The social media night club: why building online communities is not always a good idea



I've never been one for nightclubs. With two left feet and an intolerance of crap music, I've always preferred socialising in places where you can [a] hear yourself speak and [b] not get roughed up by bouncers on the way in.



But it doesn't stop them being an excellent analogy for the world of B2B social media marketing - something that was discussed at some length when I visited a leading UK manufacturer last week to talk about how they can get the most out of social media.

If you are in a similar situation to them, this is all about a critical strategic decision that you need to get right at the start. To build or not to build
The point is that, when considering how to get the most out of social media, it's easy to assume that the best option is to manage your own online community.

To build and manage something of your own - a fully branded place, where your people can go in order to find the info they need, meet the right people, talk about their issues and so on.



But this is where the nightclub idea comes in. If you sink thousands of pounds into building your own club, you rely on attracting lots of people. If you get it right, you are the manager of the coolest place in town, where all the best people simply have to be seen.



Keeping up with the competition
Now that's all very well, but what happens when a slightly cooler competitor opens up in the same street? Suddenly you're sooo last year and nobody turns up on a Friday night. The party next door is in full swing and you're there with an empty dancefloor and all the atmosphere of a funeral parlour.



What if you had simply invested your money into your own brand - instead of investing in a community? What if you made sure you were seen as the best dressed person in the club, the best dancer, with the coolest friends and the most sparkling conversation? That way, when trends change and places come and go, you can simply move with the crowd and start spending your Friday nights at the other place - because that's where the action is.



This would be the equivalent of simply being active in other online communities instead of building your own. Invest time and effort in creating high-quality content that you share via industry forums, community sites, across Twitter and other networks. In short, you become known for what you are, not where you are. 



How do you decide?
So do you manage your own community? Or do you use others? I believe these are - broadly - the key questions to ask:



Do you have a significant and loyal following?

The J-Net community managed by networking equipment manufacturers Juniper is a good example. Juniper's customer base is dwarfed by Cisco - but JUNOS users prefer its simplicity and are loyal to the brand. The community is therefore a huge success.



Do you occupy a niche that no one else fills?

Again, this reduces the likelihood of online community alternatives, but then there is a certain critical mass that you need to reach if you want the community to work. There may not be an automatic loyalty to a brand, but if you deal in certain issues that are not dealt with anywhere else online, you can quickly establish thought leadership.

Do you have enough resource?

Building and managing a community takes a lot of money and time. And you need people who are knowledgeable in their field as your online hosts. There are different ways of doing it - for example, using a Facebook page as your home instead of getting it coded from scratch - but it can't be done on a shoestring.



Can you keep levels of investment up? 

You may have the resources right now, but if you can't get long-term commitment to building a community, you're almost doomed from the start. You need buy-in from the boss and the finance people, and you need a formalised plan that shows what you want to achieve and by when. If there is no agreed strategy, it is easier to pull investment without notice - and as soon as your club starts to look a little faded, people are going to look for alternatives.



Who owns the other communities?

This is the one that is beyond your control. Who knows what Facebook/LinkedIn/Digg is going to do? What happens to all the content you have uploaded when the community owners change their site - or even go out of business? What about when they change the admin rules, restrict data access, or basically make changes that conflict with what you were trying to do? You're pretty powerless, and you have no choice but to go along with it. The best advice is not to kick up too much of a fuss. Behave nicely and you won't get thrown out by the doormen.



So you can see that different brands will make different decisions. As a rule, the larger brands, with more resources, will feel more confident about managing their own community, whereas smaller organisations might be better advised to simply 'join in' with someone else's.



But it's not always this black and white. Do you want flexibility or control? Do you really need your own community? Or are you cool enough to create the right impression wherever you go?

What do you think? The management at this particular club would like to know your views. As for me, I'm off to hang out with the crowd down at Mo's.