Community Building

Community Managers: Whose Best Interests Do You Serve?

by Jordan Cooper · October 26, 2010

The “Wild West” of social media is upon us. Brands are staking their ground in the proverbial gold rush – it’s an all out land grab. From small businesses to Fortune 500 companies, there are new industry positions being created left and right to quantify specific disciplines. (Typically, these job titles usually end with the word “strategist.”)

In this digital age where the public/private line is intertwined and customers are so connected, brands are feeling the pressure to add a community manager position to navigate them through this tumultuous time. (A byproduct of the “everyone else is doing it” syndrome.)

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Brand Evangelist Jobs: An Oxymoron?

by Jordan Cooper · September 17, 2010

Good morning, folks! My name is Jordan Cooper and I’m the official brand ambassador of this blog and the appointed evangelist of Social Media Explorer and the legend himself, Jason Falls. How can I help you today?

Wait … before you answer that question, I’d like to take this opportunity to tell you about the awesomeness of this blog. We’ve got killer posts here that are jaw-dropping in quality. Our content is like none other and written by authors that completely transcend the industry – like Adam what’s-his-face and Ike Spigot (or is it Faucet?).

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Community Building Tips From Spike Jones

by Jason Falls · January 13, 2010

Passionate fans willing to knock down walls to tell people how cool your brand is seems to be what everyone in marketing is looking for. My friends at Doe-Anderson helped build an ambassador program around Maker’s Mark bourbon. Sexy product. Passionate people. Fun times. The Harley Owner’s Group is similar. Sexy product. Passionate people. Fun times.

But what happens when you are challenged with creating a groundswell of people nuts about your product and it’s not sexy? That’s exactly what Fiskars asked Brains on Fire a few years ago. Spike Jones, Geno Church and company sat across the table from their client who asked them to drive people crazy about … scissors.

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How To Increase Your Business By Relinquishing Control

by Jason Falls · December 14, 2009

If you’ve been studying social media, or even half paying attention to it, for the last few years, you’ve heard some truisms proffered that are scary to most business people. One of the most recited is that in order to be successful in social media you must face the fact you no longer have control. But it’s hard to find good examples of companies that have accepted that fact, embraced it and starting winning customers like gang busters.

Enter Eric Brown.

: Eric Brown. Image by urbaneapts via Flickr

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Building Community

by Jason Falls · August 14, 2009

The next time your boss, client or co-worker says, “How do we build a community?” answer them with this:

Invite someone to it.

Ben Thomas, creator of under-the-radar but useful tools like SalaryScout and LeadVine, was listening to London Geek Dinner podcasts one night and caught some inspiration from Lloyd Davis, founder of the Tuttle Club in the United Kingdom. He had an idea to build a community around technology in Louisville, Ky. Ben knew a few folks in town in the developer/programmer community. He also had some friends who were starting to get into this blogging and social media thing. It was the summer of 2006.

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Building On-Line Community Starts Off-Line

by Jason Falls · January 26, 2009

Jason Falls

Tomorrow I have the honor of co-presenting the topic, “Building On-Line Community,” with Maker’s Mark president and CEO Bill Samuels Jr., to The Conference Board at its 2009 Corporate Imaging and Branding Conference in New York City. It’s a two-fold honor, the first being that I get to share the stage with Mr. Samuels, with whom I’ve had the pleasure of working for the past two years. The other is presenting for The Conference Board, a long-standing meeting point for corporate executives and marketers from the Fortune 500 world.

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The Marketing Of No Marketing At SXSW

by Jason Falls · March 10, 2008

There might be a social post later, but the “Self-Replicating Awesomeness, The Marketing Of No Marketing,” session is worth a post of its own. In my opinion, six of the top social media and community building minds on the planet were panelists. There’s too much knowledge there to just mention it.

Scott Monty Stowe Boyd and I joined up with Kristie Wells to go to the session, which was weird since it featured her husband, Chris Heuer, along with Jeremiah Owyang, Hugh MacLeod, Deb Schultz and Tara Hunt and moderated by David Parmet. The framework for the conversation was to find out how to market into a community without being overbearing like traditional advertising and how to build community around a product.