Many of our clients are dipping their toes in the turbid waters of the participatory web for the first time. They know they need to think about community, and they want to be part of Web 2.0--but they've heard horror stories. Dollars wasted, jobs lost, companies humiliated. Oh, and the budget for this year is already set. We can't afford ongoing moderation. And what about people saying bad things about us on our site? What about crummy content? What will Legal say? What will the brand people say? What if we throw a huge party and nobody shows up?
There are a lot of reasons it's hard to revolutionize a company's web strategy to include customer participation. Too many to list. Here are three ways to make it easier:
Sociablize Your Content (I think I used a made-up word there! )
Many sites already have valuable content. One way to enable customer participation without building a whole new site is to enable interaction and engagement with what you've already got. If you've got educational webcasts, enable commenting. Add a threaded discussion.
Build a Walled Garden
It's risky to redesign your site in a revolutionary new way. It takes a lot of money and a lot of organizational support. So start in a discrete part of the existing site, or build a microsite. If it fails, you can just pull the plug and, if it's really failing, nobody will be there to notice.
Run an Event
Instead of building a community in a small place, you can build a community for a short time. Find an event that's important to your customers, whether it's a trade show, a product release, or an appearance by a celebrity, and build a venue for your customers to engage with it. When the event is over, the community can disappear or be archived. (Just make sure nobody's surprised when you pull the plug!)
There are lots of ways to limit scope and minimize risk. The point is that when you want to change the world, one effective way to go is to start small. Prove the concept by making clear goals at the outset and measuring them. Dollarize and measure ROI, so when you're ready to go for the big ask, you've got money data and a proven success.
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