I'm definitely a fan of Andy Sernovitz's blog, and his recent installment was particularly wonderful - if you haven't seen it yet then be sure to check it out: Home is Where Your Mug Is. The basic idea is simple:

Starbucks should give their best customers a personalized mug.

Giving out free stuff to special customers is nothing new, but a free glass or cup is only the most superficial part of this idea. The key is in the personalization - make your customer feel unique and special by doing something out of the ordinary and personal just for them. Sure, it takes more work. But your customer now knows you care enough about them that you would go to such lengths to celebrate them. Whenever they use it, they have an opportunity to talk about the gift and why they were given one. Seeing someone else with a such unique item may make other customers wonder why they don't have a relationship like that with their shop. And every visit to your place of business becomes a special event.

We know our top super users and influencers in our communities very well - can you imagine what wonderful, personalized rewards you could give them that they can talk about and display, both on-and-offline? What have you done to make them feel special?

photo by Viernest

Josh Bernoff recently released a study headlined "People don't trust company blogs. What you should do about it." that has a lot of people talking about the relevance of corporate blogs and how they can be improved. A worthwhile counterpoint to the article is from Max Kalehoff at AttentionMax if you are interested in following the discussion.

I can see how this might be an interesting question for debate, but I wonder just how useful this information ultimately is. You could change the question to whether people trust companies and corporations, and you would likely get a similar result. Does that mean companies should try harder to get people to trust them? Of course, but I also think that conclusion is missing the real opportunity.

For me, these survey results boil down to something we should have known all along: People trust their peers more than they trust companies. So instead of working to make everyone in the world trust you, wouldn't it be more productive to earn the trust of the more vocal peers (the super users) and then help them advocate on your behalf?

Let's call this the basic community advocacy strategy:

1. Find the most vocal and influential peers
2. Embrace them and earn their trust
3. Provide more ways for them to talk about you and influence others

Blogs are a useful tool in this strategy, but you are facing an uphill battle if your measure of success is to gain everyone's trust (or even the trust of a majority of your readers according to the Forrester survey). Don't spread your efforts so thin, focus instead on what will have the greatest effect: building relationships with those influential peers to reach the broader audience.

It's not how many people trust you, it's who trusts you that ultimately counts.

photo by greefus groinks

Everybody talks about the importance of authenticity and transparency in social media, but why? What's so great about being honest and open? After all, there are folks out there who make a living deceiving people to gain their trust - no, I'm not talking about used car salesmen and politicians, though there may be a little Venn diagram overlap there. I refer instead to the ignoble confidence man who earns his or her ill-gotten gains through gaining the trust of others to take advantage of them. But the ends aren't what's interesting here: it's the means they use to build that trust that's so informative. For example, here's a great quote from an article titled How to Run a Con by Paul J. Zak that I found through Bruce Schneier's blog:

"The key to a con is not that you trust the conman, but that he shows he trusts you."

That's a pretty powerful insight for community managers and those attempting to reach out to their broader audience through social media. 'I trust you because you trust me' is an emotional response that bypasses logical thought - after all, there's nothing particularly trustworthy about being vulnerable, but sharing that vulnerability invites reciprocity.

I highly recommend the article as it's a wonderful read about the elements that make cons effective beyond the victim's greed. But because this is a blog about community, not security, I thought I'd take the list of different factors from the article that the con men used to build trust with the victim and apply it to a community context to see how well it fits:

Helping a specific individual

Helping another person, as the article notes, is a huge ego boost and emotional reward. Asking for help in a forums, a twitter post or a blog article is often answered. As the author states: "'I need your help' is a potent stimulus for action."

 

Helping others

The more people who are perceived to directly benefit from your actions, the greater the motivation. We often see that an appeal made 'on behalf of the community' can magnify the effect of a personal request.

 

Shown positive example

If you see someone step up to help, you are more likely to want to join in. We see this in ratings systems, comments and polls all the time: a post that is rated up is more likely to be rated up higher, while posts that are not rated will likely continue to be ignored, etc. You need to show members how they should participate and lead by example.

 

Appropriate benefit

If there is a personal benefit to you all the better, but the benefit should be align with the action or it will raise questions. Cons fail if too much money is offered, as the victim will become suspicious. Community reputation systems and rewards of access in the community provide reward in line with individual participation that monetary rewards do not.

 

Low perceived risk

If you believe that the risk is low, you are more likely to give. Members are more likely to participate in a community with a positive and nurturing atmosphere than one that is either too controlling or where there is too much negativity. Make it easy and safe to give and members will.

And now let's go back to authenticity and transparency: the con is a short-lived event. The victim of a con is unlikely to trust the con men again (the opposite of 'low perceived risk' above) which means that the con man must move from mark to mark to make their living. So if you are looking for more than a single score, and if you want folks to continue to trust you, you will have to continue to validate that trust. And the best way to do that is to mean what you say (authenticity) and say what you mean (transparency).

Do you trust your members? Do you show it? If not, why should they trust you?

photo by by KB35

Best quote that seems obvious but worth repeating: "Networking is always important when it's real, and it's always a useless distraction when its fake." Social media is a great enabler of relationships, both fake and genuine. As Seth notes, fake relationships are just a way to keep score, like hit count: they don't mean anything in a business context. Real relationships are reciprocal; you would go out of your way for that person, and they would go out of their way for you. But to earn that you have to first build trust through genuine, honest interactions.

Social media is a powerful tool to help you nuture and grow your relationships online, but you have to understand what kind of relationships you are making. If your entire strategy is just clicking 'follow' on Twitter or becoming 'friends' on Facebook, you're doing it wrong.

Photo & caption by Jeffy & Noelle, found at icanhazcheezburger.com

Update: edited to add label.

When beginning a new relationship, are you more likely to connect with the outgoing person who really puts themselves out there and makes an effort? Or the guy who is reserved, tests the waters carefully, and starts with all kinds of ground rules about how you can interact with each other and when?

It is deceptively like common sense to start small when you are trying something new. After all, it is generally accepted as a best practice to launch a new campaign, product or program with a beta or pilot phase because it allows you to validate your ideas and approach with a lower degree of risk than a full deployment. But the problem with applying this concept to deploying your community is that you increase your risk instead of lowering it.

Communities are about building relationships. To start a community, you need to create an environment that is conducive to forming relationships among your members. Members show up for a variety of reasons, but what keeps them there is demonstrable activity by other members and an overall commitment to the community as an entity of its own. Pilots and beta programs actually increase your risk rather than limit it.

Here's some things to consider if you are thinking about launching a beta version of your community:

Betas and pilots are limited in size.

But a community needs to reach a critical mass to succeed.

Do you want to limit your chances of success?

 

Betas and pilots are of limited duration.

Community requires commitment.

Will temporary and superficial relationships get you the results you want?

Your relationships with your community and the people who comprise it are not a technology, they're not a campaign and they're not a project. Don't make the mistake of treating them that way.

Photo by Mel B.

In the movie Jerry Maguire, there was this wonderful scene where Jerry (Tom Cruise) and Rod Tidwell (Cuba Gooding, Jr.) were celebrating together after a game where Tidwell played well and almost received a serious injury. Another football player turns to Jerry's rival at his old agency and asks "Why don't we have that kind of relationship?" What follows is perhaps the most blatant fake hug in history.

Sometimes we forget how simple it really is. Listen to your customers. Talk to them. Show them that your human. It's not always about showing me the money, it's about showing me that you care.

Don't get me wrong, ROI is important and a good way to track the success of your efforts. But don't let it become an obstacle to connecting with your customers. Or you may one day find them looking at your competition and asking: "Why don't we have that kind of relationship?"

If they do, I recommend against the fake hug. It never helps.

Photo by CJ Sorg

The broader point I'm trying to make is that the technology is new, but in many cases the practices of building relationships have been around for a while. Its easy to get caught up in your own world - don't forget to look outside the fishbowl from time to time to see what other ideas are out there waiting to be (re)discovered!

See the comments page for how I envision community managers using the methods above to improve their community relationships; or let me know what was the most useful advice on communities you received outside the social media context!

Great article by Andy Sernovitz on addressing a customer's real need instead of their expressed desires. I always envy Andy's ability to get his message out so succinctly!

Too often community managers who strive to be the customer's advocate misinterpret that to mean they must be order-takers. But helping your customers should start with both listening and asking probing questions. "Why?" is a simple though blunt way to start; "How would that make things easier/better for you?" is a better one. Start a conversation and strive understand your customers real needs - it takes more time and effort, but you can make a real difference and build real trust if you do.

Chris Brogan's Put Away our Shotguns is a wonderful illustration about how to build relationships in marketing (and more specifically, how not to). And his comments can apply to any kind of longer-term relationship you want to build, including relationships with the members of your community.

After all, isn't that the heart of what we are trying to achieve in community: positive, long-term relationships with our customers, evangelists, partners or whomever your target audience is? Because real relationships are what can provide us with the types of benefits we want on both sides (brand loyalty, increased customer satisfaction, better service, product improvements, etc). But that requires more than a shotgun approach; real relationships are built up gradually over time.