Social Communities – The Hidden Jewel of Social Media

Whilst everyone is getting slap happy about Twitter the one trend we’ve noticed that we believe is far more significant is the growth of social communities. A number of vendors have made significant technical advances such that I think the focus for many companies (large and small) going into the second half of this year and 2010 will be around building a sticky social community.

Social communities represent the coordinated use of many social technologies – blogs, wiki’s, forums, social networks, multi-media, ranking/voting tools etc. There are many examples of Communities already in existence. As a business and as individuals we actively participate in a number of communities both professionally and personally.

Communities can take many forms – from the low cost option of Ning through to the emerging leaders – companies like Awareness Networks, Mzinga, Igloo Software, and HiveLive.

Communities are nothing new.

True, in fact, for the past 6 years I’ve been a member of Australia’s oldest business community – The Executive Connection (TEC). TEC is an affiliate of Vistage International.

With more than 14,500 members, Vistage International is the world’s foremost chief executive leadership organization

Membership of TEC introduces you to a community of like minded senior executives – this is an important point that we’ll come back to as we start to develop some community strategies for TEC in the coming months.

The question is whether TEC can make the transition from a traditional community to a social community – one that is deliberate, capitalises on TEC’s inherent trust among members, reflects TEC’s premium reputation and senior executive member base, and one that delivers long term value.

TEC has a unique opportunity ahead of them. They have a premium service that has at its core business leaders who are striving to build better companies whilst maintaining a thirst for knowledge and personal growth.

What Does This All Mean?

In my opinion, Social Communities represent the Holy Grail of social media – and will be the critical, mandatory component of any business seeking to go down the road of Enterprise 2.0. But whilst they are the Holy Grail, they also represent the toughest challenge. A company like TEC can’t simply decide to ‘do’ community. It requires strategy, resources, planning, investment, and most of all – commitment.

In the coming months we’ll compile a resource pool of articles and content that has been shared with us. We’ve found these resources to be invaluable in helping us understand communities as well as working with our customers to scope, understand, and plan for future social community initiatives.

Accountants and Blogs

I had a very interesting discussion with the Marketing Manager for one of Australia’s premier tier two accounting firms about whether an accounting firm would get any value from one or more of their partners having a blog. Clearly my view was that a blog was essential and would add tremendous value on a number of fronts. This was a view not shared by my coffee partner.

Two key barriers dominated the discussion before we could get to the exciting bit about the possibilities and thinking about these barriers led me to a deeper understanding of how to position blogs in the B2B world.

The barriers were:

1. Accountants are boring
2. You have to be so technical in what you write – people won’t want to read this

Here’s how I dealt with these barriers.

Accountants are boring

OK. No argument here.

In reality though, accountants are in a very strong position as trusted advisors and can use this position to communicate on a number of different levels.

Firstly, this firm has multi-dimensional relationships with their clients. What I mean by this is that they often deal with the Financial Controller or the CFO, along with a number of the executive team – CEO, Chairman, GM-level. What they have is an audience that wants different things from them often around the same subject. A blog represents a simple way for the Partners to communicate a variety of messages – ranging from semi-technical op-ed pieces to general business commentary. As long as they think about who they are communicating too, they can easily write highly engaging posts that communicate the depth of expertise and care that I know this firm has.

An accountant’s blog needs to be technical

Clearly no one is going to spend time reading about the riveting changes to AASB 45c. But what people will spend time reading is where a Partner seeks to share some experience or advice that is relevant. Examples might include:

• Sharing an experience around how they’ve helped another client
• Sharing a client success story – give us some happy news amongst the doom and gloom.
• Mentioning pending business deadlines and suggesting where a client should be in terms of their business preparation
• Discussing common misconceptions and encouraging a conversation on the topic

The simplest analogy I gave the marketing manager is that the partner needs to view a blog as an extension of the types of business discussions that they might have when meeting 1 on 1 with their largest clients. It’s all about the conversation.

Here are two links I passed onto this client to help them get comfortable with the idea of an accountant’s blog:

• Chris Brogan’s 27 Blogging Secrets; and

• Pro Bloggers 13 Quick Tips to help your blog stand out

I’m quietly confident I’ll get a chance to work with this firm on the introduction of blogs to their business. If we do get the green light, you’ll hear about it first here.