Community Evangelism isn’t just about Marketing, and LinkedIn takes the second step

LinkedIn has started the online manifestations of it’s community outreach, they’ve launched a blog with friendly pictures of the staff. For a company that’s so widely known and used, it’s an interesting perspective to see them step out into the conversation and join the community. Of course, it’s lead by my bud Mario Sundar who’s doing a fantastic job taking in feedback from the community (including mine) and is helping to lead the charge.

My focus is on how corporations use the web, and I’ve started to meet more and more community folks (as a ‘media guy’ that’s part of my job) and have noticed a wide variety of skills and approaches demonstrated. To me, Community Marketing (A term I’ve been using before many knew what it was) is not just about ‘yet-another-marketing’ tool, but a belief in putting the community (customers and prospects) before the company. It’s also more than just marketing, it’s also about product development, product support, and just being human.

LinkedIn is one of the early social networks (I evangelized it heavily when people were getting laid off at Exodus) so I know they will harness these tools to build a better experience. This is certainly a second step in the right direction, the first, of course, was hiring Mario.

BTW, if you’re seeking a career as a Community Manager, Juniper Networks (one of our clients) has an opening, email me if you want a direct introduction. I’m also glad to see that EMC is realizing the new influentials! Did you see my strategies for organizing your Corporate Social Media Program (Starting internally first).

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 25th, 2007 at 3:35 am 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.