Jeremiah Owyang (Sr. Analyst at Forrester) has a great post on his blog about online community best practices. He also discusses some of the stages that some of the most successful online communities go through. Jeremiah is a senior analyst at Forrester Research and focuses on social computing.

The executive summary (also found on his blog) is pasted below:

“An online community is an interactive group of people joined together by a common interest. It’s also one of the most powerful tools a marketer can deploy for customer retention, word of mouth, and customer insight. To host a successful community, think of it as you would product development: Start by focusing on objectives, chart a road map, assemble the right team, and plan to be flexible. Then build your success by launching the community with the backing of your most enthusiastic customers and staying engaged as the community grows. Above all, remember that control is in the hands of the members, so put their needs first, build trust, and become an active part of the community.”
The stages that these communities go through, in order are:

• Brainstorming
• Strategy
• Research
• Launch
• Kick-Start
• Growth
• Ongoing Management
• Customer communication and feedback
• Continual Improvement

I would have added brainstorming before strategy and would have also included a section for customer communication and feedback before continual improvements (listed above in bold). The report is a hefty $379 and can be found here. But before you go ahead and dish out the money, you may want to consider if this chart makes any logical sense.

In the words of Nick O’ Neil, “Do social networks follow the traditional business cycle?” He makes a valid argument, once the company reaches the maturity stage, why would it keep on growing?

The main Forrester site along with all of their paid and free resources can be found here, I highly recommend that everyone visit the site.

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Recently an article was published by abc news about a luxury hotel in London that has a water menu, that’s right, a menu filled with various brands of water from around the world. The most expensive one on the list? $42 a bottle.

This, however isn’t the amazing thing. The amazing thing is that when the management of the hotel was interviewed they said “We wouldn’t do this unless there was a demand for it.” This means that people are actually asking for calcium rich, low sodium, deep sea, filtered water.

Remember when water was free?

One of the most abundant and plentiful resources found on Earth has now become the largest marketed commodity on the planet.

A “water bar” in Chappaqua, N.Y. apparently serves bottled water for $55! The owner says he sells round 80 different types of bottled water.

I suppose this shouldn’t come of as much of a shock, after all we already have Oxygen bars.

I am willing to bet that if we blindfolded a handful of these “water connoisseurs,” that they would never be able to tell the difference between the brands of water.

The brand of water that you drink speaks volumes about who you are. Do you drink a brand that contributes to charity?, do you drink mineral water?, do you drink sparkling water? Does your water have extra oxygen in it?

If you were a brand of water what kind would be? And how much would you charge?

Do you currently have a free product or service that you can begin charging for?

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A post by John Jantsch on his Duct Tape Marketing blog got me thinking about some of the best ways to increase referrals. John mentions several people who either like to: take clients out to dinner, send gift certificates, send thank you notes, etc. But I don’t think that these methods are really the best ways to go about increasing referrals. The question is, how do you get people excited about your service and how do you get them to tell their friends? I believe the answer is in “wow-ing” your customers. Here are some examples

• You tell someone a project will take 10 days, you finish in 8
• A customer expects something to be delivered by standard mail, you use overnight
• If something takes longer than it, should you offer a discount
• Instead of phone conversations, you make an effort to meet in person
• Follow up once something is completed, don’t discard clients like used tissues
• Always try to offer something extra
  • You agreed to create 5 marketing recommendations, create 8
• Anticipate customer needs and make suggestions before they do, be proactive
• Under-promise over-deliver
• Try not to use the word No
• Make the customer feel special and not just like another customer

The point is, there are all sorts of ways to “wow” a customer, but they all have one thing in common. They go above and beyond the requirements, they add a little something “extra.”

For some more tips and examples visit the following sites:

• Morebusiness.com - The 7 Secrets of Wow!
  
• Duct Tape Marketing - Six Keys to Creating”Wow”

How are you “wow-ing?” your customers?

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Technorati is currently tracking around 113 million blogs, that’s 113 million, that’s roughly one out of every three people in the United States (another 73 million in China, reference Blog Herald). With so many blogs floating around in cyberspace many people turn to platforms such as Wordpress to help manage and create blogs. You would think that with Wordpress being one of the most popular blog platforms that hosting companies such as Go Daddy would provide some sort of support to assist in blog set-up.

I created this blog recently and had my domain and hosting registered through Go Daddy. I called them up and told them that I am trying to sync my domain with a Wordpress account. Go Daddy had no idea how to help me, furthermore they stated that I wasn’t the only one who had been calling about Wordpress solutions. So, here I am, a loyal GoDaddy customer, trying to get my Wordpress blog set up, and my hosting company can’t help me.

I spoke to a few friends about setting up Wordpress, once they found out that I was using Go Daddy, they all sighed and said “oh boy.” Apparently Go Daddy has a reputation for being a sub-par hosting provider, and I’m starting to see why.

So my question for Go Daddy is this: If you know that there are millions of people out there writing blogs, (with thousands more appearing every day) and you know that one of the most popular blogging platforms is Wordpress, then why wouldn’t you make some sort of effort to provide EXTRA VALUE to the customer by offering blogging support?

Sure it’s not your job to help me set up my blogging software but guess what, your competitors are starting to offer blogging support which means that when it comes time to create another domain or look for a hosting provider, I’m going to go with the company that provides me with the best VALUE, and Go Daddy, that just ain’t you.

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Many organizations around the world fear competition. They are scared that another bigger badder organization is going to come along that can offer the same features and benefits but will offer them: quicker, cheaper, with more customization, with better customer service, etc. Competition is actually a good thing, in fact it’s a great thing.

Without competition Apple would have never created their Ipod, Microsoft would have never created Windows, and Google would probably be non-existent. Competition is essential because it leads to one very important thing, innovation.

People are always looking for products with more features and capabilities, products that cost less but can do more, and products that just plain solve their needs/wants better than any other product can. When companies compete, consumers get what they want.

But what do the companies get? Well, when companies compete they set new standards for other companies to either match or to beat. When a company sets a new standard, it gets more recognition and an increase a revenue. Then another company comes along and raises the bar, that company now gets the recognition and the increase in revenue. And so the companies dance, until someone makes a wrong step, then the dance is over.

The reality is competition is everywhere, I know competition is not encouraged in many schools, which to me seems like educators are depriving students of a valuable life skill (and fact). Sure you can tell kids/students that everyone is a winner, well what happens when they get out in the real world and realize that everyone is competing for that same job at that same company?

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