Derrick Metzler: Social Media Innovation

Posts Tagged ‘google alerts’

In a post on Purple Car, Christine Cavalier discusses how to build a community online. As described in The Starfish and The Spider, “ideology is the fuel that drives the decentralized organization.” Christine uses “fellow believers” as an example of fuel for an online community. These people, she says, will find customers for you. You don’t need to sell to them, they are already customers. The focus of your efforts towards them should be maintaining a relationship that will encourage loyalty…

Christine also offers three specific suggestions for building a community online, the “3S Approach.” The 3 S’ consist of Search, Share and Support. All off these seem like very reasonable and useful tools for building community. Search refers to ways to monitor topics and information on the web through tools like Google Alerts. Sharing is exactly what it sounds like, sharing your experiences through blog posts, tweets, etc. Supporting others by commenting on their posts and retweeting is also useful. People will be thankful for the attention and extra exposure.

The post is full of useful tips and insight into the process of building and maintaining a community online. Very similar to building and maintaining offline relationships, showing interest in individuals is very important. Your friends, hopefully, already like you. Trying to hard to impress or sell yourself will not improve a relationship, rather, it is more likely to drive people away.