Tag Archives: Community

Facebook, GoodReads, and… WalMart?

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oldbooksWhat was one of the first social networks I joined? It wasn’t LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter or even MySpace. It was GoodReads. I’m a big time book nerd, and I love that Good Reads let me search and review books and see what my friends are reading. I can keep track of books I’ve read, sort them by “shelves” and mark books that I’d like to read in the future.

But as Facebook and Twitter continue their dominance among social networks, GoodReads has done a nice job adapting and integrating. I can login to GoodReads via Facebook Connect and add the GoodReads app to my Facebook profile, which lets me post my book reviews as a status update. I can send book recommendations to Twitter with one click and I can search across my Twitter and Facebook friends to see who’s on GoodReads and easily add them to my friend list.

The key with niche social networks is keeping activity levels high – if no one uses a network, it’s not very social, and will probably wither on the vine. As Facebook has clearly emerged as the platform of the masses, it only makes sense to ensure that your niche network is integrated (if users choose) with Facebook (and probably Twitter, too).

One-Stop Shopping

Need an analogy? The way the retail landscape in the US has changed over the last 50 years provides a parallel. In the 1960s, hardware stores sold hardware, appliance stores sold televisions and washing machines, sporting goods stores sold fishing poles. Along came WalMart and put everything under one roof. Sure, specialty stores still exist today, but a majority of Americans have moved all their purchasing to a one-stop shop. [Avoiding side treatise on small business vs. conglomerates and respective impacts on community.]

So, if Facebook is becoming the WalMart of social networks, then the niche networks need to figure out how to integrate and play along with Facebook, like GoodReads has done. Make it easy for your members and users to participate in the content on your network. If most of them are already spending a lot of time from Facebook, then figure out how to make your niche network thrive on that platform. Don’t make them shop around, because except for your most passionate members, many of them probably won’t do it. I probably would have given up on GoodReads long ago if I wasn’t reminded of the site each time I logged into Facebook and saw the tab on my profile.

What are your experiences? Have you joined and given up on niche social networks because they weren’t convenient? Would you rather hop around to different niche communities on the Web or use a common platform like Facebook to interact? Let me know in the comments.

Image via Flickr user Auntie_P

What baby names can teach us about viral marketing

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hello-my-name-is_mIf you were born in the 1980s, how many Jennifers and Jasons did you go to school with? A lot, right? And then gradually, those names fell out of favor and were replaced by Ashley, Aidan, Madison, Ethan. Jennifer and Jason don’t even make the top 50 anymore. Other names have been more consistently popular, however. Think Michael, Daniel, Elizabeth.

What’s this got to do with marketing? Well, a new study looked at the speed at which baby names rose to popularity and also how quickly they declined. It turns out names that skyrocket to popularity are also fastest to fall into obscurity. The same behavioral drivers surrounding baby naming can translate into product and brand adoption. According to the study’s authors:

Fads tend to be viewed negatively, the authors point out. “And if people think that sharply increasing [popularity] will be short lived, they may avoid such items to avoid doing something that may later be seen as a flash in the pan.”

The paper points to examples in the music industry of new artists who bolt to the top of sales charts, but realize lower overall sales than those whose popularity grows more slowly. “This seemingly counterintuitive finding has important implications. One is that faster adoption is not only linked to faster abandonment, but may also hurt overall success,” the authors write.

Despite the excitement it generates for a few days, the video your brand launched that “went viral” on YouTube may be entirely forgotten in a few months or weeks and ultimately do nothing for long-term growth. But if you take a slower, measured approach to building a strong community of fans, your brand may remain popular for a lot longer. There’s no viral marketing campaign around Moleskine notebooks, for example, but the brand has built a dedicated group of fans that it continues to nurture and support.

Don’t mistake faddish-popularity as an indicator of long-term brand success. Fads rise to popularity quickly without any real reason – they’re not usually fulfilling a customer need (did anyone need snap-bracelets in elementary school in 1990?).

Instead of focusing on how to get as much buzz for your product or organization as fast as possible, think of how to meticulously build a community. It takes longer and can be more work, but the reward is much greater.

No one wants to be a flash in the pan. Not even Jennifer and Jason.

In India, Social Media without the Media

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I came across this article from the Wall Street Journal last week:

The Infomercial Comes to Life in India’s Remotest Villages
Traveling Salesman Mr. Sharma Sings, Jokes To Spread Gospel of Global Consumerism

It’s an interesting profile of a man named Sandeep Sharma who travels around rural India selling products from big brands like Nokia and Nestle. He uses a variety of tactics to get locals interested in his presentations, and I couldn’t help but think that he’s essentially following a lot of the tenets of successful word-of-mouth marketing and social media campaigns, but instead of using Twitter or Facebook or the Web to reach his audience, he’s doing it in real life.

Here are a a few takeaways:

1. Blogger Relations: Respect the blogger and make sure your pitch is relevant to their audience

Sharma approaches the elders at each village he stops in and first asks their permission to deliver his sales pitch and also to find out who he should target in the village (who has the money). He doesn’t just roll into town and start selling. In blogger relations, it’s important to engage with the blogger (the village elder) and understand how they prefer to be pitched and how to appropriately reach out to their community. This means no comment spamming or depersonalized e-mails to the blogger. Like Sharma, it’s important to ask for permission to be let into their community.

2. Brand Awareness: Get the audience involved

Instead of setting up a stage and just lecturing the crowds with a sales pitch, Sharma makes his presentations interactive. He invites participants up to the stage for quizzes and giveaways about the products. He gives detailed product explanations and demos and allows the audience to test out the merchandise. He stages funny skits and plays that the audience can participate in and has even run American Idol-type contests. All of this activity is focused around getting the audience involved with the products he’s selling. Too many companies or brands are still in the mode of talking at potential customers instead of talking with them. Sharma knows how to involve an audience and make them feel like a part of his show. They’re more likely to buy if they’re engaged.

3. Community Building: Respect community norms

The soaps and lotions Sharma sells are targeted toward women, but cultural norms in rural India dictate that he shouldn’t make direct eye contact with the women in the village. He sets up a screen to shield himself and he allows the men of the village to ask the questions, even for women’s products. Sharma knows that being insensitive to the mores and rituals of the village is a quick way to get run out of town. Often brands try to burst in on an online community with a sales pitch without stopping to first understand who makes up the community and how they operate. Spamming a discussion board with sales messages is a quick way to alienate the very community that you’re trying to sell to. Know what the norms are before you engage.

4. It’s not about the tools: Really, it’s not

Sharma manages to get villagers interested and talking to each other about products without using any of the snazzy, jazzy tools that we in the social media world are all spun up about. He doesn’t Twitter, he doesn’t push out promotions via Facebook, he doesn’t use e-mail. But he epitomizes what it means to be social and encourage interaction and awareness about a product with a target audience. The “it’s not about the tools” mantra has been repeated countless times, but Sharma shows us that it’s really true!

I encourage you to check out the article on WSJ.com. What else can we learn from Sandeep Sharma?