The Virtual Gardener
The place where I explore online community cultivation, propagation and harvesting techniques.
I've been working as head of consultancy at Sift for the last four years. The business supports all organisations looking to respond to a Web 2.0 world and truly engage with their audience - and has been doing so for the past 10 years.
This blog originally started out as a comment on a conference I attended about online communities. I'm now using it as a thought-bin for related stuff. Any gaps in posting doesn't mean I've stopped thinking ...
Conference day 1: How to create our community strategy
Presenter: Charlene Li, Forrester Research, author of Groundswell.
Social revolution requires framework and process.
The framework is P O S T:
P eople - asses your customers’ social activities
O bjectives - decide what you want to accomplish
S trategy - plan for how relationships with customers will change
T echnology - decide what social technology to use
The Forester ‘social technographic ladder’ is a bit suspect because the image of a ladder implies a need/desire to get to the top where the value is - Charlene said it wasn’t meant to imply that. With that caveat here’s the ladder (because the attributes are inherited the total % is greater than 100%):
Creators 18%
Critics 25%
Collectors 12%
Joiners 25%
Spectators 48%
Inactive 44%
Objectives map to traditional functions:
Function Groundswell objective Example
Research Listening
Marketing Talking Beinggirl
Sales Energising
Support Supporting
Development Embracing
That Being Girl site is an illustration of a company trying to reach an audience that’s hard to reach - in this case Tampax wanting to sell tampons to teenagers (!)
