Digital Influence Mapping Project

Global Social Media Cultures call for Global Guidelines

On my trip back from Germany working with my 360 Digital Influence teams in that country and the UK, I was struck by a Herald Tribune article by Akash Kapur about media companies in India asking for payment in exchange for positive media coverage ("earned media"). During the same trip, Chris Graves, Ogilvy PR CEO,  was reminding our client that it remains common enough practice for unscrupulous marketers in China to astroturf positive or negative comments in BBS systems under anonymous user names. There are different practices and standards for behavior online and in marketing across the world. The question? Do you adopt custom practices in every market around ethics and disclosure depending on custom and law (not too many of those around the globe yet) or do you define and follow one 'best way?'

We work globally in social media. Many of our clients are working across 10 or more markets. Many are trying to grow capacity to use social media in many of those markets. It's hard. Pushing digital innovation across markets that each have a peculiar manifestation of social media means balancing local relevance with universal 'best practices.' The enduring dynamic between local market and global center always calls for some, "they don't understand my market" grumbling. Still, there are some boundaries that should be shared.

The risks to the brand of a marketer paying bloggers to post positive reviews in China are just not worth the benefit. The "return on reputation" is just not there (the reputation risk outweighs the potential marketing benefit). But if everyone is doing it is it really a risk? And isn't it Western hubris that suggests that type of behavior is wrong in the first place. I don't think so. A brand's relationship with its customers is not a variable one. Brands must earn the trust of those customers and do nothing to devalue it or undermine it. As my new clients in Germany would attest, some things in business are universal and simple.

Trust is a Universal
What worries me about Akash Kapur's article is his focus on the explosion of media outlets struggling to find revenue sources and models in a vicious economic environment. He chalks it off to an entrepreneurial drive  exploring new business models. The consumer thinks the article is from an independent journalist and the ad alongside is paid for by the advertiser. The fact that the advertiser paid for both is a slap in the face to that customer. Its a practice that treats the customer like a 'rube" whether in Bangalore, New York City or Berlin.

Our social media work succeeds because of the trust we have for our peers and amateur/experts we come to know online. No short-term perceived marketing gain is worth risking that.Global brands should adopt the 'one best way'- social media guidelines that demand full disclosure, ethical outreach, and the path to truly 'earned media.' If that puts you at a disadvantage in China where your competitor pays bloggers sneakily or in India where you must buy the article not just the ad, then so-be-it. I would guess that advantage is temporary and illusory.

Social Media Ethics is Simple: Disclose Your Material Connection

The Washington Post ran an article on how tech lobbyists in Washington are using social media. They confuse the issue and ignore clear guideliens already in the marketplace. Here's how writer, Cecilia Kang, put it:

"The influence peddlers of K Street have discovered the power of social networking on such Web sites as Twitter and Facebook. Using their own names without mentioning that they work in public relations or as lobbyists, employees of companies with interests in Washington are chattering online to shape opinions in hard-to-detect ways."

This is not a grey area and the article does nothing to connect their two real examples of this obfuscation with the well-trod conclusions of the FTC and the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) on ethical practices in online disclosure. WOMMA's ethics policies (clearly non-binding to anyone but member companies) and the FTC's own Guidelines on Endorsements and Testimonials clearly apply. Stated simply, lobbyists have an obligation to fully disclose their material connection online when advocated for their cause/client.

Are social networks blurring the line between our personal and professinal lives? Of course. Is that even relevant to this issue? Of course not. If you are advocating for a cause where you have a material connection with - e.g. you are a paid lobbyist, you represent an organization with skin in the game, or you are en employee in a firm that is involved with the issue, you must disclose adjacent to your sttaed online opinion what that material connection is. Not four, buried clicks in a site but right there where you say, "I think so-and-so ought to pass bill X" and on your profile whether in Twitter, Facebook, FourSquare (the next platform to be abused by non disclosure, I am sure) or blogs.

Lobbying is Marketing

But you say, "the  article is talking "lobbying" and you are quoting marketing guidelines." Lobbying is marketing. Plain and simple. Lobbyists should follow the clear, best-practice guidelines from WOMMA (where I continue to serve on the board as Past President).

Cecilia mentions two examples of online writers clouding their material connection. It is not cloudy. As reported, these people must fully disclose to protect the consumer and the brand and organization reputations they represent. They can find out how here: 

• WOMMA Ethics Code
• WOMMA on FTC Guidelines
• John Bell: Three Important Concepts on FTC Guidelines

A Framework for Social Media in Crisis Management

This presentation which I and Jamie Moeller delivered in December through our partnership with the Wall Street Journal (and thanks to Thomas Crampton), offers a solid framework for Digital Crisis Management using social media (and responding to social media).

In it you will find:

• 5 Trends In Digital Crisis Management
• A Digital Crisis Management Framework
• 5 Keys to Managing the Crisis

WSJ and Ogilvy: Social Media For Crisis Management 2009

View more documents from jbell99.

The First Step In Digital Crisis Management

It's almost a joke amongst communication pros. The first step isn't the YouTube video response. It isn't evaluating whether the Twitter uproar is gaining velocity or dying out. It isn't even pulling your comms team together for a crisis meeting internally to figure out what to do.

The first step is, of course, preparing for the crisis before it ever happens.

Now, that communications 101 gem was handed down to me from the true veterans of the the big sories from the last decades (think "Tylenol 1982"). In today's Web-accelerated environment, having a plan in place that clearly identifies procedures and roles is even more critical.

We had a client crisis within the past couple of years that really called for a response video. Now the client wasn't all that social Web-savvy. They had to learn fast. Still the 3 days it took to get everyone on-board with a video response from .... oh, that was another long discussion; that was 2 days too long. Planning for crisis response reveals these hurdles and gets executives and lawyers over them such that when a crisis hits you are not spending your energy convincing folks that your customers and those who influence them are all over YouTube or Facebook or Twitter.  

4 Ways to Prepare for Digital Crisis Management

1. Get a Listening post program in place imediately.
We and others have said so much about this over the past 5 years that I doubt more needs to be said. The short story is that if you are not listening to your publics across the entire Social Web - blogs, Twitter, Social networks, opinion and review sites - then you are at risk.

2. Get the C-suite smart about social media as a communications phenomena and channel.
Any significant crisis is going to bubble up to the CEO of President to make decisions. Sure, s/he will look for advice from the VP of Communications, legal teams and more but that CEO will want to make their own decision. If she doesn't understand the potential power of the social Web in the communications mix, then she may make a bad decison. With all the CEO's a-twittering it is an easy step to introduce the training necessary for the C-suite to "get it." before you bring that group to the brown bags where you discuss the significance of Facebook, do these three things:

 

• Create a training session specifically designed for the top executives. Part hands-on, part data and significance, this session will reveal the power of the Social Web (How many tweets were there in the first 24 hours of the Dominos video and what was the average number of followers for those tweeting....). It will also give them a chance to touch the tools themselves which is often revelatory. 
• Set up an RSS reader stocked with content for them. Give them The Daily Influence - our custom reader in partnership with Netvibes. Or make up your own on iGoogle or whatever you prefer. Go into their computer (with their permission, of course) and set it up as the first screen they see upon launching their prefered browser. If possible, walk them through the simple process of adding a feed so they feel empowered to modify the collection. Having their own reader will help them stay on top of what is going on via social media. Usually, we combine traditional media feeds with a collection of blogs relevant to the industry, social media guru blogs and RSS of search results in Twitter, Google blogs, YouTube, etc.. for the brand(s)
• Then invite them to the brown bags you have on usng Twitter for Business or the Facebook Bootcamp. They may not show up as they are busy execs but you might be surprised....

3. Build a list of likely scenarios
Chances are your coms team already does this. What if our product or service fails and injures people? What if we are 'attacked' in any way? What if an executive is caught in Vegas with a...? You get the picture.Now, you need to add social media fueled crisis. What if a video portraying some terrible act in our stores is published to YouTube? What if a growing collection of customer bloggers start talking about a customer service-nightmare together? What if detractors organize online and begin to use social media to attack (think Greenpeace and Apple)?

You can't imagine every secenario. But if you identify the most obvious ones including the platforms online where they could manifest you can start to imagine the responses necessary.  

4. Create your digital crisis management procedures and integrate into your larger playbook
Two simple ideas here: plan your use of social media to respond and make sure you integrate with your other means of response (e.g. traditional media, outreach to stakeholders, internal communications). Planning can cover the steps, the roles and the tasks necessary to get the right response out there faster than you may have ever done it before. You wil find all sorts of annoying details fall out of this process like:

• when should we post a response video on our site vs. YouTube or both?
• how do we use Twitter to share our POv if we don't already have a Twitter handle in place?
• who should be the "voice" of the crisis and are they up to being "personal" (e.g. shirt sleeves rolled-up, no obvious reading of scripts)
• How will we gauge who is influential out there and how best to engage them?

The last thing you want to do is scramble on how to do all this stuff once some knucklehead posts the video of himself pulling an "American Pie" on your product (never saw the film but the concept, while disgusting, is clear).

Anyhow, that is step one from my perspective. There have been many good posts on follow-on steps including these:

Jeff Woelker: Five Tips For When It All Goes to Hell

Edison Lee: Crisis Management lessons

BusinessWeek: Dominos Discovers Social Media

Bernstein Crisis Blog 

Nightline Covers Digital Crisis

This past Tuesday, I had the chance to be featured on Nightline in a segment motivated by the Dominos crisis the week before. The producers were trying to understand a bit more about how brands can respond well (Dominos did a pretty good job overall) and what kind of tools are available to "listen". They had a sense that there was some sort of CIA-like capability open to brands to monitor consumers.

The reality is that we have some pretty sophisticated tools and methods for paying attention to what customers are saying about the brands and issues they care about. They are talking across te social Web and almost always hope that people and brands are paying attention and respect their POV.  Our Listening Post tools powered by the best in the business (e.g. Radian6, Visible Tech and others) are a not just a source of intelligence for the brand but a sign of respect they have for customers and people in general.

You can check out the segment here. And no, that's not me taking a bath in the restaurant sink at the end.

The New Social Media & WOMM Ethics Challenges #3 - Fake Social Media

This post is part of a series exploring new issues of social media and word of mouth marketing ethics driven by WOMMA's Living Ethics Project stewarded by Paul Rand. The goal is to end up with the best, most up-to-date ethics guidelines for word of mouth marketers - the next iteration of WOMMA's Ethics Code.

Fake product reviews? Not so good. This past week, the computer products company, Belkin, was revealed to have solicited positive reviews for $.65 a pop via  Amazon's Mechanical Turk marketplace ("access to an on-demand, scalable workforce!"). Apparently this was the work of an overzealous and poorly-trained individual. As social media and word of mouth practices gain momentum within cmpanies, there will be new ethics transgressions that can really hurt the brand and their customers.

Things have changed in the world of "fakeness" in social media. At one time creating a brand page in Myspace or a character blog was consdiered heinously "fake" and impliictly against the unwritten code of soical media. Now everybody and his brother has brand pages all over MySpace, Facebook or thinks twice about having David Ogilvy Twitter care of the creatives behind the TV show "MadMen."

Why is "Fake" even relevant?
There are two big reasons in my book why we even use the word "fake": disclosure and authenticity. I suspect one is an ethical issue  and the other is more about best practices.

Disclosure
There are very few marketers (I am hoping) who would consciously create a blog where the author was not who they say they are unless it was done as a crystal clear parody or character blog. Although there are surprises every day like TV Asahi out of Japan. On a recent quiz show: 

"The anchorperson introduced six blog websites as examples of information collected via the Internet, which were presented as possible clues to the questions in the show.TV-Asahi acknowledged the suspicion that the blog sites introduced in the program were fake, and it apologized for the fraud."

Most of the doozies in this category like the All I Want For Xmas fake blog, are from 2006 or before. It would take a particularly clueless or poorly advised brand a lot to make that mistake in 2009.

So when marketers pose as average citizens or are a little muddy about their connection to a brand when they comment on blogs or YouTube videos or in message boards - that, my friends, does not live up to the promise of "discloure" in WOMMA's Honesty ROI. I continue to see marketers do this. I have seen ad agencies (in 2008!) follow an ill-advised attempt at creating a viral video - itself disclosed as from the brand or an obvious marketing effort  - with comments applauding the video that obviously came from the creators themselves eager to slap themsleves secretly  on the back. They are attempting to make outsiders think that other people like them think the video is "cool." That is not proper disclosure and is unethical. These are the easy calls.
 

So what if a brand wants to make a video whose source is mysterious? Their strategy is to create some mystery around who created the video. They plan on coming clean somewhere down the road. Maybe when they declare themselves the source in phase 2 of their master plan to apply advertising to the social media "channel" (not the most effective use of social media) or when the crowd of millions of forensice scientists "out them." For those days or weeks when people will think that the video is authentically from someone like them, there is deception. The marketer would say its all in good fun and that people enjoy the mystery and entertainment of the deception. Like a rollercoaster, people will not really be hurled into space and will always return to the coaster shed to wobble off, satisfied with their ride.

What about the brand that leaves the mystery and deception hanging like Australian menswear company, The Witchery, did with this Naked Communications-created video? Paul Rand posted about this last week on the WOMMA ethics blog. They mimicked a consumer generated video (too slickly yet plenty will be duped). they added fake response videos, and God knows how many of the 1000+ responses came form the marketers.

They even have the character, Heidi, commenting in the initial string of comments - about the product! No discloure to this day although there is some speculation online that the brand has walked away from the campaign due to the anger it incited (browse through the comments). Is this ethical? It seems to not come close to the disclosure mark. And they have left it hanging far too long for the "it was all in good fun" excuse.

Authenticity
In the case of the fake videos intended to be revealed in the course of the campaign, they may not be clear cases of ethics lapses so much as ignoring one of the great attributes of social media - athenticity. Are customers served best via social media by the brands they enjoy through branded entertainment or open discussion, utility, or some other more interaction where everyone knows who everyone is and we are building real relationships?

When marketers do not embrace the benefits of authenticity - which can be interpreted in so many productive ways - they are leaving tremendous opportunity and value on the table.I am not sure this is a question of ethics as much as it is best-practices. My strong suggestion to brands is to train for both within your organization.   
 
What do you think about these issues? Join in here or at the WOMMA Ethics blog. By the end of January, WOMMA plans to review all conversations about the issues and update the WOMMA ethics policies for today's marketing challenges. This will give brands a firm foundation for their own ethics guidelines in 2009.

Social Media Books: A Strong Guide for Today's Communicators

I read a lot. Who doesn't these days. I read pretty much every book on social media out there (I read many other things as well - Design, Branding, Strategy, Business Innvovation, Fiction, Comic Books (re-reading Watchmen now). I periodically update my Amazon Reading List. I teach graduate school and routinely pick out the most useful books for class.

Anyhow, many of the social media books are not useful. Perhaps they are written quickly with little research or insight in order to get their authors into the speaking circuit and hopefully to more lucrative consulting careers. (If you are a great speaker with a great topic I am guessing that doing 30 speeches a year at $10K is a bit rough, and much harder to do today).

I read Tactical Transparency over the holiday break by Shel Holtz and John C. Havens. I was expecting another unoriginal speech-justifier (not due to any reputation issues, just a fatalist attitude I had at the time). What I got was a great synopsis of the significance and opportunities of social media for "business communicators" or corporate communications PR specialists.

I am not sure if there are new insights in the book beyond the umbrella proposition that "transparency" is a "critical business issue." This is certainly ground many, including Shel, have been talking about for years. But nowhere has anyone pulled the argument together so clearly and comprehensively as Tactical Transparency (here's their book site). Where Groundswell summarized again the phenomena that is social media marketing and became the replacement "textbook" for those who wanted to catch up quickly, Tactical Transparency does the same for corporate PR.

The Opportunity with Internal Communications

One of the richest parts of the book is their thinking and coverage of social media's impact and opportunity for employee relations and communications. Each of us works inside businesses comprised of a potential army of brand ambassadors or a silent population, or worse, grumbling legion of detractors. Too little attention is given to the potential of social media to unlock the potential of employees. I suspect that may be due in part to the lingering leadership of "traditional" communications experts in and around the C-suite who see employee communications as the least they can do to "control" messages.

The "One Book" for Business Communicators

Tactical Transparency is a great, catch-up guide to how social media impacts communications. If there was only one book you could read to learn (as you also apply social media to your life, of course), this is it. It is also perfect for the current generation of corporate comms PR person. As for the PR Professional of the Future you can see the ingredients I feel they will need going forward here. You can also get introduced to their boss, The Chief Marcom Customer Service Officer here.     

The Shape of Corporate Comms: Ford

There have been a couple of interesting social media-driven corporate communications stories during the last quarter. One is, of course, Motrin. That has been posted about ad naseum. Suffice it to say that there was a missed opportuntiy there for J&J, but that's another post.

The more interesting story unfolded in the middle of December with Ford. While the specifics of the conflagaration between Ford and it's attempt to protect trademark with Ford fan sites and blogs, the more interesting by-product is Scott Monty's (Ford's recently hired social media guy) willingness to jump into the conversation. He held a sober conversation, stayed within the bounds of messaging without coming off like a flack in any way, and he didn't take the bait from the more extreme voices in the comment flow.

For those who weren't following along, the basic skirmish arose as follows (from PickupTrucks.com):

"Ford and TheRangerStation.com, a 10-year-old website for Ford Ranger enthusiasts, have mutually agreed to end a legal dispute that originally had Ford's attorneys demanding $5,000 and the rights to the domain name "TheRangerStation.com." Word of the dispute quickly caused an eruption of online support for the fan site that had some questioning Ford's relationship with some of its most loyal customers.

According to Jim Oaks, owner and founder of TheRangerStation.com, Ford's legal action had merit. It focused on vinyl decals sold to raise funds for site maintenance that bore Ford trademarks without Ford's approval.

"We sold vinyl cutouts with Ford trademarks that we shouldn't have," Oaks told PickupTrucks.com. He posted similar words on TheRangerStation.com's forums.

After being contacted by Scott Monty, Ford's public relations manager for digital media, Oaks and Monty quickly worked out a tentative agreement that ends Ford's pursuit for monetary compensation and the site name" 

The more interesting side to this was Scott's willingness to carry on a blog-verse discussion (trying to avoid the "blog-o-" word) about what was going on while at the same time offering some clarifications on Ford's POV on the bailout and even his perceptions of Alan Mulally's leadership. Scott commented 8 times over the course of a day.

Here's an example of a comment from Scott on the Voltage Blog (marketing firm in St. Louis that hosted a 59 comment post on the subject):

"Scott Monty 12/10/08
Sorry, I wanted to add one more thing. In the heat of the RangerStation fiasco, I neglected to respond to some other points you made above.

1. Ford has not been denied. In fact, we chose *not* to accept any of the funds in the pending bill. Our statement is at: http://is.gd/aSY1

2. In my experience at Ford (and mind you it's only been 5 months), Ford does not suffer from hubris. Anything but. That's been part of our perception problem - we've just got our heads down and are working steadily.

3. Alan Mulally is a very honorable and likable guy. He had a long day of Congressional testimony behind him when he said that, and I'm sure he regrets it.

We've tried to put together a pretty plainspoken and user-friendly site to tell our story. It's appropriately titled "The Ford Story" and can be found at http://thefordstory.com. I hope you'll check it out, including a video of Alan on the "Our Plan" page.

Thanks for giving us the opportunity to share our side of the situation and for being so fair in your airing of it.

Scott"

This is the form of modern coporate communications: a willingness to have a clear conversation with people over an issue of mutual interest. Scott and Ford carefully (and quickly responded) with facts and what I will call human-speak (normal conversation not "message-delivery"). They joined the conversation out where it was happening. They didn't freak out when they got criticized.  

Motrin comparison:  I would argue that J&J overreacted in the Motrin case to the complaints of moms about their admittedly poor web video spot. they could have easily engaged and discussed and ended up ahead of the game. What woudl have happened if J&J asked moms to create a better spot about their particular pains?  I got the sense that they just wanted to mollify those crazy mom bloggers and Twitterers and get the hell out of the conversation.

The Ford approach is much different. I actually believe that having Scott's voice out there will have a great and positive impact on the Ford brand reputation. He will not only help be a corporate communications voice (and brain) as they navigate the next tricky 12 months, I believe he will be part of a new commitment to word of mouth marketing (strategic use of social media) that will ultimately help sell cars in the future.

Check out this case study of Scott's experience from Ron Ploof, a B-to-B social media consultant:

The Ranger Station Fire

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Marketing Business communications twitter

5 Steps: How Banks Must Regain Trust (hint: Not Via Advertising)

The headlines this past week were scary. Brands like Lehman Brothers crumbling, Merrill Lynch being helped up like an old lady, and 12 banks "failing" this year. Despite all of this, we all understand we are in a "cycle" and Western capitalist society is not being extinguished. (how deep the trough of the cycle is remains a concern)

Retail banks cannot stop trying to attract and keep customers. Investment houses will change up the paper yet offer investments nontheless.  But some serious trust has been lost. Managing our own personal finance is one of those things that the average American feels less and less confident about. Most of us have no choice but to surrender our trust to financial experts and institutions.

The Next Marketing Wave for Banks

Recent headlines reveal that we shouldn't trust our financial insitutions. So, what is a bank to do to bounce back? The following are 5 steps that a retail bank (one serving regular consumers like you and me) should do to earn trust and loyalty:

1. Stop your traditional advertising with your old campaign now
Paul Farhi at the Washington Post has a great article today about the falsely confident advertising of major financial institutions. AIG's slogan is "The Strength to Be There." Very few banks are even sensitive to building a brand with deep roots in the organization through customer service, credo and employee behavior. Ray Davis at Umpqua Bank knows what he is doing in this regard. Most banks think brand development and advertising are the same thing. Right now and for the next few weeks if not longer we are in what we call "crisis mode." Everyone knows trhe banks are in trouble. They know their institutions are not as solid as the architecture is meant to make you feel. So, stop throwing good money after bad. Stop reinforcing the idea that bank leadership is out of touch with reality by delivering your same "plan for retirement" ads.

2. Make a commitment to educating your customers on personal finance
I need a course. I need a coach. I need someone who gives a #@%$ about whether I can hold my own financially over the long haul (therefore being a strong, fees-paying customer for years). All the research shows that customers feel inadequate when it comes to managing money. Banks should consider programs that help us get smart and make better decisions. It's kind of like consumer driven healthcare. I accept that no one but me will manage my health or finance. Help me get smart so I do a better job of it. A major bank should partner with a major online university to offer personal finance courses. 

3. Whoever said corporate blogging is dead is an idiot - start a blog for godsakes
Or a Twitter account. Or a mobile update system. Or all of this. The platforms are not nearly as important as putting employees in the position of communicating out to customers. What are they seeing in the markets? What are bank employees working on? Give me ideas for getting smart about my money. I need to know that there is a human being in there - preferably one who cares about customers liek me. Who are the financial personalities that we get to know? The CEOs from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? Or the loudmouths in pundit media whose allegiance is somewhere other than to the well being of their audience. Time for authentic, regular joe relationships. I want to know the bank manager again. In terms of introducing personality through social media, just don't think this video from Bank of America qualifies as a good move. While the guy has a great voice, I feel like I am watching an epsiode of The Office.

other examples of banks & social media:

• Wells Fargo's blogs
• Fidelity's podcasts
• The Charles Schwab Community - oops it's gone....

4. Listen and react to your customers publicly
The ideas.salesforce platform is a strong concept. And it's not just releavnt for Starbucks and Dell. What if a bank put that in place? Maybe my post would end up on ideas.suntrust.com instead of out here in the ether. Empower your customers to offer ideas to other customers.

5. Advertise all of the above and build a strong community around your bank built on trust
Stop advertising just rates or adirondack-chairs-on-porches-signifying-retirement. I mean, really, retirement is such a bogus idea. Most of us will work until we die and we know it. Seriously - use your advertising to raise awareness about your education programs, your unique employee and customer guides that will help us navigate through the complex world of personal finance. Your programs to help us manage finance wherever we are in the dreaded "cycle."

Banks and financial institutions need to walk a different walk. No more marketing as usual. The bank that embraces a smart use of social media and digital marketing will start to get trust because "they earn it" - for real.

Closing Communities: Is There a Better Way?

I was drawn in by Ben McConnell's post about the closing of Disney's Virtual Magic Kingdom (VMK). The virtual community fueled by Sulake closed one week ago. Lots of coverage from CNN to WSJ. Fans have gone the Jehrico route and set up protest sites. But it's not fair to compare the closing of a community that had been live and active for a couple of years with a passive TV show. Community mmbers feel abaonded, let down or down-right disrespected. Disney claims that the community was part of a limited time celebration of their 50th anniversary and the current message on the url is fairly ubrupt.

John Frost over at the Disney Blog (unofficial) had a terrific post last month about the closing. He considers many angles of the business drivers inside Disney from the decentralized buisness unit structure to the rigorous margin goals shared across the enterprise. Ben takes teh claim that the community was intended for a short term campaign. We wrestle with campaign-mentality in marcom all the time. Only difference is that our campaigns are often a few monmths long whereas this community was up for more than two years. Ben goes on in his post to set up the business rationale for a community to begin with:

"Campaign thinking is a byproduct of the last 25 years of business school education. The formula has been to create a short-term project using established metrics, execute, then start over with a new idea. Move the needle quickly.

The formula for evangelism thinking is: Create a project where the community of users become part of the process and most importantly, are considered a tangible asset. The needle may not move as fast because the investment is for the long term, but it's less likely to have wild, up-and-down swings."

Both authors have hit on something important: communities can serve the business goals of a company and their value and the actual value of the community members should be weighed with a business eye. 

Sometimes you have to close

If you valuate the community, you may find it is not a sustainable enterprise. As business people (and community enthusiasts) we cannot say that a business must keep a community going or make any other business decision not in line with their fiscal responsibilities.  I completely respect the investment of the VMK community members.

But it's how you do it that shows what you are made of

As usual, I think the real missed opportuntiy is how they did it. Communities are co-created experiences no matter who licensed the software or created the bitmaps. Inviting members of the community in to discuss what could happen next - where could the community be directed to to reform, how could they stay connected or how they could participate in the next Disney creation - all of these discussions might have helped the community transition. It would certianly telegraph that Disney respects its community members. Still people would be angry. But some would understand. Just look at John Frost's business-like assessment.

So sites like Savevmk crop up and gather petitions. they also collect comments - almost 5000 comments that show the emtional connection as well as the disappointment:

"Flower_KId
What cruel heartless person would want to close vmk. If anyone ever trys to close vmk i will hurt to a point were they can't even breath! If you close vmk then you shut off the love I have for Disney. I will never watch Disney channel again if vmk closes. vmk staff wise up and keep vmk for all the children to enjoy. VMK, VMK, WHAT'S THE NAME IT'S VMK, HOORAY!! "

Would it be a huge risk for someone from Disney to participate in that comment string?

Will EA Do It Better? 

Now SIMS Online from EA is closing. From the sounds of it, they do not have the vibrant community that VMK had. Still, it looks like they may also be tumbling forward in a less than ideal way. They changed the name of the community to EAOnline and then immediately announced it's closure. Someone asked if they did that just so they wouldn't have to say that one of their most prized assets didn't hit a home run. Undoubtedly, they are closing for business reasons - for one reason or another it doesn't make business sense for them to keep going with it. I only hope they are reaching out to their community - what little there may be - and having them contribute to next steps for that community.

If more companies went the extra mile to demonstrate their respect for and their value of their community members (read: customers, evangelists, potential customers), they could make business decisions like closing a community and maintain many of their strong positive relationships with community members.