don't be a lurker!

thanks for stopping by, please
invest your two cents to this post.

quotes on marketing & culture

velcro interactions

December 11th, 2009 • posts i've written

Brands are starting to understand that in order to have an impact on people within online social networks (that’s where people spend their time online), they have to participate in decentralized channels, in decentralized ways, communicating to disparate niche audiences.

But what do to with that .com?

Well, first off, remember that its value is measured in the people that come there and the actions they take while there. And second, remember that if you aren’t leveraging your digital dollars to encourage spreadable behaviors, you’re not spending effectively.

A strategy I’d like to suggest is something I call Velcro Interactions (because all strategies need cool names) – essentially, creating interactions between your .com and those social networks that bridge and connect the two closer together in visible ways.

Here’s a very tactical example: Mashable.com, for their summer of social good, donated $1 to charity for every retweet of their content on Twitter. So actions within a network affected their hub in a very real and obvious way (and it was easy to watch and count the retweets as they happened).

Another example? The Shorty Awards required you to tweet for a nominee for the vote to register. It brought a good deal of attention/traffic for the .com (b/c it showed up within communities of twitter users) and it encouraged ongoing participation because of its persistence within Twitter.

But the effects don’t always have to go in that direction. Imagine if a brand provided a truly valuable or useful tool for a popular site or social network that only became active when enough actions were taken it on its hub .com.

Give it a mull. Got more examples? I’m actually looking for them, so please share!