Facebook has made it so easy to search for people with similar interest as you I can’t help but think that a company would be better off developing a Facebook app instead of a separate network.

I want to know how many of these companies were already participating in social media in some way beyond making a branded bit of code that people can pick up and drop in a sidebar or a MySpace page.

You want a blog because everyone else has one? Ok. There are some things you might need to do to keep pace with the rest of the business world. But are you reading them right now, using them? No? Start doing it, along with some of the people in management, then let’s talk about it in a couple of months and see if you still want to make that commitment. If you build it and work it, they may or may not come and stay. If you just build it and leave the half-framed shell on the foundation, that’s worse than never having started at all.

I developed a blog with my wife http://www.stthomasblog.com and built up readership and got a great following before I introduced the forum, http://www.stthomasblog.com/forum (just released).

Next up is a social network, but not until the forum gets some traction. Everything was done carefully and in steps. The key is developing a focused brand identity and then delivering that to the right target market.

If done correctly you can really own a niche market. In this case I focus soley on St. Thomas (while all our “competition” focuses on the 3 US Virgin Islands). We have such a good following because of that clear focus that we will have a very good chance of success on the social network.

It also helps that my wife and I are extremely passionate about what we’re doing. We really care about helping St. Thomas, visitors and locals. So having some passion can get you over the hump.

We also did a lot of stuff offline like introducing the Best of St. Thomas Awards. This got us in front of owners and managers of many top restaurants, bars, shops etc. Word of mouth spread like crazy on our blog because of these awards. It was very time consuming and costly from our standpoint but the word of mouth was amazing.

We’re trying to work with the major radio station (we only have 2) where we go to their events and then blog on the event. Then they interview us once a week on air to talk about the blog article. It’s fun and it helps us and the radio station and our followers.

Next year we are going to the high schools and reqruiting students as guest bloggers. So a nice mix of offline stuff does make a big difference.

I would have a few comments on the article.

First off, I agree with you that many marketers do not get it and that they are setting up brand-centric or product-centric communities as another channel to push their messages through instead of creating user-centric communities with a lot of value for the users. Many also do not understand what makes communities tick nor how to leverage the forces that can create positive feedback loops in those communities.

I also agree that many companies have no reason to create their own communities, but that they should instead go where their customers already hang out, whether it’d be on Facebook, Myspace or some other user-managed community like the Tivo community.

All that being said, you do not need thousands or millions of users to have a successful community. We have spoken with companies that were very successful in leveraging communities with just a few hundred people in the area of product innovation, or in the area of uncovering consumer insights. It comes down to understanding the role of content and moderation in the success of those communities.

But if you can get people excited about scissors, or get a virtual community to help you with new product development for a potato chip manufacturer, I am sure that you can uncover hidden passions within your customer base that will help your company no matter what vertical you are in.

Francois

The same for us in education. Who we are trying to teach and what we are teaching should determine the tools we use.

Education, like business, to often jumps on the technology bandwagon without much thought to the reason and purpose for doing so.

In my opinion, a big part of the reason why these communities fail - is becuase they are being built by companies that don’t understand how they work or more importantly how much work it takes to make one sucessful.

They get caught up in their dance routine. Having been marketing a certain way for so many years, when they try to do that dance in social media - they are told thats not how it works and trip up.

This causes the wheels to spin and momentum, direction, and objectives are never clear.

To the potential member this appears that the company has no idea what they are doing and are just trying to push their message on me.

No thanks - back to my Facebook page to play with my Pieces of Flair application.

Too many comapnies try to make social media work for their marketing agendas when it should be the other way around. This of course presents the scary notion that this may require a 100% change in thier marketing inniatives - and how many companies are willing to do that? OR better yet - how many companies need to do that?

Another thing to think of is the word community - and what does that entail? Do you really need a fancy “Facebook” web site to build a community? Wouldn’t a Blog do the same thing, or a forum, or even a e-newsletter?

I love social media and everything about it but even I would be the first to tell a business that building a community would be a bad move if it doesn’t fit in with their mission or goals.