Online Community Brand Tarnished?
Boston.com - How many times have you Googled a hotel name and found a TripAdvisor review show up? How many times have you clicked on that link to read the review? How many of those reviews were fake?
Seems the last question is causing quite a stir in the travel industry. TripAdvisor is now under investigation by the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) over concerns that reviews from “travelers” aren’t really from travelers, and aren’t legitimate reviews.
According to the UK’s Daily Mirror, “As many as five million of the most current reviews on the website could be fake,” according to Chris Emmins, co-founder of online reputation management company KwikChex.com.
It’s a rather ironic and unfortunate situation. Online communities, like TripAdvisor mentioned above, rely on its members for trusted reviews, in this case, within the hospitality industry. As these online communities build up a cache of reviews, they themselves become a trusted destination for peer reviews. Now, their reputation is in the balance.
For TripAdvisor’s sake, I hope they can rebound from this PR hiccup. I actually think they have a real opportunity here. If they can work towards a solution of curbing the activity of fake reviewing that goes beyond their terms & conditions and community guidelines, other branded online communities could leverage this best practice to ensure the integrity of their own [products, services] reviews.
Map of Online Communities
This map of online communities represents the volume of daily social activity based on data gathered over the Spring and Summer of 2010. (All credit to http://xkcd.com)
It’s interesting to see this all laid out in one view. I challenge Randall Munroe to create this map every year, but I think we can make some educated guesses on the state of 2011. I’ll cherry-pick some of the easy ones.
With over 750 million active users, Facebook should have its own continent. Twitter and YouTube’s islands double in size. LinkedIn is breaking off from the mainland. Social games and MMOs will form a union. Will Myspace make a [sexy] comeback? Hopefully with Justin Timberlake at the helm.
For shift and comparison sake, here’s the map of online communities as it was in the Spring of 2007.
For more infographic fun, check out The State of the Internet 2011.
Who do you think deserves more real estate? Who should be wiped cleaned from the map? This feels like a giant version of the board game Risk.
Checking-In is Like Punching a Clock
Showing off your loyalty towards a brand takes quite a bit of dedication. With the [not-so] recent introductions of location-based services (LBS) apps like foursquare, Gowalla, SCVNGR, Facebook and Yelp, we’re all guilty of “checking-in” to our favorite venues and broadcasting that action to our community of followers.
The drive at first was purely the novelty of the service. Nothing like it existed. But to keep members interested, the services needed to evolve and evolve quickly. Introducing gaming elements like Leaderboards, Mayorships, Dukes, Duchesses, badges and points systems was a no-brainer. The competitiveness, rewards and deals drove growth of the services. But I find myself less and less compelled to continue checking-in and maintain the status levels I’ve achieved at each frequented location. I have to admit, I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve capitalized on a reward or deal. Which makes me ask the question; has the market been saturated with heavy-handed check-in members to the point where status levels are no longer obtainable? I don’t know. What I do know is that I’ve held the same 10 Mayorships on foursquare for as long as I can remember and that number rarely ever changes +/-1.
Will I continue to check-in? Sure. But it’s definitely not for the reasons when I first set out using the services. It’s now about what’s next. When I was younger, I worked at a local grocery store. At the beginning of my shift, I would have to punch my time card using this monstrous industrial looking clock. And that’s what LBS feels like to me at this point in time. I’m punching a clock out of necessity and not for the fun-ness factor. It’s kind of like watching HBO’s original series Entourage. The stories and acting get harder to watch season after season, but you stick in there because you have to see how Vince’s career ends.
What do LBS shops have up their sleeves? What’s the next evolution of the service? Which LBS apps do you use? Where do you see the industry going?
2011 Boston Community Manager Appreciation Day
Yesterday was the 2nd annual Community Manager Appreciation Day, or CMAD. For those of you that are unfamiliar with this “holiday,” it is a day where we recognize and celebrate the efforts of community managers around the world that use social networks to connect with customers and improve upon those relationships. CMAD is held every 4th Monday in January. Check out the Wiki entry for the “official” word (Reading that last sentence, looks like an oxymoron to me, but I’ll leave it in).
Boston’s CMAD was held at the Asgard in Cambridge, right across the Charles River. I arrived fashionably late (Not by choice, parking is not fun over there). Walking in to the restaurant, I immediately notice how community managers share the same mannerisms. They whip out their iPhone’s and Blackberry’s and check-in on Foursquare. What does this tell me? Community managers practice what they preach. They have a willingness to share their experiences with friends and even complete strangers.
It was a fun and non-threatening atmosphere. Drinks, appetizers and raffles; a winning combo.
Although CMAD is celebrated around the world, it was great to meet community managers that live close by and share experiences in person. Hearing how other companies are leveraging online communities and how community managers are constantly overcoming challenges in their roles, makes it all worth while. It’s makes it that much more fun to be part of something where everyone is excited to be there. I met some great [smart] people and I hope this tradition continues. All in all, a networking opportunity that should not be passed up.
If you want to lean more about this year’s CMAD, here are few resources. Will I see you next year?
Jeremiah Owyang – Wrap Up of 2nd Annual Community Manager Day: Voices Around the World #CMAD
Your Online Community is an Octopus
Your first reaction to this metaphor is probably to take offense. Because let’s face it, an octopus isn’t exactly one of Mother Nature’s cutest creations. But don’t take this personally. This is a positive comparison. What I’m referring to is how an octopus behaves in the wild. It uses its six arms…let me digress for a minute. You’ll notice I said ‘six’ and ‘arms’. I recently learned that octopuses have A) arms and legs, not tentacles and B) six arms for manipulation and two legs for push-off propulsion.
Ok, let’s get back to the point. An octopus uses its six arms to gather food and manipulate objects. Ultimately returning those objects to the center of its body to feed or observe further. This is very much how your community works. You have social media channels like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. These are the “tentacles.” You cast these tentacles out into the web because you know your customers spend their time talking about your brand in those communities and networks and you want to show a presence and take part in those conversations. This is great. But the ultimate goal should be to pull them back to your community and have the conversations on your home turf where it’s more easily managed and you hold control. They don’t call it “home-field advantage” for nothing.
This is a new play on the old “Hub and Spoke” business model. That model is archaic in my opinion. It’s too passive. So try providing value as you normally would when engaging your customers. And as a final call to action, mention “Hey we have a great example of that on <insert your community here>.” You’ll see an uptick in pageviews, registrations and participation the more you practice this octopus model.
Are you effectively pulling or driving customers back to your community? Have you tried the “octopus” model?
