The 10 Rules of Building Community

The blog was resurrected yesterday and already I'm dropping bombs!  Today I'm providing the ten rules of Building Community which I included in my Community Manager pitch to talkto!  Enough of the dramatics andon to the value added info:

Community Manager is the buzz term for Social Media Marketers.  A firm's community manager is responsible for engaging customers through social networks with the following goals:

1. Coddle prospective users
2. Gain user feedback
3. Mitigate criticism  
4. Spread the Message

These goals are all aligned with the principles of Inbound Marketing which is the gospel of Hubspot (note they've been voted the best place to work in Boston...cough...cough...look over here).  I don't need to preach the benefits of social media or Inbound Marketing (their blog and book cover it thoroughly) but can interject on the subject of Community Building.  Community isn't something you can build overnight.  It also isn't something you can buy or expect to produce immediate benefits.  Your community efforts can fail miserably if your only interest is to find sales.  Here are my ten rule rules for building community:

1. The user is always right
2. Go where they are
3. Always be fresh
4. Be Responsive 
5. Foster Relationships
6. Encourage your evangelists
7. Amplify your supporters 
8. Address your detractors
9. Get outside voices
10. Be Patient

By no means is this an exhaustive list of best practices for building community but it is a good start.  Looking forward to comments and will elaborate on each of these rules over a few upcoming posts.

Joyus SWOT Analysis and Market Opportunity

As promised in Tuesdays post here is my expansion on Dan Primack's article about Joyus, specifically his Pros and Cons, by creating a SWOT analysis and going through a simple Market Opportunity exercise.  For those that don't want to read his article, Joyus is a QVC (TV's home shopping network) meets eCommerce meets social experience in home shopping.  The startup will produce ~4 minute infomercials for women-focused consumer products and distribute them on their website where viewers can purchase the item.  Joyus expects to charge a fee for producing the videos and will earn a share of the revenue from sales.  Most of my information for this exercise is from Dan's article as well as the NY Times and Media Beat which all appear to be working off the same press release.  Unfortunately, I haven't had the pleasure of using the platform myself after determining it wasn't worth registering for their Beta (Sorry Joyus not sure I'm in your demographic).  


The SWOT analysis is my interpretation of Dan's Pros and Cons as well as some additional comments I pulled from the article.  Embedding the full Doc was a mess (Not an HTML expert) so I decided to load an image while providing a link to the original Google Doc:  

No Banjo, you can't choose my friends.

A contact introduced me to Banjo the other day and I downloaded the app ASAP.  The UI and features look great and I'm already over the stalker/sketchiness factor of being able to see everyone checked-in around me whether they are using Foursquare, Quipster (My new favorite Twitter friend...even if they don't have a Droid app), Gowalla, Loopt, Google Latitude, Facebook Places, etc.  What I can't get over is the permissions I have to grant Banjo in order to link my Twitter account and fully utilize the app:

1. read tweets from your timeline...Standard
2. see who you follow, and follow new people...ok
3. update your profile...WTF?
4. post tweets for you...Standard

I don't always read the permissions when I download a new app but 2 and 3 stuck out as unusual compared to my other apps.  Why does Banjo need to follow new people but even stranger update my profile?  If the reason is to allow user edits through their interface than it should be explained in some form of privacy document or warning.  Am I paranoid in assuming that Banjo could start manipulating my account or is this a poor example of user education/outreach?  My guess is most people don't read the permissions and hopefully we can trust developers to enhance our social lives rather than hijack our social graphs.

Twiter Valuation Model re Marissa Campise's Blog Entry: "More Thoughts on Market Sizing"

This post was inspired by a comment on Marissa Campise's blog as it is my crude attempt at a valuation of Twitter given her projections of the revenue potential upon reaching full scale.  Unfortunately, it delayed (and shortened) my previous post on Google+ (expect comments on design flaws next week...need time to use the merchandise) but hopefully it will result in two posts this week.  Also, it could have been completed on Saturday but I haven't been able to find a reliable spreadsheet app which will allow editing formulas (any suggestions would be greatly appreciated) so I had to wait until boarding a NYC bound train in Rutland, VT before booting-up my pre-college D610 laptop.  Therefore this is almost my first entirely mobile blog entry as I used the Blogger and Google Docs apps on my Droid X (full disclosure: I'm a big Google fan if I ever write a Microsoft or Apple blog) for most of the work.  W/O further ado here is a link to my model and below is my assumptions/comments:

***Link to come as soon as I can get my computer on WIFI.  Google docs app failed me again.
Here is the link: http://bre.ad/04qao8

Turntable.fm Design Flaws, Recommendations, and Business Model?

For those who haven't used the new online music player Turntable.fm...you're missing out!  Turntable.fm is Pandora meets throwback chat room meets DJ Hero game mechanics.  The platform allows music listeners to join themed "rooms" in order to "play music together," as five DJs take turns selecting songs that the listeners vote and comment on.  DJs collect points based on the quality of the songs as voted by the listeners and songs are skipped if too many people vote "Lame."  This is the ultimate blend of social and music as First Round Capital Principal, Charlie O'Donnell, put it, "Some services just tell you what your friends are listening to--the digital data exhaust of an inherently unsocial experience.  You listen to music on your own, and your data is broadcasted to your graph."  Turntable.fm is a tremendous tool for discovering new music while "socializing" with users who share a similar taste in music.  The site launched in late May and is still in Beta but there are some potential UI/UX changes that could be made to improve the user experience with this exciting app: