Community Interaction

This article became so long in writing that I have split it in two. Both sections should read reasonably well stand-alone but together they should be stronger. This is Part I.

Without customers a business is pointless. Customers are part of a community. If your business is part of the same community then you are living in the same world as your customers, which means that they start living and purchasing in yours too.

I will quote a Blog post I just received from Seth Godin as it is very apt:

Demonization

The closer you get to someone, something, some brand, some organization... the harder it is to demonize it, objectify it or hate it.

So, if you want to not be hated, open up. Let people in. Engage. Interact.

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/03/demonization.html

As I have pointed out plenty of times, Love will bring you sales. Hate, or any variant of it will not bring you sales. Worse, an emotion or opinion on the wrong side of apathy will do you damage. Companies like Microsoft and individuals like George W Bush have generated a fair amount of negative emotion in large sections of the community (the reasons are not my point here). Microsoft has enough good will to survive. George Bush didn't. Where does the good will toward your business really sit? Would your customers stay or stray if you had another competitor?

Consider that every person who isn't on the positive side of apathy for you, your business and your products, is not your customer. This is the 'opportunity cost' of not being respected in business. If the opportunity cost is too high you have no business.

Branding and marketing are the processes of trying to make people feel kindly toward your business. Sadly many of the efforts made in the name of these lofty ideals are not so lofty. So much marketing is manipulative. No one likes to be manipulated. Sure, in the short tem you can manipulate someone into loving you but in time they will come to hate you as you hold them back. Manipulation by its very nature removes freedom.

Humans desire freedom. We desire freedom mixed with a bit of control so that we feel secure. Removing the freedom to murder your neighbour is good. Removal of freedom of expression is bad. Many sales and marketing people want only a one way conversation (which the astute amongst you will realise isn't a conversation at all) with their community of customers. This turns customers off, if not now, then when a competitor has a better product (which they will if you are so arrogant you don't develop yours to meet real needs).

Case Study - Energy XT

A business can be made and unmade in a community. Let me show you an example I have lived through.

Energy XT is a piece of music software that I have used for years. The developer came to my notice with a sequencer (word processor for music) called Massiva. Massiva showed promise but was too limited in scope for me and many others but we liked the promise it showed so the developer Jorgen built a following at www.kvraudio.com (The portal for computer based electronic music).

After a few years of development, Jorgen decided to abandon Massiva and build a new project called Energy XT which was fully modular (allowing almost anything to be plugged into anything else, uncommon in software at the time). Energy XT took off like a rocket with immense amounts of praise and enthusing on the KVR Forum. Energy XT advanced very fast with new versions and features available almost every week. Energy XT was a work-in-progress with a massively loyal fan base despite bugs and missing features because we were all in it together. It was our thing.

Jorgen was not great at conventional marketing. He seemed embarrassed to properly promote his software or even ask for the sale on his web site. He appeared in the forum only occasionally but his words were those of a shining leader to us all and quoted far and wide. The unfinished Energy XT grew, with no formal promotion to becoming a contender against big brand software, all on the back of community love. It was a perfect internet success, growing entirely from forum posts and user interaction. A great product people fell in love with coupled with a developer who included us in his vision. Till...

Jorgen announced that he was abandoning E-XT at version 1.41 and going to build a totally new software. He laid out a road map for the new Energy XT 2 but we were all nervous. Starting again, again! Nonetheless the last new start (from Massiva to E-XT) was a vast improvement so our faith carried us on. XT2 didn't make its deadlines, the first versions were so lacking in features and had such erratic bugs that most of us avoided using it. Very disconcerting but not unheard-of for software so young. Most of us still felt a desire to help development and fulfil the promise of such an excellent tool, even though it was second or third time round.

For the official release of XT2 there was a competition to develop the new site concept and logo. Many participated. A winner was announced but then a great delay and when the new site went up it wasn't the winning entry at all. Not a bad site but not what was promised. There was talk of taking on staff to help Jorgen develop. We felt that this was a good move as it would help him clear his obvious backlog. Jorgen's appearances in the forums dropped from rare to almost non existent - even though he had staff. When he did post, the posts created more confusion and anger than answers.

Things went from bad to worse. The XT2 road map was clearly not being followed. Fundamental features were being left out in place of more novelty features and Jorgen wasn't appearing on the forums at all. We were left with version 1.41 which while usable was incomplete and XT2 which lacked fundamental features, while competing softwares surged ahead. The forums that had once been almost embarrassingly effusive soured in a matter of weeks to post after post of anger with only a few people attempting to hold the line.

It was then announced that a co-operation had been made between Jorgen and a large name music hardware company, Behringer. The co-operation was not explained to us, we found out from forum members finding the information elsewhere. An initial lite version was bundled with some Behiringer gear. It had no noticeable impact on any of us. A new Energy XT web site appeared touting version 2.5 which wasn't in existence. The new site was outsourced and not in keeping with the product to date at all. It made XT2 look a bit like a toy. Overall it looked and felt low-rent and tacky. When version 2.5 appeared several months later nothing new and old bugs still crawling.

Still virtually no contact with Jorgen. There were reports that he wasn't answering direct email, even to former friends. Then suddenly there is a bit of activity. A corporate video appears telling us how great Energy XT is and how it revolutionises our lives. We knew that years ago, that time has passed for us. Jorgen, and new CEO, look very nicely heeled in a space age building (borrowed I think). The video caused more outrage in the user community. I have to assume this video was part of a capital raising exercise and should not have been shown to us without explanantion - or they have hired a terrible marketer.

This bring us up to date, mid-March 2009. Jorgen has started to release a weekly beta again. There are stray media releases about an official boxed version possibly with new features. Many Energy XT users have gone to competing products. Some hang on. Some hope for a rebirth. Some will never come back because of the nasty taste, even if some of the magic does come back.

Maybe the new strategy has or will make Jorgen more money but how much ground did the company lose during this period all because they stopped talking to us and appeared to lose integrity? Either way, Jorgen will have to pay to get the kind of marketing he once had for the cost of involving us in his world - talking to us for a few hours a week.

Power of Engagement

All of this shows the power of the community. If you use a blog or forum you can build something amazing that pleases people and they will be your apostles. Your business will grow fast and carve a niche that is hard for a competitor to assail. Competitors will be left playing catch up. Just as Apple's iPod now owns the portable music player genre as solidly as Sony did in the 80's with the Walkman. People will be connected and part of your community and you part of theirs.

Microsoft seem to be learning this at last. The new Microsoft web sites seem more human than they were before. The new look Office 2007 is the first time I have enjoyed using Word. I can begin to understand all the features. The MS Live Suite is impressively inclusive. Microsoft actually have an amazing number of free applications that most people don't know exist. If they did a little talking then these applications would be taken up and used as many are rather good. The ones that aren't used would gain feedback for changes to suit the community.

The closer you bring your users the greater chance you have of getting their understanding and then love. It can happen surprisingly fast if you are genuine and human. Have a blog or forum and welcome responses from your community. Listen to them and they will listen to you. Share your vision and they will share theirs. You have to be honest and open or people will lose faith. You cannot duck and weave without people noticing and responding.

please go to Part II - The Closed Conversation