Last week at lunch, Patrick Rooney and I were talking about the digital divide between the social media culture and the companies looking for ways to join it. We discussed how the lovely social media landscape can look a little unfriendly when you consider it from that perspective. We’ve all seen what social media backlash can do.
The expectation that a company will adapt immediately and seamlessly without error to new culture is unrealistic. You and I didn’t. Did we? What a business moving into social media needs is a way for people get to know them.
Not Every Town Square Needs to Be a Coliseum
The first time I went to London, I didn’t know much beyond the language. Luckily my friend, Richard, met me at the airport that morning. We went to a local eatery — a pub really — and he gave me a quick rundown on the currency and the “rules.” As a saloonkeeper’s daughter, my favorite was Don’t you dare tip in a pub that makes you get your own drink.
Culture. We learn it by sharing it. We pass it along to each other. As communities we build it and shape it together by talking about who we are, what we believe, where we’re going, what we do for a living, what we buy and sell, and what we need, want, and desire.
Piazza, Plaza, Commons, a Town Square, a Quad, the Food Court in a mall, a water cooler, a pub … almost every culture has theirs — a space where people gather for conversations like those.
In Mexico, these ubiquitous areas are called Zócalos. They are just as important today as ever â serving as a home for leisurely chats, special celebrations and neighborhood connectivity. While the most prominent Zócalo is located in Mexico City, smaller Zócalos exist in just about every Mexican community. –Zócalo Group
Not every town square needs to be a Coliseum or an Epcot Center. People meet on the stoops of a side street in New York City.
The biggest worries to companies coming online are fear of negative response, time investment, and skepticism of return. In a culture where the value shift has gone from one-size fits all to one at a time always, every business might try thinking small — smaller starts, smaller steps — but more of them.
Listen and make relationships. Then build something small. Small communities are investments. Small communities grow and as they grow, the business can build a unique culture with them.
Small Communities Grow
A great example of a business that’s doing this well is a client of mine. The core business is a seamless system of integrating human and technological translation for WordPress blogs and CMS.
To offer value and build community, ICanLocalize has build a sister site, ICanLocalize for Developers and Designers a content site that has grown out of the work on the plugin that drives the translations. I asked Amir Helzer, the owner, why he developed this second site. He said,
I wanted to create a multilingual resource and an active community for people who are using WordPress to build complex websites. So I built Baripedia on a WordPress CMS and ICanLocalize for Developers and Designers.
Here’s the beauty of building by, for, and with the community.
- The proof of his credibility and commitment to the community is in Baripedia, a tourist site about Bariloche, Argentina. Whether they care about WordPress or their next visit to Argentina, the site has value. People can interact with site immediately.
- As the site grows, visitors will be invited to add content, developers will be invited to participate in redesigns, and both communities can be invited to review what has been changed or added over time. The site will grow as the communities grow with it. The questions that arise with managing user-generated content can be staged and considered on their own.
- At the same time, the multilingual site ICanLocalize for Developers and Designers will be built out on WordPressMU. A truly international WordPress discussion on CMS, plugins, design, and development will be available throughout the domain. Again the community will help form and shape the content as it grows.
Everything that ICanLocalize is doing builds the community and the business simultaneously. The community has a compelling reason to participate because the value is there, yet the invitation to add more is always open. And both community sites will bring interest back to the original business site by the way that they naturally feature the skills and expertise of the business that built them for the communities.
As they say, Bariloche wasn’t built in a … few lines of code.
Any business can do this. It’s building a business like we write a blog post. Leaving room for people to come in and add their own ideas, not tying it up with a bow so that all visitors can comment is “good job!”
Twitter. It began with a question, What are you doing? Look at it now. The community interaction made most of that.
Zócalos, Plaza, Piazza
a place where all traffic stops for coffee, conversation, community
How might you add a small community to a business site? What ideas would have for a business like Motrin, or Walmart, or maybe your local book store?
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!
Great post. I love “People meet on the stoops of a side street in New York City. ” because its so true.
The problem with a lot of companies/orgs/groups, big and small, is that they have a hard time thinking long term in regards to community and social media. If a brand wasn’t built in a day, why would you think you a community happens when you “add water”. It takes time and effort to grow and tend a community. Its a commitment, not a campaign – but you already know this 🙂
Great post
Neat project your sharing here.
After spending the last five months learning about this space, I am now bringing my findings back to my work place. It’s so cool to turn others on to these tools, but the fears around ROI are real. Your sense of not playing to the huge arena, but the intimate space makes me think along these lines…I’d much rather see Bob Dylan perform in a coffeehouse than Giants Stadium. As I move forward, I also see that the intimacy is scalable…for consistent content streams can maintain relationships between touch points.
Hi Richard,
As someone who’s built a conference dedicated to staying in one room. I’ve learned that you don’t go bigger, you go wider and deeper for the same audience, and build new conference to the same model for the same efficiencies.
I call it the cirque de soliel model … no one is watching them fail. 🙂
I love it Liz. You make it seem much more doable for me. There’s really no hurry, is there? The relationship in front of me is the ONLY one that’s important. There’s a whole world lying inside of each person we talk to.
Sean, I like your thought that this is a long term solution. My favorite kind. (not a “just add water” type)
Sean,
You’ve said it in such clear terms I had to share it on Twitter. Thank you for a quote I know I’ll be repeating more than today!
If a brand wasnât built in a day, why would you think you a community happens when you âadd waterâ.
Thanks, Todd,
The more I think about it, the more I realize that building a community is quite predictable if we take the time to plan what we’re doing and listen to the people who join us as we build the culture with them. 🙂
That makes sense, Liz. Roses give predictably beautiful flowers if you know where to plant them and how to encourage their growth.
Yummy ideas.
Hi Todd!
Your rose metaphor is most appropriate, especially when so many are fearful of the thorns.
Thanks Rebecca!
🙂
Brands are something that customers DO to your business – not something you DO to your business from the inside out. Which is why Web 2.0 scares the bejeebers out of many businesses (both big AND small).
Some of the best wisdom on the web is delivered here – and a while back it was focused upon “listening”.
When you listen – you learn. For example, if you learned the lesson of not to tipping in a pub where you get your own drink right after leaving a nice big tip – it can make you cringe a bit inside. However, it’s better knowing than to keep tipping inappropriately.
In order for any business to begin building community – one first must be willing to listen. Ah- there’s the rub. How do you get business principles to be WILLING to listen?
Ah – the simple joys of owning a small business!!!
Thanks Liz for the great post. I’d like to add from my own experience that the listening part is the hardest.
Getting feedback by itself isn’t a problem. Adjusting your plans and your perception of reality is where the challenge is.
Usually, you get all the answers quickly and honestly. It’s just difficult to use that information when you’ve got an image of how things should be, stuck in your head.
Hi Kathy,
The thing that makes small business so flexible is that small businesses have so many fewer minds to convince, so much less tradition, so many fewer rules to adapt and rewrite to the new culture. We have an advantage in taking on new thinking … or just learning from listening. I think it’s less will and more capability. 🙂
Hi Amir,
That image stuck in our heads is also how I think of it. When someone says something to change that picture, sometimes I go through “structure damage” — my mind doesn’t want to see the image breakdown and reform again.
I so hear what you’re saying. When I recognize what’s going on, my response to feedback is so much more positive.
“The expectation that a company will adapt immediately and seamlessly without error to new culture is unrealistic. You and I didnât. Did we? What a business moving into social media needs is a way for people get to know them.”
And I think that companies need to also know that getting started using the tools is more important than using them perfectly. Companies need to understand that they WILL make mistakes when they first start using social media, and that that’s ok. And we as bloggers haven’t done a very good job of getting this message across. We too often tend to have a ‘shoot first, apologize later’ approach to a company that makes a first-move blunder in this space. I still remember the outcry about how Dell’s first blogging attempts in 2006 ‘sucked’, and the criticism was mostly coming from the same bloggers that previously had said that Dell ‘sucked’ cause they weren’t blogging. Then as soon as they started, they got attacked anyway.
Companies need to know that it’s ok to be less than perfect when it comes to using social media to connect with their customers online. And we need to make sure they get this message, and re-inforce it with our actions when they do join us.
Great post, as always Liz!
Yeah, Mack,
Like kids with new toys, we’ve been a little too quick to show how clever we can be … and a little to ready to forget that everyone was a noobie once and in many ways we all still are.
Now that we’re all a little more comfortable with our “genius,” we can relax and show the new folks coming in how to do things without having expectations that no one can reach. 🙂
Thought I’d share a consumer testimonial for a recent community marketing program I managed for a client. The testimonial backs your argument for the ‘power of small’, the problem is that most clients still value a large amount of light engagement over a smaller amount of heavy engagement.
I loved [program name]so much… the activities… the forums… Everything and everyone in it made it special in their own little way.
And for the first time in my life, I felt like I actually belonged.
It wasn’t Gaia that made me feel that way. Not deviantART, not YouTube, not even DragonFable…
It was [program name]
It is true what they say: it doesn’t matter how many you are, what truly matters is how close you are. [Program name] for me felt like a very warm, loving family. Though we didn’t really knew each other in real life, we can’t deny how close all of us had become. I love [program name]. I love it for getting us this close to each other. I’m forever grateful.
Warren,
How respectful you are to hold your testimonial high and not mention the program. I think the world is leaving the value of one-to-one again. Like the value what you said here.
It means a lot. Your life more because of what you had in the community space. When clients realize the power of that, they’ll come around. 🙂
Sorry to be late to comment Liz! I loved this post. You are right, when it comes to communities smaller is better.
We were just talking about this today at a local tweetup…that we think we need to reduce the number of people we follow to make our communities smaller and thus more close (and manageable). It is too difficult to follow a ton of people and I always miss out on tweets of people who are in my small community. (Thankfully Tweetdeck offers groups.)
Loved this line: âPeople meet on the stoops… â Very true in Philly too! It’s the local neighborhood, the local barber, deli, etc. We learn to respect and trust those folks and that’s what makes for long-term business. 🙂