Engage, recognize and reward to build a great online community

"To build communities, brand managers should plan activities that engage each consumer personally, recognize his/her contributions to the community, and allow to take all the privileges being part of that community"

We all know how important it is to have communities as part of any online initiative. During the early days of internet, the centre was traffic into the site. It is still an important consideration. Yet more important than traffic is how the traffic flock together. Communities gained importance because they allow users to discuss, review and suggest and even to influence the buying decisions. Inside a community, each user feels that he is part of a larger whole and hence more powerful than an individual. Peer to peer recommendations are gaining more ground than direct advertisements. 


In December 2009, an average user spent more than 51/2 hours on social networking sites, up 82% compared to the same period in a year ago. With that kind of numbers, we better believe that we are more influenced by our friends' opinions on social media than the popups or the banner that intrudes our browsing experience while making a purchase decision. Therefore we all are very sure why communities and conversations have more business value than the paid adverts. With the emergence of social media, brands are seriously considering ways to influence the influencers of the community. Marketing gurus are experimenting new ways to influence conversations that is happening around a brand or product and convert them into sales leads. When our buying decisions are getting influenced inside a community, the only way for brands is to build communities that influence each consumer inside the community to believe what the brand wants him to believe and do what the brand wants him or her to do.

It brings us to the question - How to build communities ?

" To build a communities, brand managers should plan activities that engage each consumer personally, recognize his/her contributions to the community, and allow to take all the privileges being part of that community ". The most important tool would be informal yet well directed discussions and conversations that the brand can initiate which would allow interested users and potential buyers to discuss among themselves. To make things clear, brand would initiate a discussion, and user A would discuss with user B and so on. The brand pitches in only to summarize and to direct the conversation and to answer the question directly posted towards it or to correct a wrong notion.

Activities like these would give each user a feeling that he or she is connected to another, lets say 1000 users, under the umbrella of the same brand, yet he or she gets directly connected to the brand.

A brand should engage each customer in isolation while acknowledging publicly that he or she is previleged as part of brand community.

This article is the result of the linkedin discussion available at http://linkd.in/gVjFaO. Comments posted by social media experts, evangelists and practitioners.

What are your ways to build a great community. I would would love to hear your thoughts. Thank you.

Know me more:
Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/shivaprasadpaliyath
Blog: http://identicalself.blogspot.com - My thoughts on the world of internet
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/sivaprasad2020
Wordpress: http://identicalself.blogspot.com
New Media Social website: http://www.newmediasocial.com/profile/ShivaprasadPaliyath
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/sivaprasad2020

Expert on internet media @ allexperts.com: http://www.allexperts.com/ep/2495-118541/Internet-Media/Shivaprasad...
Email: sivaprasad2020 at gmail dot com

News portals can make money with social media

There is no need of print support for an online news website to be successful. No need to pump in big money. Content needs eyeballs to monetize it, and everyone knows that. But i do not agree with you that eyeballs come through only money and offline support. Skills come only by paying good salaries. That is universal. So if a news portal has great news content, there are number of ways to bring eyeballs. Search engine optimisation & social media strategies can really bring in lot of unique users. Regular updation and news according to the taste of the target audience would be another great way to increase traffic into the site. Once the traffic trickles down to a site, the readers would popularise the site and the content through their own web activities. Thats what we have been observing in the last 2 years especially. You might have observed how a news reaches us these days through our friends more than these accepted media sources and we ask where did you find this news, and he says some xyz site. So the popularisation of a news piece happens through people. So if the objective is to create a hype only, yes, i agree with you that you need to pump in lot of money to promote the site. If the objective is to have a steady organic growth through creating a loyal reader base over time, there is no need of big money - search engines, blogs, online discussion forums and even communications between the people would do the trick.

Get to know me more:
http://identicalself.blogspot.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/shivaprasadpaliyath
http://www.facebook.com/sivaprasad2020
http://www.newmediasocial.com/profile/ShivaprasadPaliyath
http://twitter.com/sivaprasad2020

Newsportals can be made economically viable

I still stand my ground. If you really know the target audience and their news consumption patterns, a portal exclusively for news is economically viable. An example would be that of integrating geotargetted advertisements of local service providers like wedding and funeral planners, flower stalls etc as part of NRI community news. NRIs always need indian traditional services when it comes to weddings and funerals and related religious rituals. Nature of NRI and community news is such that it is always better to allow the community itself generating the news and posting it under their names with limited moderation. Because they generate the news, they also tend to share more within their community and naturally it is better shared in the social media and hence more traffic is attracted. This is the case of only one type of news say NRI news. If we know the nature of different types of news, we should be able to device different strategies in identifying potential advertisers and making them convinced of putting up an ad. The above example is related only to the advertisement supported revenue model. There are other many other ways to monetize news, but still, you got to know what you are dealing with to identify the media platfoms and delivery formats.

Get to know me more:
http://identicalself.blogspot.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/shivaprasadpaliyath
http://www.facebook.com/sivaprasad2020
http://www.newmediasocial.com/profile/ShivaprasadPaliyath
http://twitter.com/sivaprasad2020

Hail, news portals. News portals are here to stay

I disagree with all those who say that news portals cannot survive. If we create news as a product for multiplatform delivery, concentrating on news itself is a revenue feasible proposition. With one process of news creation, and delivery through websites, mobiles, other hand held devices, news scrollers in public places, radio, applications, it is very easy to meet the cost of producing the content. Also we need to understand the nature of content we are dealing. News always will have whopping spike in traffic at one moment and low access rates in the other moments. So every newsportals should be well equipped and prepared to make the use of this spike when it happens. Just like TVs charge differential rates based on prime time, night etc, the news portals should also follow the pattern. Also news is habitual, so it can assure better eyeballs. Also lately hunger for hyperlocal news and community news have shot up. So this has really generated considerable interest amoung advertisers whose products and services target local areas and communities. Also there is always room for specialized news for which the consumer is willing to even make a monthly payment.

My take: If you know about your content, and if you have fairly good idea who your target audience is, News portals will generate good returns and will not die off.

Get to know me more:
http://identicalself.blogspot.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/shivaprasadpaliyath
http://www.facebook.com/sivaprasad2020
http://www.newmediasocial.com/profile/ShivaprasadPaliyath
http://twitter.com/sivaprasad2020

"Social media campaigns should influence buying decisions"

I would say campaigns that encourages buying decisions initiated on facebook or any other social media platform like register and be a fan of a product and get discount on the price have a direct impact on sales and results of such campaigns are measurable also. If we can track the number of actual buyers using this discount, we can have clearer idea of the impact of social media on actual buying. All other digital analytics ultimately assumes that "buying would be influed by the social media campaign"

Get to know me more:
http://identicalself.blogspot.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/shivaprasadpaliyath
http://www.facebook.com/sivaprasad2020
http://www.newmediasocial.com/profile/ShivaprasadPaliyath
http://twitter.com/sivaprasad2020

"Social media is lot more than Facebook"

Ideally a brand should target the strategy considering all the various platforms as each platform has unique features that can be effectively used to reach out different target market segments. I would suggest that due to the reach of FB and its ability to target user groups more precisely based on disclosed locations, age, background and other interesting demographics, FB stands as level one. If your objective is to address an immediatel concern that a brand faces, i would say, watch and attend to twitter conversations and blog and forum postings. So to push something through ad, FB is the best. To address any on the existing market of a product, choose more real time platforms like twitter etc.


Get to know me more:
http://identicalself.blogspot.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/shivaprasadpaliyath
http://www.facebook.com/sivaprasad2020
http://www.newmediasocial.com/profile/ShivaprasadPaliyath
http://twitter.com/sivaprasad2020

To build a community, plan activities that engage each customer personally and shower on him or her all the privileges as part of a community " This is my way. What is yours?

The most important tool would be informal yet well directed discussions and conversations that the brand can initiate which would allow interested users and potential buyers to discuss among themselves. To make things clear, brand would initiate a discussion, and user A would discuss with user B and so on. The brand pitches in only to summarize and to direct the conversation and to answer the question directly posted towards it or to correct a wrong notion. This would give each user a feeling that he or she is connected to another 1000 users under the umbrella of the same brand, yet he or she gets directly connected to the brand. A brand should engage each customer in isolation while acknowledging publicly that he or she is safe as part of brand community. To build a community plan activities that would engage each customer personally and shower on him or her all the privileges as part of a community. For more discussions, add me or write to me at sivaprasad2020 at gmail dot com

Get to know me more:
http://identicalself.blogspot.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/shivaprasadpaliyath
http://www.facebook.com/sivaprasad2020
http://www.newmediasocial.com/profile/ShivaprasadPaliyath
http://twitter.com/sivaprasad2020