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Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Online Community Can Create Advocacy – But Not For Free
I couldn’t agree more that for certain brands
a Private Online Customer Community can provide not only insight and innovation like a more traditional panel, but that they
can also create increased engagement and advocacy. But no one should suggest that those engagement and
advocacy benefits come without effort and cost. The manager of the community (be it in-house or an outside
supplier) must be responsive, provide feedback, share inside information, be open to giving the community members partial
ownership, provide product samples, bring executive management into the discussion on occasion, and more if they wish to keep
the community alive, productive, and one which builds the emotional ties that manifest themselves in the generation of online
and offline positive word of mouth.
Simply buying a software package and forming a customer community won’t do it. Calling a
“panel” a “community” won’t change the output. In fact such approaches may
even damage the corporate image and decrease advocacy. Producing insight, innovation and advocacy requires
planning, commitment of resources, and daily attention. The more companies claim that they will generate
advocacy without establishing a process to prove that they are achieving that objective, the deeper they dig the hole. The
longer we go without separating those that really create high levels of advocacy from those that don’t, the more likely
the entire concept of Private Online Customer Communities will fail.
11:54 am edt
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