The Social EnthusiastThis year at SEMA SHOW 2009, our client Optima Batteries invited over a dozen smart, articulate automotive enthusiasts who were active in online communities to cover the show, talk about their product and get to know the real people behind the brand.
We learned a lot, and we’ll be sharing some of those lessons soon
Let’s say a group of these brand enthusiasts wanted to hold a party to celebrate your brand, or what it stands for. Let’s say they contacted you and said “Hey, we’d like to have a big party with a few thousand people who thing your company is just great. We’ll come up with the entertainment. We’ll promote it. We’ll get as many people as we can to attend.” Would your response be “That’s great. Tell us how it goes.”?
When you hear the words “online community” do you immediately think of a branded social network? A Ning network? A Facebook Fan Page? What about a discussion forum or message board? Or a corporate blog? Many times, businesses get locked into a certain model or mindset when it comes to thinking about online community sites. The truth is, there are many different models for adding a collaborative, community-building element to your brand’s web presence. It’s important to consider several different factors when deciding how to begin building your brand’s online community.
It’d be nice if companies approached online communities with a sense of excitement and possibility. More often, the dominant emotion that comes across when first talking with decision-makers about engaging consumers online is fear.
It’s not that they don’t recognize the tremendous value of cultivating their brand enthusiasts into a thriving community of brand ambassadors.
It’s just [...]
