Last night I moderated a panel discussion at the University of North Florida called Strictly Social. The purpose of the event was to bring together professionals in Northeast Florida who use social media every day in their jobs, but who each do very different jobs.
By doing so, I hoped to bring together people with different enough backgrounds, and diverse enough expertise, to facilitate a quality conversation about a range of topics. Now that the event is over, I believe that I was successful.
I’d like to thank both UNF’s PRSSA chapter, and UNF, for both inviting me to speak, and for hosting the event. Without them, it would not have been nearly as successful!
On February 23, I will be moderating a panel discussion at the University of North Florida about the current state of social media and online communities, and where it’s headed next.
I’m very excited about this event, and have some hope that it could become a recurring event. I’ve been thinking about putting together an event like this for a little while. So when I was approached by two representatives from UNF’s chapter of PRSSA, I jumped at the chance.
The plan, initially, was that I would speak to the chapter members about social media. However, once I got to thinking about it, I saw how this event could potentially be something much bigger.
Yesterday I spoke at the Creative Company conference in Five Points, which was organized by the advertising and marketing firm Wingard Creative.
My talk focused on the importance of a business or corporation creating an online community for its customers. I used examples from companies such as Sony, Starbucks, Target, Southwest Airlines and more, to illustrate my point.
I used examples of branded communities across different social networks: Facebook, Twitter, DailyMile, Last.FM, Foursquare and Goodreads.Each of these networks has a different function, but each has the capacity to host a branded online community.
After I was finished speaking, I realized that there were other platforms that exist that could also house a branded community, including Quora, LinkedIn, DailyBooth and Formspring.me.
The phrase “monkey see monkey do” is, on the most base level, about mimicry. When you were a kid, being seen as imitating someone was often met with ridicule. However in online communities, it’s an important part of what keeps things moving.
If you’re managing an online community, one of your goals is to create conversation and encourage interaction. If things get a little quiet, you step in and create a topic for your community members to discuss and react to.
Whenever you make something, the inclination is always to think in terms of the end result: I’m going to start building this, and be done with it on this day. Your entire process becomes built around a self-imposed deadline, that you’re trying to keep. If you don’t keep it, you will likely feel like you’ve failed somehow.
That’s called taking the long view. Seeing a project only in terms of the end result.
It’s an approach that works in a lot of ways. If you’re planning to run a marathon, then you have to take the long view so you can build your training around the singular goal.
But when it comes to building an online community, the long view can be deadly.
