire to create meaningful connections. Technology simply helps to facilitate that process which is so natural for all of us.

Online communities typically emerge in one of two ways: they allow a group to self-organize around a common interest or they capitalize on latent networks that exist. You can subsequently divide online communities into two distinct categories: workplace communities and marketplace communities. Workplace communities are internally focused and used to connect a workforce across geographically dispersed project teams, departments and business units. Marketplace communities, on the other hand, are externally focused and used to extend collaboration, knowledge sharing and networking beyond the corporate firewall to customers, partners and suppliers.

So, if you are seeking to create a community in your workplace start by asking yourself, is there an underlying network of people that share a common goal, but are isolated by restrictive processes, geography or technology? And, if you are seeking to create a marketplace community, dig deeper to see if there is an emotional bond or connection that will bring participants together. After all, you can’t force community and it’s hard to build a community around something that people just don’t care about. Maybe I’m just not a “cat person”, but I still couldn’t believe when I came across another blog posting discussing a community around cat litter (http://www.breezeforcats.com).