Software companies, such as Ableton use forums as part of their community building strategy.
Prior to Web 2.0…
Before blogs, before social media, before Facebook and MySpace — message boards and forums reigned supreme. For the uninitiated, they are fragmented, niche communities of like minded people who came together around a common interest.
It’s no surprise that sites like Ning have sprung up in popularity and blogging has taken off in the last few years. There are countless people creating content, trading expertise and working together to learn and socialize around things they are passionate about.
Message boards (or message forums, which ever you prefer) were the start of the modern social web. In fact, they still thrive today and are some of the best resources of information on niche topics around. Continue reading...
Read a great post recently at Twist Image on selling 2.0 - letting the customer do the communicating. Mitch writes on the great strategy used by e-commerce sites for empowering consumers to be vocal about products and what they like and don’t directly on the same page as the product.
Amazon comes to mind as a site that does this extremely well. When making a purchase (which is pretty frequently as I’m addicted to reading) I always read the consumer reviews there, especially when it comes to new authors. The consumer reviews always tell the real story about the product. And everyone knows it, I am willing to bet a heat-map of an Amazon product page shows consumers spending more time reading reviews than the publisher copy someone painstakingly drafted.
Why is this? Simple - we know the publisher copy is going to gush praise. While it is worthwhile in getting someone’s attention and providing them an intro, what provides real value in a consumer site that is unfamiliar territory with a potential new visitor is other consumer’s opinions and thoughts. It is social proofing. Continue reading...
image credit: bbsc30 via flickr
I receieve a decent amount of reader questions via email. I always take time to give a response, as generally email questions are quick one-offs, and I’m happy to answer.
Once in awhile I get an email question asking for detailed, specific advice and seeking a more in-depth response. When that happens, I give the writer two options:
1) I can answer the question in an open-format for all my readers to see and get value from. In this case I can either give detailed advice to your company if you’re willing to let me disclose your company name and issues publicly, or I can tackle the question from a general perspective and keep your company name private (unfortunately with this method, I can never be as thorough with an answer). Continue reading...
Disclaimer to Digg and Reddit users who also read my blog: this post is to educate those external of these communities. If you’re an active member of either of these sites, the content below may not be new to you.
Digg and Reddit are two of the most powerful communities of social media users on the web. They are the evolution of message boards and message forums that were the previous forefront of the social web (and continue to be popular as well). Continue reading...
It’s still a novelty that in a world of user generated content, a monolithic organization would take the time to respond to a message - especially in an unexpected and totally creative way.
This is the response by EA Sports to a video that a Tiger Woods PGA Tour ‘08 fan posted on YouTube 1 year ago: Continue reading...
