I lookrd for tag lines, in many cases, I didn’t find them so resulted with the HTML title tag.

To your point, if everyone’s suggesting the description is the same –that still leads for little differentiation.

So, whether we measure descriptors or tag lines –the differentiation still isn’t apparent.

In Pluck’s case, we’ve left our HTML doc title as-is based on its historic contribution to our SEO strength. While typically market our business through the tagline you see under our brand mark on the home page and throughout the site: “Pluck – Integrated Social Media for Publishers, Retailers and Brands”

Wanted to point out this important distinction, and hope this helps to clarify how we position the company. Having said that, you’ve sparked some productive conversation on Pluck’s positioning internally, and we’re taking a look at how we might improve.

Thanks as always for keeping Pluck, our customers and our competitors on our respective toes!

Best,
Adam

I think you are on to something with this survey. I work for one of your chosen tagline vendors in this post. I think the study would be very interesting if it was on a larger sample set and segmented by geography. I am on the sales side so what we see on a daily basis is the competition for projects changes by geography. By no means is this accurate for all deals but a heavy majority. When working on opportunities in the Southwest, especially Texas where there’s a lot of activity, we see a dominance of Pluck, Telligent, Small World Labs. You rarely hear about Awareness, Jive or Mzinga. You go into California & Northwest and you hear a lot about Jive, Pluck and Kick Apps. In the Midwest, only in Chicago do I hear about Jive as you mostly hear LiveWorld,Leverage, and Lithium. In the Southeast, you hear Mzinga, Awareness, Leverage and KickApps. Northeast, Awareness and Mzinga. Just my two cents from the frontline.

Cheers,
Jason

Taglines or boiler plates or marketing messages can typically do one of 3 things…1) make aclaim like ‘leadership’, 2) describe the compnay or space, or 3) say something about the VALUE to a customer.

I agree with others on the thread that say “leader” claims are meaningless and don’t help customers or prospects. We are partial to #3…what is the value…that is of course why people should be writing a check.

For all of us in the industry — we owe the market and the customers better.

So, a question to those influencers, decision-makers, and buyers out there…what is the VALUE that you are most seeking from online customer communities?

This isn’t light hearted at all, Patrick.

It makes sense to be descriptive in a young market where people don’t get fully what you do. Nike, Coke, and Apple don’t have that problem as their markets are matured.

The risk is, taglines that are descriptive end up not just describing you –but your competitors, and that’s why they all look the same.

Here’s a few dozen responses from the survey respondents, read here:

http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/about/what-would-you-do-if-you-were-the-cmo-of-a-community-platform-vendor/

Keep in mind out of the 60 respondents, 11 were already customers of community platforms, 17 of the were researching this market, and 1 said they were ready to buy. That’s nearly half of the respondents that have indicated they are your market base.

Do the readers of this post think we should go for a unique, pithy, “marketing-differentiated” tagline or help our prospects know what we offer? let me know