Do companies Cultivate, Harness, Build, Engage, Lead, Visit, Watch, or Join Communities?

No, this is not Web Strategy Mad libs…

Interesting dialogue happening with some thoughts leaders in Shel’s comments around the notion of how companies respond to communities that are forming.  I’ve been struggling with the right term to describe what companies should do.

At first, I thought because I was launching web tools, that the term ‘build’ was most appropriate.  Then Shel corrected me that some of these communities already exist, although certain fragments may not have been connected.  I later thought it was ‘harness’ which success a company could reign in and benefit.  In his wisdom, (and I should have known better) that a company does not control the customer or community, so harness is too forceful.  

Cultivate works well for me…this comes from my view as a community manager, who has to tend, grow, care, and weed.  I think this term came out of the closed community models such as forums and bulletin boards.  It may not apply to open community models such as massive social sites, and certainly not blogs. Many scared companies ‘watch’, and even ignorant ones don’t even do this.

Tara Hunt suggested ‘Be part’ or even “lead’ are great ideas. 

“I think about it this way, Companies must be part of the community they serve. They can even lead (some do an amazing job of it), but they must not play ‘visitor’.”

So far, I think she says it best.  Disucssions with a recent client suggest that the ‘visit’ aproach will indeed backfire, as once customers see you dip your toes in, you’ll be expected to stay. 

If you’re new to Social Media and Communities, Tara has thought leadership in her doctrine of Pinko Marketing, and Shel wrote the book Naked Conversations about business blogging, and has an upcoming book called Global Neighborhood that discusses how Social Media and the internet are shrinking the world. 

This entry was posted on Friday, December 15th, 2006 at 6:38 pm and is filed under Community Marketing, Social Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.