Along with several other colleagues at LiveWorld, I've proposed a session for the next SXSW conference. Called Online Communities: Taking Them To the Next Level, it's about what happens once community really starts to roll. We know the beginning stages are critical, but often the real complexity sets in as the community begins to mature. I've proposed that the session be a dual presentation, and am quite excited that Gail Williams (Director of Communities at Salon and The Well) has tentatively agreed to co-present.

Because I was hoping to include someone with plenty of experience, but somewhat different from my own, I'm particularly glad that Gail wants to participate. I'm sure you'll agree that she has a particular eloquence as she outlined her community building concepts here in 1994!

Please take the time to vote here for our session.

A great joy of working with different clients is getting to hear all their creative ideas. While some come with just a list of features, others bring great ideas about how they want to communicate with their clients and simultaneously empower their clients to communicate with each other. Listening to those folks is inspiring.

They may not be experienced with social media or have complete confidence in their ability to handle the unknowns once people arrive. But because they have a detailed sense of how they want to help, and a good feel for the pent up why their customers want to talk with one another, they're (seriously) half-way there. It's the vision thing...and when people have that, it's a pure pleasure to get to help make it happen.

I talked with some prospective clients this week who can project their idea out several years. They have numerous segments of their constituencies who can be brought together for mutual benefit, and they know where they want to start.

What they don't have is experience with planning and managing the interaction strategy -- the specifics of how people will get and give attention, make friends, and express themselves. But like anyone who believes in connection and community, they know the power of the resulting whole can be much bigger than the sum of its individual interactions. They're in for the long term and ready for commitment. Hope we get to work with them!

The hashtag is such a simple thing. It's great to jump in on conference hashtags and take part in commentary the attending folks are posting--really much better, in fact, than the old chat room / webcast idea. You miss some of the context but you get quite a span of perspective.

Bryan Person, our social media evangelist, and Sonny Gill had the good idea to start up #cmtychat on Fridays at 10amPT. Community managers from all over the country show up, and it's lots of fun to share tips on what's working (or not).

Being a great fan of chat, I like to use Tweetchat for these types of gatherings. It pretty much creates a chat room for almost real-time participation (as you can have it update the screen in intervals as small as 5 seconds). From what I understand, the suggestion for this week is to attend #cmtychat in this FriendFeed room, which supports threading for a more streamlined experience.

In the sessions I've attended, we've talked about how to draw more people into community participation (and how to keep the non-posting participants' needs in mind). We've discussed managing the mature community, with the needs of both newcomers and old-timers in mind. In the process, I've "met" some people with great ideas and suggestions -- community managers who're working with large and small communities, each with different challenges and characteristics. When I miss the session, as I did last week, a quick search on #cmtychat yields the transcript.

Join in on Friday; it's a great exchange with people involved in hands-on creative interaction with online communities.

I guess I’m stuck on the Facebook track this week. Here’s something else they’ve done that makes Facebook more attractive and less constrained for brands:

Up until this week, you could categorize individual friends, but not brand pages, into lists. For example, I’ve created a Family list (which I read first), a LiveWorld group, a Favs group, and then, if I have time, I read the rest of the Newsfeed. Of course I wanted to add our LiveWorld page to the LiveWorld group; couldn’t do it. Brand pages were just a different animal. What this meant to a brand was that its fans who use friend lists might rarely see brand updates.

Now, however, fans and friends are both connections. Assuming that your profile and your status updates are set to Everyone, you can add any kind of connection into your groups. This morning I added our LiveWorld page, and other brands I’m connected to, into my lists. Now I’ll see their updates much more often.

Less important for brands, but quite useful for individuals, is that the Publisher (the main widget on your page that allows you to add content) now allows you to decide who sees the specific content you’re loading. Again, assuming that your profile and your status updates are set to Everyone, you can add content of any type, click the lock icon on the upload widget, and specify to whom that content should appear. If you’re using friend lists (like the ones I mentioned above), you can click Custom and specify which friend lists should see the content. This should make for more meaningful updates when the relationship context of your updates is relevant.

Facebook has announced yet another brand-friendly product that lets companies take advantage of the mammoth Facebook network effects. They’re calling it Live Stream Box, and it’s intended to run alongside streaming video, games, presentations, and other web events. Users log into the Live Stream Box via Facebook Connect and their comments are published into the box as well as into their profiles and their friends’ activity feeds. The Facebook posts then link back to the Live Stream Box.

Using events as acquisition tools is a great energy generator, but unless companies use broadcast media to promote them, audience numbers are sometimes disappointing. Using the Live Stream Box in conjunction with Twitter, companies now have a good way to draw people in in real time to experience an event as it’s unfolding. Because the draw mechanism involves people sharing with their friends, a built-in sociability supports it. Plus the centralized comments connect individuals to new people who share an interest, supporting community building around the brand, product, game or event.

The challenge will be to take the connections created by a Live Stream Box event and turn them into a retention tool. Facebook Connect won’t provide email addresses, so the sponsoring event producer will need to program and participate in a way that channels people toward a continued connection—whether that’s a Facebook brand page, a private branded community, or some other venue where they can stay involved.

It's another useful innovation by Facebook that makes it more attractive for companies to get involved and stay involved with them as a component of a Web-wide marketing strategy.

On SocialMediaToday this morning, I read a nice story-oriented interview with Valeria Matoni. At one point she’s asked for advice to companies on how to better implement social media to effectively bridge old media with new media. One of her good responses is to educate your company on new media. This struck me as particularly helpful because it’s sometimes the case that the group focused on new media has little ongoing dialog with the rest of the company—or that the management authorizing it has little understanding of what it takes to sustain the commitment to it.

The participation of any organization in the online community they’re hoping to draw around them is really key to making it work. The more people who understand how it works, how it supports the business, and how they can help move it forward, the better. That’s why community managers need to focus on managing community within their own organizations as well as looking toward the customer. The folks in the social media effort are links in the connection between company and community, and they need to gather the support and energies of the rest of the organization behind them. Regular updates across business functions, focusing on user voice and the value the organization gets from it make a huge difference to understanding how the connection to customers via social media is contributing to business objectives.

When the company’s open to it, getting more employees involved, whether or not they’re in the social media group, can enrich the relationship you build with people who gather around your brand.

At a conference a couple years ago someone asked me what I looked for in a client. My answer was “commitment.” We used to hear from people who just wanted to put up a message board and then walk away, assuming community would happen—no understanding or attention span available for what it takes to develop it with purpose, trust, and personality. I haven’t run into that as much in the last couple years. Most people approach with a much greater understanding of the resources, persistence, and attention it requires to get closer to their customers.

Prospective social media clients now have a greater understanding of the commitment involved. They’re aware that appropriate skills and experience may not exist within the organization, and that community management can’t be assigned to a person who’s expected to do it in addition to another job. They know why they want to develop community around their companies, and they’re asking for more exact ways to measure what they’re looking for.

Overall, companies are also more willing to be comfortable with negative comments about their products or services. In some of the more fear-based discussions we had a couple years ago, we saw a tendency toward requesting previewed moderation. Increasingly, the word is out that progressive companies welcome constructive criticism, want to hear it, know that it happens whether or not they hear it, and if it’s happening where they can respond to people, that’s all to the better. Conversations now more often emphasize escalation paths and proper response than on fear about negative comments. We see more integration with customer service and support, and more participation by people higher up in the company.

Increasingly there’s a better understanding of the role good moderators can play in facilitating conversation, and also in the importance of employees being consistently in touch with and on top of what people are saying in the communities--what they’re asking for, what they’re talking about. They worry less about users running into offensive comments because they know users can ignore people they don’t like. Plus today’s features for social networking make it possible for users to decide exactly with whom they’re going to have connections in any event. Everyone’s more savvy, less wary.

Clients increasingly appreciate the value of the content that people create around their brands. They want better ways to bring it forward and make sure it gets noticed because they know this supports leadership in the community and brings in more quality content.

The purchasers of social media are also now users of it, and that makes a huge difference.

One of our community managers was just telling me about an initiative she’s working with one of our clients. The idea is to to create a program around a core set of engaged users with the aim of then opening up the community to an expanded set of people. Because this community has a specific purpose to change behavior for the greater good, the intention is to inspire and energize the active users to welcome, orient, and even mentor the newcomers. It’s a great way to seed a new community while simultaneously creating the conditions for leaders to arise.

Numerous of our clients have taken similar routes to start up their online communities. Typically, they start out with a relatively small subset of their customers who have connected themselves to the company in some way—taken classes, offered feedback, made requests, subscribed to newsletters, submitted content to web sites, or even just corresponded by mail. Occasionally they’re people who have a closer relationship with the company, whether through higher-level paid services or rewards programs.

Usually it’s the positive experience that companies have with these folks that leads the organization to want a connection with a broader community. The specific objectives for the envisioned community vary—insight into product use, customer support, more people viewing ads, more purchases. But the intention generally involves bringing people closer and listening to them toward a better customer experience. And at the center of the plan is this population who’ve already declared themselves in some (sometimes small) way as interested parties.

In the planning stages, the marketers detail how they hope the community will work and how they expect people to interact with one another and with the company. Then, from the subset of customers they’ve identified as potentially interested, they extend an invitation to participate in a Beta or pilot stage. In the cases we know, responses have been gratifying—from 25-40+%—and certainly much more than one would expect from typical direct response. As people sign up, the company provides more information about the community’s purpose through expert content or focused projects and activities. Participants are also made aware that they’re part of a core group invited to help with preparation of a welcoming environment for an expanded community to follow. The company may convey some type of badge or status, which helps to encourage accountability and quality contribution.

Sometimes the initial community is private to begin with, accessible only by the initial population. A particular project may be associated with this group, in the process of accomplishing which the community becomes a nicely seeded conversational venue populated by individuals who’re expecting to welcome others and continue the community growth. Typically, leaders emerge—people who are articulate participants, usually talented conversationalists, and thus producers of content that appeals to other potential members of the community. It’s a great model for enlisting help in seeding a young community with authentic contributions from engaged participants.

With the capabilities available now for integrating with broader social networks (e.g. Facebook Pages & Connect), a company can make it easy for the pioneer population to spread the word, increasing the network effects of people inviting their friends to a community where they’ve already taken a stake.

In email with a client last week, she invited me to approach her company about the importance of social engagement moderation. Incidentally, her email was gracious and congenial, encouraging of further contact, even personal in its tone. It struck me that she truly understands the importance of the social lubrication that makes relationships of all kinds work.

As everyone reviews priorities and budgets in this economy, one tendency is to focus on the basics by spending on platform and features. However, like my client, those who have experience with online community know that a company must also commit resources—internal or outsourced—to support the social tone and culture of its community. Otherwise, community growth can plateau or at least grow much more slowly than it might. As another client puts it, “if I don’t give them something to do, they’ll just sit there.” Isn’t that true whether we’re talking about inviting people into our own homes or into online communities?

We’re all much more creative when we understand the social dynamics of the situation where we find ourselves. Programming with expert content can help to frame them up, as can contests, games, and other organized group efforts. Day to day, however, people often need little more to get involved than welcome from a good social host who knows how to put them at ease, suggesting conversation or activity that draws them out and stimulates their creativity. Some of the ways effective online community hosts do this include:

• Greeting people personally
• Offering to show them around; providing beginner tips
• Suggesting where they might fit in; introductions to people or topics
• Making sure all early posts get response and encouragement for follow-up
• Becoming a true member of the community – not just the moderator. Focusing on individuals and respectfully participating in group discussions.
• Answering questions or otherwise escalating them for answers
• Engaging people further into their topics by encouraging elaboration.
• Providing transitions and new conversational framework with practices like these: Suggesting a premise and then asking questions about it, telling stories and encouraging others to tell them, posting new or timely information & inviting people’s reactions to it.

For most of us, when addressed personally, responding is automatic. When our contributions are recognized and encouraged, when we’re asked for more and given permission to be ourselves, we relax and get into it. When someone tells us stories, we’re reminded of stories we know in the same vein. The energy of a real live interested person who provides a personality anchor can make all the difference. We’ve seen communities go from stagnant to thriving based on the efforts of genuinely interested, topically savvy, culturally resonant hosting.

In support of its roll-out of gender-specific Depend® brand absorbent underwear, last week Kimberly-Clark opened up a redesigned site, with community positioned right at its center. Working with Fullhouse, an interactive agency, Kimberly-Clark created an inviting center for Depend® brand customers, offering them connection, information, and support. Fullhouse, who designed and built the site, used the LiveWorld API 2.0 for forums, article comments, friend connections, and the user messaging system. Using the headless API (headless because it comes with no interface, but just the interactive functionality), Fullhouse had flexibility to use their own design chops for the presentation of the interactive features.

Where are the people like me?

From the perspective of online commuity best practice, the Depend® site is a great case study. The purposes of the community are obvious from the first moment you arrive:

* Introduce the gender-specific product innovation
* Explore and celebrate the different perspectives of men and women
* Invite people into a friendly connection with others who have similar experiences

A diverse set of smiling faces greets users, communicating the culture here: This is a community that doesn’t talk in whispers. Real live Community Ambassadors are pictured front and center, with profiles of these active, engaged people—three or four of whom friend a new user upon registration. Featured articles on family & friends, volunteer activities, and recreation kick off the up-beat tone and invite user comments. On all the informational pages (for women, for men, for caregivers), excerpts from the discussion boards, via the LiveWorld API, feature current conversations. The Depend® community users themselves are supportive and generous with tips and advice, so new users will likely feel quickly at home.

We congratulate Kimberly-Clark and their partner Fullhouse on the appealing, promising, and community-centric launch. We’re also proud to have been involved in the background.

Brands looking to take advantage of the network effects of Facebook as part of their social media strategies got a nice boost this week. The new Facebook page for businesses inserts company contributions into a fan’s activity feed, greatly increasing the opportunity for ongoing contact and communication.

In the past, many Facebook fan pages have had limited effect, but the new capabilities make it possible for companies to create fan venues strong on interactivity—worlds away from the former (and weaker) pages or groups. For those who are willing to put in the commitment, it’s possible to program more flexibly with company articles, promotions, videos, photos, links, and applications. The interactive stream/wall and discussions features provide good cultural focus and a highly visible ongoing conversation with fans—with the main attraction being the integration into fan activity feeds. Progressive brands will see that opportunity and make the most of it. The Advance Guard cites some very good examples in their free white paper, About Face, which details all the features of the new pages. Nick O’Neill also provides some great tips for creating effective Facebook pages on his AllFaceBook blog.

Some companies may choose to use the stronger Facebook page at the core of their social media strategies. For others, it’ll be a welcome component in a larger integrated view that includes presence and participation all across the Web. Many will continue to see the anchor as their own site, where it’s often easier to see and track metrics to business performance indicators. The critical question remains the same as it always has been: What are you trying to do and how will you know if you’ve succeeded? It’s never really all about the platform; it’s about the execution and its relevance to the business.

Today’s Skittles site promotional launch caused a Twitter tempest, with people testing for moderation (there is none), starting up and building on rumors (Skittles as scientology cult), and commenting on a wildly different site concept (well, different from everything except Modernista, which it directly copies).

Most of the comments I read were about the Twitter segment of the site, which indeed struck me (and lots of other people) as showing bravery and clarity (get people talking, no matter what), unless they didn’t anticipate all the nasty and profane contributions that showed up. To be fair, lots of pro-Skittles comments showed up as well. I might have wished, however, had I been in charge of the launch, that I’d chosen the Facebook page (which boasts over half a million friends) or the Flickr page (which carries charming contributions from Skittles lovers) for the top, the arrival feature. Indeed the real-time aspect (at certain points, going from bad to worse) of the top-page Twitter feed may have had parents scurrying to add the site to the list of those they don’t allow kids to visit.

Still, once you go through the whole site, and stick around long enough to see the funny side of people playing around with Skittles, you get the sense of what they were doubtless going for--a full-on demonstration of the playful, cheerful, mostly-friendly way people define the brand. Even the detractors seemed mean-spirited in this context. Assuming such a buzz was the goal, and that the company expected and was ready for the widespread gaming, I think it succeeds.

Update: As of 24 hours later, it seems Skittles has indeed put the Facebook page on top. Good idea.

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Edited by Jenna at 03/03/2009 7:08 PM GMT

Ok I guess this going to be a testimonial to Wii. Not ever having played any kind of video game, I'm surprised to be writing it.

However, it strikes me that I cannot remember over the last decade or so very many family social situations where the age span ranged from late teens through mid-eighties, and everyone was glad to be there, totally engaged, and willing to stay up late together. That’s what happens with Wii—in our house, particularly with Wii Bowling. The genuinely old (as opposed to me, because I find that middle age just stretches on and on) are surprised and delighted to be able to compete in a video game that seems very familiar, from the bowling lanes they remember. There’s some struggle over the button A/button B thing, but the game itself is old home week. The kids are entertained by the oldsters and pleased with their own roles as experts/teachers. It’s heart-warming to hear an 85-year old plead for just one more game. And it’s not a hard request to grant, because everyone is having an authentically great time.

I suppose we’ll get tired of it, but for these few months since our holiday acquisition of this new family pastime, I’m grateful for the opportunity to see everyone to interact around a focus that brings out unexpected flashes of personality maybe not so visible before across our generations.

As companies increasingly focus on building communities for all their constituents globally, it can be a tricky endeavor that involves numerous issues. In most cases, community interaction across separate languages is not necessarily envisioned; instead, each country or language is intended to operate separately from, but perhaps along a similar model as the others. Occasionally, it’s intended that a global English-language community draw users from numerous countries. A certain amount of leverage in the strategic model is assumed, and often quite possible. But here are some of the factors that may vary from country to country:

Company business goals. If product or business model is different across countries, then community goals and execution may vary correspondingly. While leverage is possible, stakeholder interviews will likely turn up important differences that affect all community-related decisions. (Read Pat McGraw’s post on the importance of such interviews.)

Community goals. Particularly if business goals are different, the results expected from the community will require separate strategic models.

Core content. What’s the core unit of exchange for each community? The business and community goals will indicate the intended participants and community purpose.

Community culture and user interface. While some companies have success with a similarity of cultural metaphor and a user interface that serves communities in numerous countries, others have learned the hard way that it’s better to start with local-based community architecture and design. Everything from content segmentation to graphic design contributes to a community’s sense of place. If it’s not comfortable, people will go elsewhere.

Community management and moderation. It’s quite likely that certain countries have few resources experienced with social media and online community development. And yet it’s critical that local resources be involved for cultural authenticity and participant acceptance. How will such training be provided, given the various language challenges inherent in the process?

Identity of participants. While Web use is growing everywhere, the cultural factors that affect social interaction, the familiarity that each population has with Web social media, the broad range of Web access, and the amount of time that people have to participate still vary widely. In some places, for example, only a mobile community will do.

Country/language combinations. How many instances of the community are needed? Does each country require a separate community based on either its language or culture? Or is it possible to combine some countries into one common-language instance, segmenting country-specific areas? In many cases, cultural integrity will demand separation.

Country privacy policies and regulations. A global strategy, no matter how it’s implemented, is going to require wading through the myriad of country-based laws related to the Web.

I may be neglecting numerous other issues, and each of those I've called out can be broken into detail. Please chime in with other important considerations to keep in mind when planning community on a global scale.

After watching the inauguration this morning while reading tons of tweets coming in, I was pleased to be directed to the brand new Whitehouse blog. In the top post we’re told the new administration is committed to communication, transparency, and participation. Having already been impressed with the brilliant simplicity and solidity of Obama’s Web strategy, I’m not surprised. But I’m delighted, gratified to see this immediate shift in the cultural tones coming from the new leadership.

Secrecy, cover-up, and spin is so yesterday. As we talk with business people every day, many of them are stepping up to a commitment to open-ness. Some think they have to get involved with customers or they’ll miss the boat, and so they’re trying to figure out how to do it without really changing too much. Others really bring a lot of energy toward a give and take relationship with their customers. They see the cultural shift happening out there and know it implies a whole new tack; they’re up for it. Working with all of them, I’ve got a lot of respect for the changes they’re instigating in their company cultures. They may be facing a wary legal team or a skeptical executive team. They may be going out on quite a limb. But they’re going!

It’s a new day and I realize I’m just full of it (in a good way). But it’s a pure pleasure to see people taking steps toward change for the better—people in national office, and all of us out here trying to make changes in our businesses, families, worlds. Let’s all keep rooting that they (and we) can make good on a commitment to greater communication, transparency, and participation.