Today at the IMC Vancouver conference, Clay Braziller moderated a lively discussion on building and maintaining community using social media. Panelists spanned both the non-profit and profit sectors and they had a lot to say about their challenges and successes in digital marketing.

Panelists:
Chad Leaman of Neil Squire Society
Jenny Rustemeyer of The Clean Bin Project
Sandra Garossino of Intellix Legal Management
Cadeyrn Craig of Norco Products

What has made your community successful?

• Knowing that each social media channel has a different method of interaction. Don’t treat your Facebook fans, Linkedin followers and Twitter followers the same. Modify your approach based on the platform.
• Build your network over time. Leverage your one-way conversation into a two-way conversation and engage with your community.
• Treat your members like you would if they were sitting at your kitchen table. Help people feel at ease, they will open up and participate.
• If you are lucky enough to be in an industry that already has a shared interest (i.e. cyclists), utilize your social networks to provide a way for people to connect with each other.

Biggest challenge in creating your community? How did you overcome it?

• Getting buy-in from management to get the appropriate resources allocated. Help remove management’s fear of engaging with customers and get them to see how important brand advocates can be.
• Get away from the old paradigm of controlling your message. Use social media to fine tune your messaging, not control it.
• Time and money is a big challenge! Give people a reason to join your community and use social media as tool to build word of mouth.
• Getting it started was a challenge. Create circles of engagement and provide an opportunity to train your community on how to use the technology.

What Strategy was most successful?

• Follow and engage with people on Twitter who have between 2,000 – 5,000 followers, related to your business. Leverage them to help retweet your messages to gain a larger audience for your community.
• Give people an opportunity to share their stories and help facilitate this process.
• Let’s not forget, what not to do. Do not use your channels as a constant stream of sales oriented content! This turns people off.
• You have 2 ears and 1 mouth for a reason – learn to LISTEN.

For more updates from the IMC Vancouver conference, check out TMMPDX.COM’s YouTube Channel for video interviews during the event. Look for a post event article wrap up in a few days!