Jessie Paul is the managing director of Paul Writer, which she founded in early 2010 that works with clients in the B2B, services and technology space to create optimal marketing plans.
Padmaja Nagarur is a B2B marketing evangelist with Paul Writer. Padmaja Nagarur is a marketing professional with a specialization in relationship marketing and community building.
“…the aim of marketing is to make selling superfluous. The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well that the product or service fits him and sells itself.”
- Peter Drucker
In the past, marketers have had to invest time and research effort to gather information about what customers wanted. But the growth of community platforms has made it much more convenient for marketers to engage with customers directly and generate business insights. Marketers have always used paid and earned media, and there is now a third one, “owned”. Paid media comes as a privilege to marketers with generous budgets and earned media promises credibility. But today’s successful marketers have realized that there is an opportunity to narrow down the space you want to own and own it creatively using sophisticated digital tools/social media. Communities belong to the category of “owned” media which comes at little or no cost.
Firms such as LinkedIn, Salesforce.com, Groupsite and the likes have realized the emerging power of communities and are actively looking for ways to monetize them. Hari Krishnan, Country Manager – India, LinkedIn says, “We are big believers in communities being the source for the richest business insights.” With over 7 million professionals in India alone, Hari believes that LinkedIn provides them with tools to engage in meaningful business development and brand building activities. Salesforce.com is tapping into its customers for new product ideas through IdeaExchange (it has already generated over 10,000 ideas as of Sep 2010). “Why can’t all enterprise software be like Facebook?” asks Jeremy Cooper, RVP-Marketing (APAC), Salesforce.com. Chatter is doing just that allowing users to form a community within their business for secure collaboration and knowledge-sharing.
India offers commendable examples of early adopter B2C brands like Flipkart, Ching’s secret, MTV – India to name a few, who continue to leverage the power of social media. But B2B stories in India seem to be few and far between though there are significant references available globally – Dell, IBM, Cisco, and Salesforce.com. While the common belief is that B2B is about selling to an organization, one must remember that the end-buyer is always an individual. Therefore the fundamentals of community building are the same for B2B and B2C (Source: No Money Marketing, by Jessie Paul, Tata McGraw-Hill, 2009)
Here’s an easy-to-remember framework (CRISP) to help one get started.
Coherence: Communities are held together by a common interest. It maybe something that the members are passionate about, a common goal, a common project, or merely the preference for a similar lifestyle or profession. Communities must address the common interest and maintain consistency in topics posted and discussed across platforms.
Relevance: People join communities because they either have the urge to contribute or intend to learn from their peers of similar interests. So, it’s only fair for the members to expect that the content is kept as relevant as possible. Well orchestrated contributions and moderated discussions always helps.
Interactive: Communities tend to have their own life cycle (ref image below). And until the point that the community becomes self-sustaining, members will continue to rely on its founders to keep the dialogue on. Therefore, what matters is not just presence but the promptness and quality of the interaction.
Source:How To: Manage a Sustainable Online Community by Rob Howard (www.mashable.com)
Simple: Information is cheap and abundantly available but insight is rare. So the focus of the community’s efforts must be on providing insights which are crisp and simple to comprehend.
Pervasive: If you build it they will come – is the biggest fallacy of community building. You have to make an effort much more than just building a community. Be present across platforms and communities where you think your audience could potentially be. Participate in a quality conversation to lure them into your community (follow the Hub-and-Spoke model).
Some of the few active communities in India who are doing well on the CRISP guidelines include Nasscom Emerge, CIO Association of India and Dell SMB.
Nasscom Emerge, which started as a blog, has grown to be a 3000+member community with active presence across relevant social media platforms. The community was initiated and is driven by Avinash Raghava (Regional Director – NASSCOM North) who set out to build an ecosystem to fuel the SME growth. They have also introduced an annual conference, awards and a mentorship program to sustain the momentum of community’s engagement. (More about Nasscom Emerge’s success story is available here).
CIO Association of India is another example which has managed to build India’s largest member-driven network of CIOs (over 1900 CIO members) offering a niche platform to to address the career, technical and organizational needs of today’s IT leaders. It isn’t surprising that Cisco has tapped into this vibrant community to form the CIO Human Network Club.
Dell is one among the few corporates in India who understands that businesses respect peer advice to help solve problems and learn new strategies for success. Early this year, Dell took the Take Your Own Path campaign to the next level and started a Business Trailblazers community, an online destination where entrepreneurs from all over the world can share their own stories, connect with other experts to get advice on how technology helps them grow their companies. Dell doesn’t intend to actively sell but they’re the only ones who are currently addressing this community.
If you’re still wondering why we haven’t made a reference to Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and others, it’s because we believe that the next big thing are not the social media tools but Communities built using these tools. And organizations who fail to realize that will be left friendless.
Note: Views of authors are personal, and do not represent views of IndiaSocial or its partners.