The secret sauce of a successful online community isn’t a big mystery waiting to be revealed. For the last four years, we have been digging into the nitty-gritty detail of hundreds of branded communities across multiple industries. Our goal has always been to understand the EXPERIENCE from the MEMBER’S perspective.

If you are planning or already managing an online community, here are some dos and don’ts to keep in mind. Remember to put yourself in your members’ shoes and ask some hard questions.

DO

• Activate your advocate base and treat them as “special”
• Allow members to engage across multiple channels seamlessly
• Provide mission-appropriate engagement opportunities
• Put a spotlight on member participation
• Offer a mobile app so that members can take the experience with them
• Experiment with new technologies and tools
• Measure what works and what doesn’t, then make course corrections

DON’T

• Forget that community is a strong post-purchase channel for engagement
• Provide a cumbersome registration and sign-in experience
• Leave up stale content, which sends a signal that you don’t care
• Moderate every single piece of content before it gets posted
• Over-package and lose the authenticity of your user-generated content
• Ask for something and not deliver
• Just rely on Facebook alone

Who does community well?

On April 24th WOMMA and ComBlu will be hosting a webinar that explores some great community tactics employed by brands such as Axe, AT&T and Marriot. Plus, we’ll delve deeper and highlight some hero brands—Whole Foods, Mountain Dew, SAP and ESPN. You will also learn how the Telecomm industry is becoming a game changer with cross-channel integration and why Healthcare is (finally) starting to embrace community building.

To learn more dos and don’ts on successful online branded communities, you can register for the webinar here. The 2012 State of Online Branded Communities report is available for download as well.

See you on April 24th!

“Take me with you.” If I could fit my friends, family and colleagues in my suitcase, I would, but to avoid exorbitant fees for overweight luggage, I rely instead on my favorite social networks to share real-time star sightings, emerging new talent and film discoveries at the Sundance Film Festival. It’s the next best thing to being there, right?

It’s this notion of inclusiveness that is the heart of what the folks at the Sundance Institute have strived to accomplish through social media — to provide everyone – whether you are in Park City or Paraguay – with an insider festival experience.

And, because the festival itself is only one moment in the journey of an independent film, Sundance’s social strategy effectively engages the film community and connoisseur well before, during and after the festival experience.

Before landing in Park City

Our journey began months before our flight to the mountain town of Park City when it was time to purchase tickets online during our allocated (by lottery) time slot. This can be a time-consuming endeavor as we sifted through 200 films in exhibition. What should we see? How do we get around? Will there be enough time to get from venue to venue?

Thankfully, the Sundance Film Festival 2013 mobile app offered a killer tool to help us effectively navigate, schedule and share the movies, parties and panels at this year’s event. With access to exclusive articles and blogs, GPS and maps, photo galleries, trailers and social networks for film geeks like us, we were able to select the films with the most buzz and coordinate with fellow friends our movie, party and dinner dates.

(By the way, Twitter was also a big help with the timely release of Sundance 2012 Filmmakers, its “hot list” of filmmakers, critics and industry voices to follow at this year’s extravaganza.)

While Sundancing

Between movies, Twitter was our go-to source for updates on the films, Q&As, award winners and more. While major media and online news outlets contributed commentary on Twitter about the festival, the Institute did its best with two extremely active Twitter handles dedicated exclusively to all things Sundance. And, this year, they did something new and completely fresh: invited guest celebrities like Mariel Hemingway and Dave Grohl to interact with fans using the @SundanceFest account.

With @sundancefestnow, we were able to get 24/7 live, up-to-the-minute updates – something that proved quite helpful when it was time to “casually run into” James Franco.

Here’s a photo we posted on Instagram with Sundance fixture James Franco. That’s me on the right, along with my partner in movies Bradley Lincoln.

Since Sundance is the place to see and be seen, it’s not surprising that Sundance created, for the first time this year, pages on Pinterest and Instagram. After all, these are the perfect platforms to relay pictures taken at premieres, on the red carpet, backstage or during interviews.

While Pinterest may be the social network du jour, we regularly checked Sundance’s Facebook page to make sure we didn’t miss a beat. From a content perspective, the Facebook page effectively curates what’s happening in all of Sundance’s social networks – effectively serving as a “one-stop shop” to all things Sundance. What’s more, it’s truly engaging (perhaps explaining why they have more than 277K followers): every post is linked to the people, movies and groups being discussed with an average of two to three other tagged pages.

Even with very little sleep, it’s just impossible to be everywhere at once. Or, so we thought. Sundance made it possible, in part, with an afternoon series of eight live Google+ Hangouts with artists and special guests. (For those that weren’t comfortable with Google+, you could also participate via Google chat or Twitter using the hashtag #SundanceHangouts).

And, even though we weren’t able to snag tickets for the Award Ceremony, we were able to get up-close-and-personal with host Joseph Gordon-Levitt and other celebrities in attendance by checking out Sundance’s Livestream, a robust collection of original content, including Q&As, panels and events. So, when people asked us if we saw Spike Lee, I can honestly say we did (just not in person).

The fest may be done, but the party isn’t over

For film lovers like me, the Sundance experience is far from over. We didn’t have the opportunity to check out this year’s selected shorts, but can view them in the comfort of our home by checking out The Screening Room, a new YouTube channel featuring a selection of short films that premiered at the festival. As we debate the true meaning of the movie “Concussion,” we can check out director Stacie Passon’s perspective at “Meet the Artists,” a video series created by Sundance. And, of course, we can keep tabs of the films we saw and those that we sadly missed by following their journey to a big or small screen near you on Sundance’s social networks.

By embracing social, Sundance has effectively created powerful, year-round connections with film afficianados who are hungry for independent film, new voices and untold stories. Don’t take my word for it; check out the social side of Sundance for yourself. If you like what you see, join me next year for the Fest (and, no, you cannot fit inside my luggage – I’m going carry-on next year).

On October 18th, I-COM, The International Conference for Online Measurement held its 2012 Global Summit.

This is important because I-COM is probably the most important marketing conference occurring today and one that most marketers have never heard of. 

For the last year, I have had the great pleasure to represent WOMMA on I-COM’s board of directors and had the opportunity to collaborate with quite literally some of the best and brightest digital marketers and big data thought leaders that exist anywhere on the globe. 

This group worked tirelessly to create a worthwhile conference framework, identify the right topics, build a structural framework for the conference, speaker presentations and breakout sessions, as well as, identify industry thought leaders that people would in some cases travel half way around the world to listen to, learn from and in some cases have a rousing debate with. 

Here are some insights from the conference, in case your travel budget didn’t allow for a junket to Italy.  There is a lot of content for you at this link, so surf through and pick out what you are most interested in. 

Here are some high points and opinions that I’ve distilled from the preplanning work, the conference content and post conference discussions.

1.  Don’t get overly enamored with Big Data.  Yes, it will change how the best businesses plan their strategies but it isn’t a magic ball that will close all the knowledge gaps you have.  Effective use of Big Data requires organizational alignment, special skills, tools and processes to utilize correctly.  The old phrase junk in-junk out still applies, so be thoughtful in what and how you measure.

2.  Dashboards aren’t the next killer app.  Just like Big Data, dashboards are an efficiency tool that provide value when used effectively.  Like one observer put it, “Dashboards are a lot like your highlighter in college.  If you highlighted the wrong stuff in your text book, or everything in a chapter for that matter, you were sure to flunk your test.  Be thoughtful in what you highlight”  Just like Big Data, junk in, junk out.

3.  Campaigns are transitory.  Content is not.  Marketers need to move their fixation from campaign optimization to content optimization.

4. Traditional activity metrics (impressions, likes, etc.) have a waning importance.  With the growth and soon critical mass of ‘Do Not Track’ restrictions, marketers must move strategies and activities to ‘value metrics’, such as content and page value (and correlated KPI impact).

5. ‘ROI’ of social and in many cases, digital engagement is still very amorphous.  Currently, the ‘R’ in ROI has no real, solid currency (as measured in business impact or Profit and Loss terms).  Marketers need to apply more discipline to get to that before ‘The ROI of social’ has any real meaning or value.

6.  Global, category standards are critical to ensuring acceptance.  However, standards need not include a measure or a metric for the sake of applying one (there are a lot of measures out there that either make little sense or are impossible to track.  Let’s not add to this clutter).

7. Continuing education is critical to adoption and value generation.  Create, use, teach and enforce consistent, relevant vocabularies and approaches to the important general or universal categories.

8.  Accept that evolution in this space is occurring so quickly that the focus should be on the process and best practices, not an end result.

Of course there was a lot more than this that occurred in Rome.  Lots of detail and smart opinions were shared and discussed on topics such as mobile, attribution, multi-screen analytics, attribution and advertising effectiveness in a digital age just to name a few of the many meaty topics.

Spend some time with this information, you’ll be glad you did.  Share it (or at least the eight points I’ve outlined above) with your peers and use it to continue to evolve and improve your own initiatives.

Considering that South by Southwest® (SXSW®) is the “premier destination for discovery,” why wouldn’t ComBlu be first in line to participate in this cultivating event? That’s why we have sprung into action and developed three intriguing proposals for this year’s event. From content supply chain methodology to ROI and decision journey considerations, ComBlu (we hope) is focusing on the right topics that will interest today’s content marketers. But, we can’t do it alone. This year the competition for speakers is fierce with more than 3,200 proposals submitted. Here’s where you come in: whether you are heading to Austin or not this March, we need you to vote for the session that would be most of interest.

Act fast – the voting process ends on August 31! Simply visit the highlighted link below and give your thumbs up for the session of your choice (don’t forget to register – it only takes a moment).

Sourcing a Screw Informs Content Supply Chain

Today content is a critical component of enterprise value. It’s a key differentiator for brands that know how to source, create and distribute it effectively. Yet, few organizations apply the rigor of the supply chain discipline to the sourcing, creation, logistics, management, distribution and measurement of its content value. Companies that source raw materials for the manufacturing process apply granular discipline at every point in the supply chain and constantly seek ways to improve logistics and workflow, cut costs, find new competitive advantage, and get to market more effectively. This same approach applies to the content supply chain, which McKinsey estimates has a sunk cost of tens of millions of dollars in CPC, OEMs and technology companies. Panelists will discuss real world issues in putting a content supply chain methodology in place and give practical tips for each of the five basic steps of content supply chain:

1. Input

2. Creation

3. Management

4. Distribution

5. Measurement

Find your Princess Cake: A slice of content ROI

For years, the major baking brands all optimized their content to rank high for the most frequently searched term: “Chocolate cake.” But the real opportunity lay in optimizing for a term that was “own-able”…like princess cake. Building the right content measurement system can help brands find their “princess cake.” This is what happens when brands move beyond “activity metrics” and develop “value metrics” that show how to calibrate and optimize their content marketing strategy.

Panelists, Kathy Baughman (ComBlu), George Palatine (Allstate), Ekaterina Walter (Intel) and Rishi Dave (Dell) will share the innovative ways they are approaching content ROI. They will share tips for:

• Developing content KPIs

• Determining which content contributes to sales and which is a drag on performance

• Building a meaningful content dashboard

Right content at the right place and right time

Customers and prospects want different kinds of information at different points of the decision journey. The right mix of created, curated and social content differs at each point along the way. And, where consumers look for information and conversation differs at each point in the decision process. It all needs to be calibrated for different segments of decision makers and influencers.

Moderator Chris Silva (Altimeter Group) and panelists Ekaterina Walter (Intel), Joe Chernov (Eloqua) and Kathy Baughman (ComBlu), will help the audience understand how to deliver the right content at the right place at the right time. They will:

• Show how to map content along the decision journey

• Demonstrate the authority of different types of content along the decision journey

• Share how to gauge quality content for different points in the decision process

• Show how the content of three brands align along the decision journey

Thanks in advance for your support. Fingers crossed!!!

A few years ago, engagement was the holy grail of marketing. Brands delivered interactive campaigns designed to stimulate action and interaction: Take a poll, share or upload a photo, join a “community,” create a video, and so on. Unfortunately, the outcome was a lack of true engagement; brands for the most part pushed “stuff” using a variety of social and digital channels. The latest shiny tools and apps were embedded in the campaigns and for a while people did react, but few actually engaged in a meaningful way.

Today, engagement has evolved to “brand advocacy,” the art of more continuous engagement through relationship building. Boston Consulting Group describes advocacy marketing as generating knowledge and positive opinion about your brand and products by engaging individuals and small groups in meaningful, direct, two-way communication. The intimate understanding of individual consumers or customers creates both affinity and advocacy; people recommend, share, provide feedback, defend and tell you when you need to do better. Marketers have known this for a while, but few have adopted a systematic or standardized approach.

In order to excel at advocacy, brands need to understand and define their target, and find the six to eight percent who are truly passionate and want to interact, share who they are, and ultimately endorse your brand and products. This is much harder than pushing “engagement” or seeding products and hoping for return on engagement. For years, brands have collected information and data about their customers, but for the most part have failed to truly use it to develop meaningful relationships.

Both the art and science of advocate identification and recruitment has evolved significantly over the past few years. Much work has been done in understanding their motivations, how to appropriately engage, what to ask of them and what to “give” them in return. Additionally, more brands than ever are interested in exploring a path to brand advocacy. Yet as we talk with brands, we’re befuddled by how many neglect this route. Some just don’t know how to get started, while others simply don’t think it’s worth the effort.

Research conducted by McKinsey should persuade those in both camps. It studied what motivates people along the decision journey, and word-of-mouth (WOM) was paramount. The study further found that having a robust “post-purchase” channel as part of the marketing cycle was key to finding and activating loyalists who will drive advocacy or WOM.

Our own work at ComBlu bears this out. We have helped many large, global brands identify, recruit and activate brand advocates, and then engage them over time. These brands got to know their advocates, and recognized the input they gave and the WOM that they spread. Productivity among this group is dependent upon segmenting advocates and understanding how to engage specific types for defined goals and purposes. For example, a very small percentage will actually create a video or write content for you. Yet, many engagement road maps focus almost exclusively on this type of activity. Not only does this waste resources, it restricts return motivation and can lead to stagnation. Yet, many people will curate content or share it, but few brands stimulate this “collector” behavior as part of the engagement strategy. Knowing what to ask, and who to ask to do very specific things is part of knowing them and respecting them.

ComBlu defines brand advocacy as the confluence of conversation, community and content. We sponsor a Content Council for brands and almost all of the members consider content to be a powerful engagement asset. Most brands though have not mapped content to the right point of the decision journey and continue to push vast amounts of content indiscriminately into the cloud. Few have stopped to think how to use advocates to amplify it. Fewer still know how to use their content as a stimulant for conversation. And, many still think of Facebook as their hub for brand advocacy.

Social measurement is starting to get more sophisticated and allows brands to better gauge the impact of their advocacy marketing or engagement campaigns, and use the insights they glean to calibrate programs. The really smart brands use social business intelligence to better know the needs, wants and quirks of their advocates. Without great, deep relationships with them, there is no brand advocacy.