Some guidelines for brands looking at building
a successful digital community.
OK, so you may have read the cluetrain manifesto. Knowingly or not, you embrace the meaning within its 95 theses, from ‘markets are conversations’ to ‘we know some people from your company. They're pretty cool online. Do you have any more like that you're hiding? Can they come out and play?’
Or, as the cluetrain pioneers said themselves back in 1999, “we are not seats or eyeballs or end users or consumers. We are humans. And our reach exceeds your grasp. Deal with it.”
Free expert advice.
So you’ve decided to grasp the nettle that is represented by user-generated content and allow people - your customers and admirers, ex-customers and competitors - to interact with eachother on your own website. Scared? Don’t be. Here’s a whole bunch of stuff to consider from a moderation perspective that should stop your anxiety. After all, and to paraphrase cluetrain, if the culture at your organisation ends before the community begins, you will have no market!
Fast forward to 2006 and if Web 2.0 is about anything, it's about people. Putting people at the heart of your business, making them the hero of the story. Businesses should ask themselves how they can give customers more control - how they can help customers share and connect with each other more online. And how they can help customers create more to express themselves through their brand, for as Jeff Jarvis succinctly put it: "Give us control and we will use it. Don't and you will lose us."
We have created this website as a guide for you.
Chat Moderators currently provide human moderation services to brand owners across Europe and North America.