Social Networking continued..
Posted by admin on July 12th, 2007A few of my coworkers have written fantastic articles on the social networking aspect for wineries, Mike Brown initiated the topic, Gaurav provided you with information on how to create a social networking site, I’d like to add my two cents on what I think is one of the key elements to a online community’s success – user’s ability to TRUST the community.
While reading “Smart Start-ups” by David Silver, I was amazed but not entirely surprised that he estimated over 10,000 new online social communities will arise over the next three years, many with over a million users. While there are many social networks and network enabling sites out there, at the heart of the matter is winning the trust of the community that you’ve created.
Here are a few overall thoughts from the book (in my own words) that stayed with me:
- When creating an online community ask yourself – what value will the site provide? How can my community provide this value consistently over time?
- Market to the gut rather than the brain.´
- Make Strategic Alliances – partner with other online communities that have potential synergies with your community.
- Key to a community’s success is the ability for its users to search, process and share findings in a trust worthy environment.
Social networks can provide “long-term” value to a winery; I place emphasis on “long-term” as it takes a long time to create your own thriving online community. I may have only touched on the tip of the iceberg, may I remind you that we’ve always existed in communities that we’ve grown to trust over time, we are simply taking the offline concept to an online world.
