Online Community and Letting Go
A couple of weeks ago I read some of Jonathan Trenn’s thoughts about “community” as it is used (or overused) in the social media world:
Social media is overhyped because we’ll often view and describe disparate members of a company’s customer base as being “communities” when they are too dispersed and too disjointed from one another to have a connection…
As much as I love social media, and think it has great potential for marketers (and everyone), I have to agree with Jonathan’s general premise. Your typical company is not going to get an online “community” going. And even for those companies who could, the nature of online communities is going to be frustrating to many traditional marketers.
While a common interest can draw users to a site, what keeps them there, as Jonathan notes, is their connections with each other. Once community members are posting their own content and conversing with each other – in other words, once the site contains an active community and not just some occasional visitors – then a large part of the community members’ experiences are out of the site owner’s hands. (Yes, moderators can shape the experience and most certainly rein in any abusers, but when done well this is subtle.)
So the site must be built and nourished with the intention that most of the subject matter and experience of users may have very little direct relevance to the brand. In other words, you have to let go.
I spoke about this with Bryan Person and he brought up the example of the Fiskateers, a scrapbooking community sponsored by scissors company Fiskars. Now, you don’t think of scissors as a prime example for any kind of strong branding, so the fact that Fiskars has succeeded in creating a thriving online community is a testament to their creativity and dedication.
However, it’s also a testament to their ability to let go. Scissors are important for scrapbooking, of course, but so are photos, fabrics, papers, glue, etc. Perhaps most important are the occasions or emotions that inspire the scrapbooking, and the experiences that one wants to share. A look at the Fiskateers’ blog shows that they understand this. The posts are a mix of personal experiences, scrapbooking stories and techniques, and community-building topics (including the occasional plug for Fiskars). I didn’t do a scientific analysis, but I would bet that any actual mention of the Fiskars company is in a minority of postings.)
So this is a community that intersects with the company’s interests in some very important ways, but also has a large body of interactions that don’t relate to the purchase of scissors. Fiskar was able to see the merit in letting go. How many other companies will?
When you’re looking through the lens of “ROI” and “efficiency” it’s difficult to justify the expense of creating an online community that might only mention your brand one time in ten. From that perspective, it’s not surprising that companies are reluctant to truly commit to creating online communities and instead create superficial sites where their customers are supposed to spend all day enthusing over their vacuum cleaners or window cleaner or whatever. And it’s not surprising that visitors to those sites don’t stay long, or return, or really connect.