Brand Communities:

Grow your own fans?

Clo WillaertsSMI Vision 2020

Zagreb, 13 Nov 2010

About.me/clo

OBSERVATION

CONVERSATION

CONVERSION

INNOVATION

Social Media Scan - Social Sentiment Mapping

Trainings - Consultancy

Social Media Campaigns

Social Media Plan - Nurturing - Clipping Service

The human desire to connect

Howard Rheingold’s definition of virtual communities:

“cultural aggregations that emerge when enough people bump into each other often enough in cyberspace.”

Levels of participation: Forrester

Levels of participation: Altimeter

Levels of participation: Lave & Wenger (1991)

• Peripheral (i.e. Lurker) – An outside, unstructured participation

• Inbound (i.e. Novice) – Newcomer is invested in the community and heading towards full participation

• Insider (i.e. Regular) – Full committed community participant

• Boundary (i.e. Leader) – A leader, sustains membership participation and brokers interactions

• Outbound (i.e. Elder) – Process of leaving the community due to new relationships, new positions, new outlooks

People can be part of a community without ever participating

Community leader

Lave & Wenger: • task = to “sustain membership

participation and broker interaction”• rather some kind of a “connector” rather

than a figure with authority • still influential: not because he or she is a

highly active or productive community member, but because he is very good at making everybody feel at home.

Cult of Influence

Trolls vs attention

Karma as a currency in a favours econonomy

In “The Whuffie Factor”, Hunt defines “whuffie” as “the culmination of your reputation, influence, bridging and bonding capital, current and potential access to ideas, talent and resources, saved-up favors, and accomplishments.”

Virtual goods and internet tip jars: Flattr

Virtual goods and internet tip jars: Zynga & Facebook Credits

Companies: should they build, join or sponsor online

communities?

Communities vs social mediaIn a September 2009 blog post, DNet's Dion Hinchcliffe has an

interesting take on the relationship between community management and social media. He sees two main visions:

1. To be authentic and to grow properly online communities should be as completely self-organized and “unmanaged” as possible.

2. Others believe that there must be some central oversight as well as guidance and support. This view prescribes the need to actively deal with any potential risks such as 1. inappropriate use2. low return on investment, and 3. lack of alignment with business goals

Self-organised and unmanaged  online communites

“Communities don't want to be managed. They want to be taken care of.”

So what are the possibilities for companies who wish to use

existing online communities to reach their business goals?

Sponsoring

Joining

Seeding

Building

Case: ABconcerts

Case: Yunomi

Sanoma case: Zappybaby

Sanoma case: Flair shopping day

Sanoma case: Libelle Lekker

Thank you

c.willaerts@sanoma-magazines.be

http://www.conversity.be