BaileyHill Insights

The Pitfalls of Community Overcontrol

If your organization or business has a successful community on Facebook, one where people are sharing information, facilitating discussions, contributing content…why would you consider moving and consolidating this activity on your home site? It’s kind of like hosting a cocktail party, finding that some of your guests are in the backyard having a great conversation, and herding them back inside where you and other guests are. Why all the control? What are you afraid of?

Communities – in particular, online communities – are fragile constructs. For all the hard work it takes to build them, they can easily fall apart with the smallest insertion of overcontrol. This is the kind of control that’s binding and ignores the human interactions that actually make relationships work. We commit to overcontrol when we find people not doing what we want them to do. It’s actually human nature and we see it in all phases of life: parents overcontrolling their kids, managers overcontrolling their employees, etc., etc. But, ask yourself what the cost of this is or could be to your organization’s online community building efforts.

Is it worth taking the chance of losing a connected and interactive community on one social network platform just so you (or perhaps most pointedly, your manager, CEO, or Board) can feel in control of all the conversation taking place about your organization online?

Instead, weigh the risks appropriately. And think about how to leverage all of the conversations taking place in various sites from Facebook to LinkedIn to smaller niche communities. In an era of increasingly fragmented media, being where your audience is and engaging on equal terms with them is more important and valuable than ever.

photo credit: simone riccardi (via Flickr)

January 21st, 2010 Chris Bailey
Tags: community
Posted in Social Media, Strategy | Comments

Community, Not Campaigns For Small Business

Is your business still thinking of marketing as a set of campaigns? It might be time to switch gears and start thinking more about connecting with prospects and customers via community. Today, we learned that two major brands are rethinking their strategies (also read here):

Coca-Cola and Unilever are shifting their digital focus away from traditional campaign sites and towards community platforms, such as Facebook and YouTube, as social media begins to dictate their marketing activity in 2010.

Yes, these are the big kahunas of the corporate branding universe…but can their strategies work for small and medium-sized businesses? Not only do I think the answer is a resounding “100% yes!”, I believe that building community over campaigns is an absolute must for nearly any enterprise today. Why?

1. Campaigns are singular events built around getting short-term results. Community focuses on cultivating long-term results.
As a small business, you have a choice. Do you want to constantly chase your tail trying to develop new campaigns all the time or would you rather focus your limited resources to cultivate your very best customers? A community allows you to take a long path that focuses on deeper relationships.

2. Campaigns emphasize product or service. Communities emphasize the customer.
Your customers are increasingly sick and tired of having businesses shove their wares down their throats. And customers know they no longer have to put up with it. TV ads can be skipped through DVRs, print media is getting few eyeballs, direct mail is easily thrown into the trash. In the end, you’re left with little to no footprint in the minds of individuals who may very well want and need what you can provide.

3. Campaigns force your customer to come to you. Communities force you to go to your customer.
Even if you think you have a captive audience via traditional advertising and marketing, the truth is you don’t. You’re still imposing your will on your customers. That worked back when there were few media channels available but not any longer. So instead of expecting customers to come to you, you’re going to need to begin thinking about how you can approach them and build a relationship wherever they are. Here’s the best part: what Coca-Cola, Unilever and other large brands are doing is something that any business can replicate to their scale using sites like Facebook and YouTube.

Are you ready to think about how a community approach can help your business?

photo credit: scoobay (via Flickr)

January 13th, 2010 Chris Bailey
Tags: branding, campaigns, community, customers, marketing
Posted in Social Media, Strategy | Comments

Urgent, Urgent: Win Two Tickets to Adoption Rocks

In Austin, TX and wondering what to do tomorrow night, Friday, November 13th? Looking for great entertainment that benefits a really worthy cause? Then make a plan to head for Adoption Rocks, a hip musical extravaganza benefiting the Gladney Center for Adoption and celebrating November as National Adoption Month. The lineup includes John Pointer (guitarist, vocalist, songwriter), Dumpstaphunk (Louisiana soul and funk) and Sangre del Sol (fire dance troupe).

The event promoters have generously given BaileyHill Media two tickets to give away for Friday, November 13th at 9:30 pm at The Long Center in Austin, TX. The winner will receive both of the tickets.

How to enter the drawing.
1. Go to the BaileyHill Media Facebook Fan Page.
2. Click “Become a Fan.” If you are already a fan move to step 3.
3. Click the “Like” button on the status message that says, “To enter the Adoption Rocks ticket give away, just ‘like’ this status update.”
That’s it, you’re done. But be quick…we’ll select a winner at random at 10am Friday (tomorrow!) morning.

More about the Gladney Center for Adoption and Adoption Rocks.
Friends of Gladney return to host the 2nd Annual Adoption Rocks…Health, Hope and Happiness for Children Across America and around the World music extravaganza supporting the Gladney Center for Adoption and celebrating National Adoption Month. This amazing event was inspired by a friend’s personal adoption journey. Check out this touching video that chronicles the plight of orphans in Ethiopia: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0txt3snGbk.

The event is November 13 from 7-10 p.m. at the Long Center, Rollins Theater. Show times are 7:30 and 9:30 p.m. Silent auction, food and refreshments will be served from 6:00-9:30 p.m. Click here for more information or to purchase tickets. Musical entertainment features:

The multi-talented John Pointer – guitarist, vocalist, songwriter
Appeared in numerous nationally televised commercials as a human beat box, played “Judas” in Zach Scott Theater’s award-winning production of “Jesus Christ Superstar” and was a co-star on Fox Television’s Prison Break.

The famous Dumpstaphunk
Ivan Neville’s Dumpstaphunk consists of current and former members of the Neville Brothers, Dave Matthews & Friends, The Funky Meters, Bonnie Raitt, Harry Connick Jr., Emmylou Harris and Keith Richards & The Xpensive Winos.

Sangre del Sol Fire Dance Troupe
Welcoming entertainment, award-winning act.

Gladney celebrates National Adoption Month as a time to honor and give thanks to families everywhere who are touched by adoption and also to reflect on the 143 million orphans around the world, most of whom will never be adopted. Gladney is committed to serving the children of the world by mobilizing our humanitarian aid efforts and helping children who are growing up in orphanages.

The Gladney Center for Adoption is one of the oldest and largest maternity homes and adoption agencies in the United States, placing more than 28,000 children in permanent homes and assisting more than 37,000 birth mothers. In addition to placing children born in the United States, Gladney’s intercountry adoption program is committed to finding permanent homes for children in other countries. Adoption opportunities are available in several regions of the world including Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America. A genuine commitment to children and professionalism makes Gladney an exceptional adoption agency and a national leader in adoption. For more information about Gladney’s adoption programs and humanitarian aid efforts, please log onto www.gladney.org.

November 12th, 2009 Chris Bailey
Tags: nonprofits
Posted in BaileyHill Media News | Comments

[Video] How to Get the Most from Twitter Lists

A few weeks ago, Twitter released a new beta feature called Lists. Think of it as a way to easily share your thematic groupings of other folks on Twitter. So, how does it work? And perhaps more importantly, should you consider using the feature? Glad you asked. This short five-minute overview should answer your questions.

October 29th, 2009 Chris Bailey
Tags: twitter, video
Posted in How-Tos, Social Media | Comments

Five Steps to Online Effectiveness for Political Leaders

We’ve just published our latest white paper titled Five Steps to Online Effectiveness for Political Leaders. It lays out a basic gameplan any political leader can use to be more effective in their online efforts. We encourage you to read and share this paper freely.

Five Steps to Online Effectiveness for Political Leaders

October 7th, 2009 Chris Bailey
Tags: broadcasting, empowering, facebook, supporters, twitter
Posted in Social Media, Strategy | Comments

Is Quantity Better Than Quality Online?

Nick O’Neill at All Facebook asks Does It Really Matter How Many Fans You Have? This question doesn’t call into question the necessity or effectiveness of your online and social media efforts. What it does highlight is the age-old question of quantity versus quality.

Will 3,000, 12,000, or 1 million fans alone make your business more successful? Honestly, I doubt it. Social media is like a cocktail party and while it’s cool to be popular at cocktail parties, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll end up making more money. There’s a good chance however that you’ll end up getting drunk. The opportunity is to interact with fans that previously would have had no way of getting in touch or for those passionate (or angry) customers to reach out to you directly.

You also have the opportunity to build real relationships with existing and future customers. However, if the only thing you want to keep track of is how many fans you have (or how many business cards you collected at a cocktail party), you probably aren’t going to build any sort of significant new business from leveraging these new technologies. These new platforms (Facebook Pages, Twitter, etc) provide you with the opportunity to build real relationships, but if you don’t use them for that, your missing the point. (emphasis mine)

In addition to the quantity versus quality debate, it also shines a spotlight on the broadcast versus engagement model of communication. In broadcast terms, having 100,000 fans is far preferable than 5000 or 500. Yet, that assumes that every one of these 100,000 is passionate about their connection to you and we know that’s highly unlikely. Rather than working to rack up scores upon scores of fans, ask what type of relationship are you building with each individual? The tools available today make that one-to-one connection possible if you rethink the outdated broadcast model and focus on truly being effective online.

How does this translate to your own work?

• If you’re a political leader or group, how you are truly interacting with your passionate supporters as well as your detractors?
• If you’re a nonprofit organization, how are you building stronger relationships with your most ardent advocates?
• If you’re a business, how are you actively converting new customers into long-term customers and long-term customers into loyal promoters of your brand?

September 28th, 2009 Chris Bailey
Tags: broadcasting, engaging, facebook, relationships, supporters
Posted in Social Media, Strategy | Comments

Three Actionable Ideas for Welcoming New Volunteers

Do your supporters know how to most effectively support you and your campaign? Sure, maybe those key individuals who have been with your campaign for a while know how to do it. But what about new supporters? Have you made it easy for them?

My majority of my professional background was spent in nonprofit association membership management. For my association to be successful, we had to be adept at quickly engaging prospects and helping them go from curious prospect to new member to passionate advocate. The cost of not engaging these individuals at their first exposure to the association could have dire consequences for the long-term success of the organization. It’s very much the same for your campaign. If you want to create a welcoming environment that helps turn a curious potential supporter into a passionately vocal advocate, here are a few ideas you can implement on your website and Facebook page:

Create a Volunteer 101 page. Don’t assume that everyone knows how to volunteer for a campaign or what they should expect from the experience. You likely find that many folks are getting involved in supporting a political candidate for the first time. Go beyond the all-too-typical Be A Volunteer/How I Can Help web form and post information like…

• a volunteer FAQ answering typical first-timer questions
• descriptions of volunteer activities with anticipated time commitments
• profiles of volunteers with their testimonials

Have your passionate volunteers serve as welcome committee. Go to almost any church and you’ll see a good model for how to welcome new folks to your campaign. As important as he or she is, it’s not the minister who does the bulk of the welcoming – its the passionately excited members of the congregation. Figure out who your most faithful are and prep them to reach out to prospects and new volunteers.

Show videos of other volunteers in action. Take away some of the mystery of volunteering by showing your volunteers canvassing door-to-door or making phone calls or hosting house parties. Create a documentary as volunteers share their experiences, what works, what doesn’t work and why they feel their volunteering for your campaign is so important.

August 26th, 2009 Chris Bailey
Tags: advocates, campaigning, relationships, supporters, volunteers
Posted in Communications, How-Tos | Comments