Building Community through Social Media

Presented By: Christian Borges, VP Communications – Deep FocusDate: July 29, 2011

“Community" is derived from the Old French communitéwhich is derived from the Latin communitas (cum, "with/together" + munus, "gift"), a broad term for fellowship or organized society.

The classic definition of "community" is a group of interacting people, possibly living in close proximity, that shares some common values, and is attributed with social cohesion.

Since the advent of the internet, the concept of community no longer has geographical limitations, as people can now virtually gather in an online community and share common interests regardless of physical location.

- Wikipedia

Chart by http://www.onlineschools.org/

A Brief History of Social Communities

| May 17, 2011

Current Social Communities

Gaia.com

Classmates.com

ClubPenguin.com

Linkedin.com

CafeMom

MySpace

Twitter

Facebook

White label social platforms allow customers to build their own customized social networks (often from scratch) and to tailor those networks to a range of purposes.

The idea of white labeling a network is to make the platform provider as invisible as possible to the social network’s users and to brand the network with the builder’s identity or intent.

Ning, an innovative social platform that brings millions of people together to explore and express their interests, discover new passions and meet people around shared pursuits. With more than 1.9 million Ning networks created and 40 million registered users, this social space continues to grow impressively.

A few things differentiate Ning from most other social platforms:• It has pioneered the market for people to self-organize around the “what” rather than the “who” in social networking • It enables communities to organize around interests and passions and fully express what makes them unique.• Ning offers a fairly wide degree of flexibility in customizing the look and feel of your site.

Pause…Deep Breath…

Avoid headaches down the line by asking the important questions before starting your community.

Questions:•Who is the target demo in terms of age, gender, profession, social technographics? Country?•Where are they online? Where are they offline? •Who will the community not serve? •Why are we doing this? •What is our mission, vision, purpose, focus, goals •What values do we hold?•What are the needs of our organization, our community members?•What is the value of our community members building relationships with each other?•What does success look like?

Questions:•How is our organization limited? •Budget? Time? Development resources? IT support? •How involved do we want/need to be in the community? •Content? Behavior? Tone? •Who controls when and how things change? •How much control does the community get? •How will we sustain the community? •Will we manage or mediate conflict? •What kind of moderation?•How will we support diversity/dissent?

If you build it will they come?

Cost-Per-Like model allows for true pay-per-performance

Liking increases engagement and connection with advertisers,

allowing them to share and speak directly to their interested

audience.

Turn fans into revenue with special offers, news and even

product updates!

Creatives are deployed to the right of the user’s Facebook

page. The ads can be highly targeted to reach the client’s

requested audience.

Gnomeo & Juliet

William’s rolling over in his grave. A version of Shakespeare's play, set in the world of warring indoor and outdoor gnomes.

Holly Martin likes this ad.

Facebook Ad

Once an established user base has started, Twitter presence can be augmented by using their other “Promoted Products.”

Promoted Trends

Promoted Tweets

Community Rules To Live By:•Don't be pushy •Provide really useful information and content•Ask Questions •Know the culture and respect it •Make it Personal •Provide expert advice and opinions •Accept and respond to criticism •Identify and remedy troublemakers •Showcase and acknowledge community evangelists •Don't try to please everyone•Don’t be a Dictator •Manage expectations •Realize your work is never done

THANKS!