Gez Daring, Client Services Managergez@kmp.co.uk | @gezd | facebook.com/gerarddaring1 July 2010

Online Community DOs and DON’Ts

...or how I learned to stop worrying and love Online Communities

What’s the big hurry?

It took radio 38 years to reach 50 million listeners. Terrestrial TV took 13 years to reach 50 million viewers. The internet took four years to reach 50 million users...

In less than seven months, Facebook has added

200 million users. 

Source: e-consultancy

Act Now!

DO Listen

DO

• Monitor Your brand– Everyone should do this

• Investigate Trending Topics• Learn the rules• Feedback– What are you doing right?– Or wrong?

Listen

DO• Listening tools– Market Sentinel– BuzzMonitor

• Also...– Twitter Search– Technorati Search– Google Blog search– Board Reader

Listen

Respond and React

• Online– Engage (Good or Bad)– Campaign (New Goals?)– Beware the lonely troll– Steer traditional digital activity

• Offline– Act on feedback– Tackle problems from the source– Use the buzz!

DO

Wispa

Wispa

• 2003 – Wispa brand was phased out and replaced by "Dairy Milk Bubbly".

• Internet campaigns and an online petition - bring it back!

• Iggy and the Stooges' 2007 performance at Glastonbury: several fans invaded the stage with a banner saying “Bring Back the Wispa”.

• Bring Back Wispa groups on Bebo, MySpace and Facebook 

• Out of date Wispa sold for £2250 on eBay

Wispa

• August 2007 – Cadbury announce that the bar would be relaunched with limited production

• Wispa launched on a permanent basis in October 2008

• "For the Love of Wispa" campaign called for the public to donate locations, actors, props and other material, for an advert.

• On 14 September 2009, Wispa Gold will be relaunched for a limited time, due to popular demand.

John McCain PPC

• Eric Frenchman – Evil Genius – Identify hot breaking news stories– [Buzz Monitoring] and Google trends quantify

importance– Captures traffic as people begin to search and

drive traffic to appropriate landing pages– Stories with limited shelf life

Source: Pardon my French

John McCain PPC

DON’T

Broadcastjust

DON’T• Engage• Encourage• Excite

Broadcastjust

Use a BlunderbussDON’T

Use a Blunderbuss

• Not all Social sites will be suitable– Remember your goals

• Consider– Your target audience– Your content– The Sizzle– The sticky factor– Your available resources

DON’T

• Understand your goals– And your metrics

• Get your house in order• Choose your channels• Pick your Battles• Stick to the gameplan

Use a BlunderbussDON’T

Be a butterflyDO

Be a butterfly

• Be familiar with new Applications and their uses– Subscribe to industry blogs: Techcrunch, Mashable,

Read Write Web, Econsultancy

• Secure brand usernames early• Encourage user interaction around your brand.• See which take off. Engage if appropriate.• Monitor search results on Google and see which

sites rank the highest. • What tools are being built?

– Do any third party tools make a particular SocNet a better fit for your business?

DO

Wipe your damn feet!DO

Wipe your damn feet!

• Be aware you are entering a community• Learn the etiquette• Learn the lingo• Be respectful

DO

DON’T

Expect a red carpet

• “Build it and they will come” does not apply

• A presence is not enough• No one likes a pushy salesman• People will tell you what they think...

...whether you like it or not

DON’T

Expect a red carpet

Add ValueDO

Add Value

• Think of way to improve your followers lives.... even the smallest ways

• Advocates are valuable• APIs are your friends• Make things easy - integrate– Facebook Connect

DO

Sega twitter giveaways

@manairport live flight info

• We plugged the twitter API into the Manchester Airport live flight update service.

• User DMs flight number to manairport• User receives updates by DM

DO Be Brave

• To boldly go...– No blueprint

• The Social Web is a hub for gossip.– Did you see?– This is cool!– Isn’t this awful?

• Be remarkable... In a good way

DO Be Brave

Skittles

• Skittles launched a site allowing navigation of wikipedia, twitter search, flickr and facebook content.

• Users were in control of content• BUZZ!

Skittles

Be DodgyDON’T

Be Dodgy• Spam• Hijack• Game the system• Plagiarise• Fake comments / Diggs

DON’T

Habitat

• Hijacked twitter #hashtags to promote itself– #iphone #mousavi #apple #trueblood

• Backlash on twitter• Picked up by mainstream news– BBC, Guardian, Sky News

• Habitat forced to apologize– Should have done it MUCH sooner

Habitat

Habitat

Habitat

Habitat

Habitat

Whole Foods

• “rahodeb” was an active user for 7 years on Yahoo finance forums (2000 – 2007)

• Revealed good knowledge of wholefoods and the CEO (in third person)

• Criticized Whole Foods rival Wild Oats Market

• During a £600mill buyout of OATS a complaint was lodged

• Whole foods CEO, John Mackey IS rahoeb• Accused of attempting to influence share

price.

Whole foods

Whole Foods’ CEO John Mackey

Set your brand freeDO

Set your brand free

• Encourage and support amateur brand champions.– If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em

• Develop ideas with crowds• Trust the users to be your ceontent

providers.– Obama ran a successful campaign on YouTube– Or did he?

DO

Obama fan ads on youtube

Page 44

Vote Different Yes We Can I Got A Crush

Be a BullyDON’T

Be a Bully• If you find users doing something you find

objectionable• DON’T threaten with legal action• DON’T Make demands• Use legal action as a LAST resort

DON’T

Guinness VS FailBlog

Guinness VS Failblog

Guinness VS Failblog

Dear Sir/Madam,

Thanks for writing us an email regarding the “Record Breaking Fail”. Unfortunately, douchebaggy cyber-bullying emails will only bring upon you more shame on your house. I am also resisting the urge to write this email in ALL CAPS.I believe it is the duty of FAIL Blog(TM) to call out organizations when they encourage the public to do such things as “Break the record” for the “Most Individuals Killed In A Terrorist Act”. We firmly believe that our publication of your fail is protected under the concepts of fair use, commentary and non-trademark use. Please RTFM and we welcome you to teh interwebs.Since we at FAIL Blog(TM) don’t have a legal defense department, we have complied with your request to remove the trademarked term and logo from the original image. We have used the “naughty bits filter” on the image to secure your naughty, naughty, trademark assertions. However, we have posted your email so that our audience can see why we had to remove the name of the failer from the image. I hope that this is the outcome you have expected as now NO ONE WILL EVER KNOW THAT GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS LIMITED HAS FAILED.The full legal response can be read here: icanhaz.com/legalresponseCheers,FAIL Blog

Guinness VS Failblog

DO• Mahalo answers• SEO - control google– User profiles on social media sites rank very

highly on search engines. – Think about all those words you’d have loved

to have bought the domain for.

• Press coverage• Goodwill– Whuffie

Understand the hidden BONUS

In Summary

• DO– Listen– Respond/React– Be a Butterfly– Wipe your feet– Add Value– Be Brave– Set your Brand free– Understand the

hidden bonus

• DON’T– Just Broadcast– Use a Blunderbuss– Expect a red carpet– Be Dodgy– Be a Bully

Gez Daring, Client Services Managergez@kmp.co.uk | @gezd | facebook.com/gerarddaring1 July 2010

Online Communities DOs and DON’Ts

...or how I learned to stop worrying and love the Social Web