Call us 0800 088 7486
Part 2 of the public chat with Empire Avenue’s DUPS on Friday evening (GMT)….To continue…..
As of yesterday the public chats were turned off, with new chats being enabled within the special interest communities – of which there are already hundreds, ranging from geographic regions and cities through to business related forums such as the CEO Club and SEO and Social media communities. And then there are communities of interest such as Tomato Lovers, Daddy Bloggers, Harry Potter and gaming communities.
DUPS and his team are determined to increase the value of the network within Eav, and there will be a strong focus on making the communities increasingly more useful as an integral part of Eav over the coming months. Mention was made of “trending communities” so that people could see which were most active, as well as much more functionality within the chat, such as Thumbs Up, links and photos showing as previews and thumbnails, etc.
There was some discussion of integrating Disqus into the site, which seemed to meet with approval.
The question of spam was covered because obviously a website such as Eav has managed to already attract people for whom ‘netiquette’ is an unknown word. Until the last few days, there was one chat called “Buy Me” in which all shameless promotion and spam was permitted. The general feeling is that there should be at the least a similar ‘overflow’ system to keep these people from harrassing genuine Eavers with their constant “Buy Me” shouts etc. One user has specifically set up a new Buy Me community to try to cater for this problem.
Another question which was asked was when might there be a Blackberry app and this is being looked into by the community now, rather than the developers. Apparently there are some issues to resolve but anyone who wishes to help develop the app should offer help in the communities. Ditto with Android, but this seems to raise less issues.
The user community has already developed a multitude of toolbars and other helpful solutions for shareholders wishing to quickly see ROI, stocks etc and DUPS is encouraging that, as well as the proliferation of Facebook groups such as #TeamZen and #SocialEmpire who help out new users, suggest hot tips, and relieve some of the pressure for support from the developers. There are also an army of volunteer moderators who do a quite superb job at keeping the community in order.
There is an API for anyone wanting to access that so undoubtedly the coming months will see far more exciting new additions from the community itself as well as from the devs.
The chat was fast-paced and it may be that there were other topics discussed which are not mentioned here. If you were one of those in the chat, please do pitch in with any contributions.
The end of the chat was interspersed with some clues about the Secret Awards such as the TOM and the DUPS that can be found if you search hard enough, but for some of us that left it about as clear as mud what we are to do to achieve them! There was also once again mention of a squirrel hunt – some people have been on Eav for a year now and this is obviously an in joke….can anyone clear up what exactly the persecution of squirrels is about, please?!
Having spent much time over the years in forums, it strikes me that forums are being ignored by many in their internet marketing mix with the dash to incorporate Twitter and other social media.
However, there is much value in forums, which cannot be replicated in such depth using the likes of Twitter or Facebook. It all seems to hang around community and the level of engagement that occurs in forums, which is difficult to maintain in other noisy and fast-moving environments.
Additionally, for many people, forums have become a place where they hang out regularly, recognise old faces, welcome new ones, and get to know and respect (or not) each other’s views and thinking over a period of time.
There are obviously forums which struggle to achieve this ambience and sense of community, often not helped when forums are inundated, as the UK ones are, by people from other countries seeking to promote to the UK market rather than use the forums for their primary purpose – sharing and communication.
For the many who operate small businesses, SOHOs or one man bands, forums can become a social scene as much as a place to seek expert advice, and threats or dilution of that environment are often taken badly. Beware the guard dogs!
When you need an SEO or SEM answer or an opinion in a timely manner, do you head to:
a) Twitter
b) Yahoo Answers
c) your favourite forum – which?
d) a forum from a search result
e) offline eg colleagues via mobile, phone, email etc
f) somewhere else? Where?
Let us know!!
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=b29c8cc6-87ce-4b20-8452-b8710ceed972)
Seth Godin has written an article about the changes in marketing over the last couple of decades. Interestingly, as he was a large, corporate advertiser in his past life, he talks about the impact of the internet, and in particular, the growth of social media on advertising thinking to bring it round full circle to the ‘personalised interaction’ of the old days.
He points out that the marketing industry can no longer get away with force feeding ads and marketing messages to the masses. The audience is far more savvy now than in the past, and will retaliate if it is felt that the marketing is just spam. This can backfire profoundly on a marketing campaign, and it is teaching marketing execs to think smaller, local, personal. To try viral, word of mouse, community building. As he puts it, to build a tribe and lead those people to somewhere they (and you) actually want to go.
This level of thinking by such a respected thinker bodes well for small or cautious companies who wish to be ‘organic’ in the growth of their brand or business. However, as some have found, you can still be too successful for your own good and the brightly burning flame can resemble magnesium – fast and furious, and then out!
However, anyone seeking to build a community around their products or services should read our previous articles and posts about building subscribers through your blog, using social media successfully, socialising, and Web 2.0 tools.
