New reader, first time replyer (sic)-

Most businesses, whether Brick and Mortar or online have a difficult time understanding community ROI since there’s no GL line that has a direct causal value. Respect, involvement, value contribution and dialogue are all are concepts difficult to monetize until business gets the idea that these efforts bolster the bottom line by building confidence with the customer. You capture this point very well.

To expand on it slightly, each effort for each company needs to be an organic experience- I don’t think any one formula or approach works for everyone- although there is the universal truth that if you feed your community shit they will most definitely hand it back to you. It takes months sometimes years to find the right tools and voice to start building confidence and a connection with a customer base. As you stated, thoughtful, intelligent and genuine communications have to be the core of any effort. The flip side is listening back.

Thoughtful analysis and a focus on the community, not the General Ledger is the first right step. Reading through these blog posts and dialogues gives me hope that you folks, as consultants, will help shape Business Community into something truly valuable for all. It’s a pipe dream of mine that businesses start serving and answering to the customer (and employees) rather than the stock holders.

-Kip

Pee Ess- I am *not* a commie despite some fun spirited mildly intoxicated post-convention hotel bar accusations to the contrary.

Your post mainly got me thinking about some ways that I see companies solving a few of these problems. As you said, your post had a completely different point, but it was a nice way to frame some of what I’ve been thinking about recently. Thanks for providing the inspiration

Absolutely! I talk to too many people who think that the work stops when they have the community software platform installed or the blog live. Anyone can install some software, but the real work comes in the content creation, which is an ongoing process lasting … well, forever.

To make this more difficult, really great content takes even more time to develop. Then this great content generates a bunch of comments, which also require responses. The best people to create this content are the employees of the company. I don’t think that blogging or community building are activities that can be outsourced to a PR firm or a consultant.

What? But I’m a consultant, and why should people pay me to help them? …

I do think it helps to have someone being the guide (or community manager or official nag) to help a company manage the content roadmap or community. This can be a consultant initially, but ultimately it should be an employee who is responsible and accountable for the success of the blog, community, or other social media efforts. This role should include finding good topics, encouraging people to develop content and respond to the community, nagging when necessary, and helping proofread or polish. Too often, people get stuck because they don’t know what to say, or they get stuck in rut of product announcements and press release post. I don’t think that this outside voice is the best person to be the voice of a company. Like you said, this is a little like ending up “with someone else’s vision of your company”.

I have been going through something of a “professional vision quest” after running a web services company for 9 years. The issues you raise are great — too often my clients come to me and ask for a specific technology. I used to be chat rooms, now it’s blogs.

The problem is that they want that immediate return on the tool, and they don’t understand the amount of work that goes into managing content. Ultimately they waste the money they put into setting up the technology and the time they spent on their initial content because they don’t know have anything to say.

What your article has made me consider is that the content IS the company asset. As with any asset, it takes work to build, and work to maintain. It’s that “authenticity” we talk so much about that makes this so difficult — if you hire someone else to create and maintain that company asset (i.e. your content), don’t you end up with someone else’s vision of your company?

Thanks! You bring up some really great points about how blogs help connect us to other people and to our community. I’ve had so many interesting experiences that started with someone I didn’t know reading my blog. Two years ago I was invited to speak on a panel at sxsw being organized by Elisa Camahort. Prior to the panel, we had never met in person, but she found me through my blog, and we’ve kept in touch and done other panels at conferences. These connections with random people are what makes life so interesting, and I learn so much from these people!

You bring up a fascinating point that many new corporate bloggers don’t understand; that blogs are pathways to goals, instead of goals themselves.

They are profitable as means to ends, but come off as forced and insincere if businesses try to use them as ends in and of themselves.

My blog has connected me to so many people, and allowed me a different type of mobility online. My blog exists because of my community. If I simply wrote top ten posts, or didn’t care to reach back out to the interesting things happening around me, the blog would fall flat and be ignored. I feel that blogs are so much about exchange and sharing — the best blogs become resources for members of a sort of fast moving guild that creates new ways to develop productivity and understanding.