Once you’ve gathered your community around your blog, community platform, fan page (if you’re willing to use Facebook), website, or any other tool (Jason Calacanis is using a mailing list), the first step to leverage it is done. And now is the main part starting. Keeping on generating content and activities to invite continiously your customers and prospects to engage with you and collaborate in creating the best user experience ever. It means being consistent and innovative. Read More

Making people feels like they’re part of your company is another important point to generate traction and stickiness from your community. Press releasing and messaging users about new features and business development isn’t the essential content you have to push. Showing you’re working to provide them with a more interesting user experience is right, but what they want and need is why they’re right using your service or product. To achieve that point you have to get along with your community and highlight what’s currently at work and who in the community is inspiring. Read More

As part of a community you’re supposed to explain what you’re here for and what’s the purpose of your activity. If you’re questioning about the fact I’m telling “you’re joining a community” instead of “you’re creating a community”, the reason is simple: communities exist by themselves and don’t need you to create, but you need them to notice you, and the best way to do so is to lead and provide it with interesting content. Being aware of that state, a brand has options they have to select: acting not noticing your consumer pool and waiting for them to get your product if noticeable or sticking with that consumer pool and tune your business to echo the needs you hear and listen to. And all of that is based on your ability to show your culture and mindset to your consumer community and make them stick to you. Read More

Sharing and requesting collaboration are two major points to always keep in mind when you’re developing your social media strategy. But the tipping point to leverage your community is to be consistent and follow the editorial line you’ve set up as well as focusing on how you want your community to help you. And to be sure your community would help you in the tasks you request it do, you need to be trustful. Easier said than done? Some advice to make sure you would keep on being trustful to avoid any backfire from the community you empowered. Read More

Generating people interest by sharing your opinions and requesting people to participate makes your company closer to your customers and prospects community. It also enable your ability to ask them for help and their collaboration when you need it. And more important that gives you the opportunity to turn your community members into a valuable asset for the brand. The next step is then to know how to keep leveraging that state while leading your community and welcoming new brand advocates and ambassadors. Here are some ways to do so. Read More

Sharing passion, experience, and information are all focused to generate more stickiness and engagement between consumers and brands. That’s the first step to generate business leveraging social media efforts (we should be saying social networking abilities but “social media” has been generalized). Second step is to get benefits from sharing to bring people closer to your brand and by that generating opportunities to turn your “followers”, as we now say since Twitter, into customers/ fans/ admirers/ advocate/ ambassadors. But for each cluster of people you’ve appealed and make join the conversation, there are ways to turn them from listeners, contributors, word spreading facilitators, or just a passerby, into useful people for your business. Read More

Sharing passion and experience is cool and a natural way of thinking. But the last rule for engaging with your community isn’t that natural and may generate more questioning from your C-level, at first. Because what I’m calling information isn’t about your own company (it’s what I call experience) but about others. Others like your early customers, other companies that do great and give value to your products/ service, and about your business field. And that may become major part of your sharing showing you’re open to your business field and your community. Here’s how you can leverage that kind of sharing. Read More

Sharing passion is the first step in engaging with your community and creating stickiness to your brand. People do like to share values and points of interest with companies. And that’s the way they can become more loyal, and your way to incite loyalty and advocacy. Which is part of path to your CRM objectives. So you have a lot to win from sharing passion. And to nurture passion you need to share your own experiences (evolution of your business, how you got involved in your business area, what’s your history). Experiences of what’s happening, providing your brand with some more grip for people to stick with you. Read More

I’ve jumped into a conversation started by FaceReview editor Rodney Rumford (who’s also CEO of Gravitational Media) who’s been listing companies activity on Twitter, especially about “33 brands (minus 2 following updates through comments) that suck on Twitter” (You may also be checking the 25 startups dealing with Twitter). Within his listing most of the pointed companies have parked or got hijacked their company name accouts. That’s not what I would have called misusing Twitter (that’s just my opinion). Companies being active on Twitter mainly use that service to spread their content, and then yes they do badly use those 140 caracters messaging service. Because they’re missing the point about who’s on Twitter and what they can do. Read More

A consumer has started a flame war reviewing your product on her own blog, on Amazon.com, Yelp, or any website relying on social media effect? the result is a snowball effect and you need to stop it? Or you’re already tracking user generated content regarding your product/ service and you’re willing to make the right move. Then there’s one simple advice to keep in mind. You’re starting a human to human conversation, and the best way to change people’s mindset is to get interested in their feedbacks (they’re real feedback, not always clear, but it’s your job finding what’s interesting in them) and embrace the critics. In the end, you can’t be that smart you’ve managed to do it all right at the first time, can you? Read More