I don’t think I could ever go back to old-skool-marketing (OSM). No dice. So why would I say this? Well, here are five reasons I can think of:
1) Relationships – Community building means connecting with people, be they customers, prospects, fans, advocates, partners, influencers, you name it. Unlike OSM you don’t have a wall between you and the people you want to reach and you don’t lob messages over the wall and hope you hit a target. You look people in the eye (or virtual eye) and you connect in a real way. You create real friendships.
2) Visible Momentum – With the ability to monitor and measure social media you can literally see the momentum of your efforts building, with who and exactly why. And here is the kicker (and I love this part) so does the community. That’s right if you have momentum the community also can see it and it often helps them determine who they might like to work with. Of course this can go the opposite way if you don’t have something remarkable to offer a community. I saw an interesting saying once “advertising is the tax companies pay for not having a remarkable product.” And the other cool part about this is that a community keeps itself in check on momentum, meaning if the momentum is manufactured and not based on reality then the community figures that out.
3) Heartbeat (constant feedback) – With social media you can actually listen to the heartbeat of a community. You can hear what ticks, whether what you offer actually causes them to skip a beat and whether there are issues or product blockages to investigate and better understand (sorry I got carried away on the heart analogies 
Frankly, I’m addicted to listening to this heartbeat. When I went on vacation during March Break I turned listening off and left it off for the few days after I returned. I felt completely out of touch, flying blind, out of sync. I don’t think I could ever go back to communicating with a community (aka – old skool language translation – “target market”) without the ability to hear the rhythm.
4) Ambient Connections – I love how the use of so many social networking tools (my favorites being Twitter, Linkedin, various Ning Networks and Facebook, in that order) allow me say hello to people I should get to know in my community. Twitter is the best for this because a simple “follow” is not a big commitment. What it does is it allows people to quickly check out who you are, what you do and whether they’d be interested in learning more in an ambient way (as opposed to full-on formal introductions, meetings etc…) A seed is simply planted. Whether or not it grows depends on need, desire, common interests etc…
5) Maps and Pathways – Social networks have the ability to be mapped helping you can figure out who knows who. With OSM, people are lumped together into segments based on demographics, pyschographics etc… They are grouped based on characteristics. Unfortunately this type of thinking ignores the amazing power of social systems. Messages and ideas travel in pathways naturally based on who people know and what interests they share. And while that might mean two people who get classified in the same “segment” may talk to each other what of the conversations that happen regardless of segments. With social media you can see these pathways and you can map out how an idea may travel. And even more amazing is that you can track and measure the message to see if your assumptions were right.
So those are my top 5 reasons I love online community building over old-skool-marketing. What are yours?
Tags: advertising, community, marketing, socialmedia
