Laura,

great post. I wholeheartedly agree with you about Apple. They are probably the one company that doesn’t need to focus on building online communities. As you said, they already have a thriving community. I was at the mall today and trying to get into an Apple retail store is like being in a club in Vegas - PACKED.

Nonetheless, here are my “community building” sins (in no order of importance):

1. communities managed my direct marketers
2. lack of authenticity
3. communities used only as an acquisition tool
4. communities created but the brand isn’t listening

- Michael

“Communiy sin: #3 Community as destination”

Heh.

I work for a large, prominent ad agency. One I’m sure you’ve heard of. Almost every single one of our clients is guilty of this one. Facebook apps, Twitter accounts, Flickr groups, etc., they ALL want them, but they all want them so that they can profit off of them. That’s it, end of story.

It’s like the people who make these decisions have absolutely no passion about the products/services they’re selling and have no desire to build grassroots growth around the fascinating stories about them… they just see bottom lines and dollar signs.

As a creative professional who doesn’t get a lot of time in the room with the decision makers, it’s enough to make me want to break things somedays.

Great Post.
Here are some additional thoughts on common mistakes that businesses make when trying to implement a community.

put the right person in charge as community mgr
building a crappy community
not promoting to customer base
not being honest, engaged and real
take the good with the bad
not nurturing the natural leaders of the community & giving them props

you might want to leverage where your customers are currently at: facebook, twitter, myspace, etc. with an app/widget.

Make sure you have a strategy.
Note: If you build it they will not magically come.

Rodney Rumford

I’d say the biggest community sin is unleashing lawyers to shut down grass roots / fan / organic communities because you’ve build a virtual petri dish for the social objects to use, and they’re going to use it whether they like it or not.

Second biggest sin is to have an itchy trigger finger on the delete key when you’re facing down a market led revolt over something you did. You’re better off letting the disgruntled customer voice their opinion, and address the substance of the complaint.

Case in point was when a collectibles manufacturer took an aggressive delete key to posts on their forum as they attempted to present a “Happy Marketplace Of Happy Satisfied Happy Customers” on their forums, when there were a lot on unhappy customers with blogs, screencaps and demonstrations that the company was deleting posts to attempt to create “proof” everything was fine.

Laura,

Fantastic *spark* post.

Lack of diligence. This is something close to my heart. Growing a community is long term. There are short and medium term benefits, for sure .. but growing for the long term requires diligence/perseverance.

On the topic of example #1 (waste management) check out Greenopolis, which is a community sponsored by Waste Management, the company.

People get passionate about waste management not just when there’s a lack of it, but when they’re concerned about the impact of landfills, increasing recycling (supply and demand), and decreasing the waste stream.

I know, it was just an example. But it is interesting that just about any time you think of an example no one could be passionate about, you find the people who are passionate about it.

Reminds me of the old saying that eventually every product becomes a toaster - ie, a commodity - when in fact there’s been lots of innovation in the toaster space. (There’s an excellent article on that by Michael Schrage in the MIT Sloan Management Review: The Myth of Commoditization)

In either case, it comes down to ignoring the role passion and enthusiasm play in preventing your product from becoming a commodity or your community from becoming boring.

I’d start by trying to define “real business results”. If community as proxy for direct marketing fishbowl, then the results will be poor to poorer. If by “business results” client intends to carefully construct a community (s) as trusted advisers, and co-creation engine, then I’m onboard. Good to have found you Laura!

Very interesting post, Laura. I’ve been meditating over how to motivate communities to action lately so this topic is certainly on my mind.

I would also like to add that companies need to understand the difference between an organically formed community and what they’d traditionally call a marketing demographic. While they may become on in the same you cannot manufacture a community out of thin air for the sole purpose of marketing your product/services/wares to them; not without the community becoming suspicious or too self aware.

Now there are some communities that WANT to be marketed to and use their communities to those ends. Podcasters, new media artists and bloggers are a few that seem to have created a community whose purpose is to understand how they can go from a community to an industry. That is powerful and certainly has its place but the community you’re talking about reminds me more of the people who are looking to bond, share, evolve together through shared interest and not financial gain which makes them all the more difficult to cultivate.

Again, great post I look forward to reading more!

I’m trying to wrap my brain around #3, and it’s tough on my own, and even tougher taking the viewpoint of a corporation still in the capabilities-brochure mindset. Fellow commenters, and/or Laura, what are some successful examples?

@pistachio - great post as usual. Lot’s of good discussion in the comments as well.

Given the fact that our company helps other companies build community, I couldn’t resist chiming in with my “three sins.”

Sin #1 - Lack of community road map.
It is essential for companies to create a thoughtful community strategy and road map to help them understand exactly what they are trying to achieve/accomplish through that community. Is the company trying to reach its customers and help drive future product innovation? Is the objective to reach employees and help build morale and employee retention? How will the community be rolled out? How will be market this community prior to launch? These are all critical questions that must be determined before even getting started.

Sin #2 - Lack of a designated community manager.
Companies looking to build community should have a dedicated community manager. It is extremely important to have someone who is fully entrenched in that community, who is really listening to feedback, concerns, ideas - and understands how to best utilize the information that he/she is gleaning. If there is no person committed to community on a regular basis, the gathering of information is a futile effort.

Sin #3 (the big one) - Failure to relinquish control.
When building a community, companies must let go of control and put the needs of the community members first. They must listen to the voice of their community, continue to build trust, and find new ways to engage their members.

Thanks for asking.

Best,
@astrout

Communities that are overly conscious of being “communities” (complete with jargon that communicates exclusivity, not belonging) drive me a bit nuts.

I think the job of the community developer is to lower the barriers to entry as much as possible while still keeping long timers engaged. That’s why it’s so hard!

@astrout: thanks for chiming in with your list - you were reading my mind, apparently. A great complement to @pistachio’s original list. Now if we can come up with one more we can have the Seven Deadly Sins of Social Media!

Okay, add “lack of authenticity” to the list like Brito suggested and you’ve got your seven.

Mark 11:15-17

15 Then they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling and those who were buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold doves; 16and he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. 17He was teaching and saying,

Amazing how clear it is to people who already know what’s what and how unclear it is to everybody else.

How many catastrophic duds do big brands need to perpetrate on the peoples before they chill out and accept the dictum: markets are conversations. (As in, The Listening)

In my book, Starbucks recent thingee is the gold standard. It may not be social or whatever, but it’s straight dealin’ and corporate seems to be movin’ with the groovin’

BTW, here’s some links to some screwups old and new. Laura and Jim, Rahodeb, Comcast at the FCC hearings. A regular laugh riot!

http://realadvertising.cc/Frymaster/documents/missteps.html

Yes. This resonates. Especially “Don

Great post.

I never looked at it that way.

I’m working hard on an information product using the InfoProdCreation.com course and all I could think of is how can I create a community of followers for that product.

Looking at it from your point of view gives me some great ideas.

Thanks Laura!

Fisk Gawsen

I’m interested in how virtual community maps to geographic community. Having been a community organizer in the “war on poverty”, a resident of an intentional community for most of my life, and as the manager of various virtual community projects since the early 1970’s, I see great parallel between the issues in virtual communities and those in the “real” world.

One of the more amazing things I’ve seen is that no matter what the basis and structure of a community, you can pretty much count on several archetypes to emerge. These include the “policy wonk” who wants to impose order on the anarchy, the enthusiastic but inept dreamer who has 100000000000 good ideas, and the grumpy person who is fixated on old wounds and isn’t afraid to share the drama.