Social Media to me sounds slippery.  Like it’s a fad, phase or worse a “trend”.  And in some ways it is.  It suddenly became the darling of the “Web 2.0″ world and everyone was an expert that had ever written on a blog.  But for those of use in this industry (Interactive Marketing, Web Design, Development) when the term first came bubbling up into the common knowledge realm it was like putting a name to things we had been doing for awhile.  It was one of those “Aha” moments, not unlike when the term Web Master finally came into business lexicon and people knew what it meant.  A lot of us were going “so that’s what I do”!

But I live and work (and love) Texas.  It’s not that we are more conservative, it’s that – ok we are more conservative than the coasts.  Many of our clients are lawyers, law firms or corporations.  But we aren’t stupid.  When something makes sense, we do it!  Especially if it means something for our businesses.  So take Social Media which is about at it’s core connecting with your customers.  It’s community and interaction.  It’s being connected with people you work with, sell to and interact with through your company.  None of those things are foreign to us Texans.  With that thought in mind, I reframed Social Media into what it truly is Community-Based marketing.  Same idea, different name.

Dos and Don’ts in Community-Based Marketing

The biggest “fear” about community-based marketing when talking to my clients is this – “what if my clients/people talk back to me.”  And it’s not that they are afraid to connect with their customers, it’s that they are afraid that it will just be an open door of rants and negativity.  The stories of “trolls” and people just being ugly have filtered back to them.  And yes, it’s true that once you open the door to allowing clients to interact with you, there might be some people that are not happy with the company, or a decision you made or even a connection that happened in the past.  This is a real and valid fear.  But it’s worth getting over those fears and really being in tune with what’s right and what’s wrong in the marketplace.  Companies pay lots of real dollars to get “marketing research” about what’s going on in their industries.  With community-based marketing, it’s all right there.  You just have to listen, know where to look and not take it personally.  We as people all make mistakes and since we run companies, mistakes happen.   People aren’t always out there to crucify you and your company.   They just (many times) want to be heard, know that their feedback matters and that you acknowledge you are listening.

For me and what I tell my clients here is the list of dos and don’ts:

• Do open that door and let clients interact with you.  Allow comments, join forums, create a space for communication to happen
• Don’t overreact when someone comments in a negative or unintended way
• Do acknowledge their frustration, anger, issue either publicly or directly if appropriate
• Do attempt to make their feedback matter – it doesn’t always have to be a grand gesture.  Giving a future discount, connecting them to the appropriate internal people to rectify, acknowledging a decision had unintentional consequences, allowing them to vent, etc.
• Don’t be surprised when people are positive.  Many times our fears, are just that, fears.  You do good work or you wouldn’t be in business.  Allow people to respond to you positively.
• Do get a thick skin.  Just like ever arrow slung your way doesn’t need to hit it’s target, every compliment doesn’t need to get you an award.
• Do listen to the trends.  The door to your customers is open for a reason.  If you hear lots of times, that something isn’t working, change it.  If you hear that their is something clients want, give it to them.  This is good stuff, and ignoring it is a bad decision.
• Don’t get bullied.  This might seem counter to everything I’ve said above but you are allowed to set boundaries about how you will and won’t be treated, even online.  If I feel someone is a troll, I block them or report them.  And I define Troll as someone who just causes havoc to cause havoc.   I am open for discussion and opinions, I am not open to people being jerks because they are hiding behind a computer screen.

And here is the most important DON’T.

• Don’t sue someone over a Tweet.  I can see if this was Robert Scoble or Mark Davidson who have thousands and thousands of followers.  But this woman has 26 (before she cancelled her account) followers.  She expressed an opinion to a few of her friends.  You sue her for $50,000 and now everyone in the Interactive World and beyond knows who you are, that their might be mold in one of your apartments and you are a company that will whip out their legal department over NOTHING!

If community-based marketing is about interaction and connection with your clients and potential-clients, then jump in.  The waters warm, the people are generally nice and the rewards are genuine.

I would love to hear from you – if you are a business what your experience has been or if you are still the fear area, what is your fear.  Interactive marketing people – do you have any other do’s or don’ts?  And of course, any other feedback is welcome as well.

• Was a web master for many years and had vendors bid on work.  This was mid-nineties and there wasn’t open source versus proprietary yet.  There was code which was, let’s be honest pretty basic and there weren’t many tools yet.
• As the internet and more specifically the visual part, the world wide web, developed little animated gifs weren’t cutting it.  We as consumers of information, wanted more.  Tools started being developed both in creating code (Front Page, Cold Fusion, etc…), hosting the code through PC servers or Unix servers and how to serve that information out via browsers (Internet Explorer, Netscape and eventually Firefox etc…).  *this is vastly over-simplified*
• As these things developed you had roughly two communities break out.  The proprietary or closed code (Microsoft, Cold Fusion) and Open Source which was lead primarily by the Unix/Linux community.  Each community proceeded to move forward in separate (seeming) directions.
• About this time, I went out on my own in 2000 and started The Satori Group.  When I worked in-house I used vendors that tended toward open source.   It was my opinion, just my opinion, that the Microsoft-based tools and other tools we saw looked templated and each one was based on a system.  You could make changes but you had to dig in and know the system and what strings you pulled would make the marionette/web site dance.
• It might not the best answer but it is what it is, we preferred open source because it tended to be cheaper and we could customize it.  When we were given the clunky Microsoft tools we had to buy licenses’ and learn their systems.  Which worked well when you were an IT manager and already had the licenses and knew their systems and it was a simple add-on and *shazam* you had a web site.   Less so, when you are a start-up and need to have product to sell that you can create without major cash outlay before you ever see a result.
• Thus two communities were born.  Open Source and Closed or Proprietary systems.   I have simplified this to the point it’s missing lots of information but you get the idea.

As my company evolved, open-source evolved.  There are huge communities of code and servers and browsers and while closed-source tools like browser Internet Explorer still exist, open source is not the “crazy” idea people thought it once was.  Especially as people that “came” up in this era evolve into managers, owners of companies, security gets better, tools easier to use, functionality grows and the cost still stays reasonable to people who need the services.

And I promise you this is not a dis on Microsoft or any of the closed-source systems out there.  I am explaining this because as the company has changed over the years from primarily a provider of  design and development for web sites to interactive marketing firm, I think the web site is just the beginning.  It doesn’t stop with the site, it begins with the site.

Because once you have a web site no matter what it was built with or hosted on or what browser you use, people need to find your web site.  And just as code was evolving over the years, the way you found out about web sites was evolving.  Suddenly search engines became the tail that wagged the dog because who cares if you have a great site if no-one can find you.  So finding out how to make your site easier to find, what made it come up in search for what terms and being able to understand this system was and is crucial.

Now the cycle has turned again.  It’s not just about finding the site, it’s about hearing what people are saying, connecting with your users, creating and maintaining a presence online.  And while there are tools, there is no way to fake a connection.  You either are in or you are out.   We call it Social Media Marketing or I use the term Community-Based Marketing because it has less of a cutesy sound and is more realistic to the benefit.

I am going to have a few posts coming out to further this discussion:

• What is Community-Based Marketing in relation to Social Media Marketing
• Step-by -Step Instructions on Bootstrapping a Interactive Campaign for Small Businesses
  • Definitions and details on starting
  • Tools open and closed-source
  • Instructions on how to do everything
  • Q/A and Case study
• Guest Bloggers.  I know lots of incredibly talented programmers, front-end developers, social media gurus, sales people, designers, interactive producers and I want them to get exposure for their abilities.

So I appreciate you reading and let me know what your thoughts are.  I’m still getting used to writing things I normally put in a proposal or I discuss with clients.  Bear with me while we get organized and if you have comments leave them !