Attending Workshops at Web 2.0 expo - Community Evangelism

Filed Under , Community, Conference, Effective Marketing, Evangelism, Professional Development, Social Media, Web Technology

I started my Sunday morning with a workshop at Web 2.0 expo on Community Evangelism with Deborah Schultz and Anil Dash. I thought I can get away without much effort of focus on a Sunday morning and I did not bring my laptop. Well, once you see Jeremiah Owyang running around with a camera video-streaming live the event and Mario Sudhar liveblogging, one cannot get away from the energy those folks generate.

What are the takeaways from this workshop? Why should we care about community evangelism? Here are the ideas that Deborah and Anil shared with us.
Community Evangelism is an ideal customer referral program made feasible to execute via various web technologies like blogs, forums, podcasts and other social sites. It allows companies reaching their customers and transform transactional customers into loyal ones through building the relationship, making an emotional, personal connection.

Persistence and awareness are the key to maintain relationships online. If you ventured a blog for your company, you engage into a social contract, a sort of committment to ongoing conversation with your customers. This implies a continuous sharing of value content. You expand your relationship with a customer into a more enriching experience.  Continuity of a two-way communication process provides for creating meaningful life moments that your customer records in his/her memory. A good example would be books, CDs, movies that we buy or get as gifts from other people and might never read, watch but keep being attached to them as they connect to someone we care about. Connectedness, continuity and non-disposability = all due to the value of a relationship that carries it through.

Awareness is not just about notification. Providing your customers with a control to chose how they get information about the product and services - this makes your communications effective. Why? Think about products people absolutely love: iPod, TiVo, Wii. They empower consumers to be in control when to consume content, service, product. So, do the same with your marketing communications to make them more effective - provide those in RSS, blogs or other format that your customer can choose to control both in the reception phase and content scope.

What’s Evangelist? He/she is a

  • customer advocate
  • educator
  • among the people interacting with the community where they live
  • human face of the company
  • cross-functional, not just a marketer
  • a foil for the company

Human skills needed to be successful as a community evangelist:

  • listener
  • connector
  • catalyst
  • critic
  • partial geek
  • detective
  • diplomat
  • juggler
  • driven by relationships
  • approachable
  • intuitive
  • inquisitive

Pursue evangelism with passion, be present where your customers are mentally and physically. Use what you got and have fun!

P.S. I just found out how messed up my blog looks like in Firefox! Tried to contact technical support and it is temporary closed! What do I do? I have to fix it, otherwise it is simply embarrassing.


Comments

4 Responses to “Attending Workshops at Web 2.0 expo - Community Evangelism”

  1. Ilya Lichtenstein on April 16th, 2007 2:03 am

    I like the characterization of an evangelist as opening a dialogue with customers (as opposed to simply preaching the virtues of the product). Hopefully more big companies will jump on the evangelism bandwagon and try to establish a more personal relationship with customers.

    To fix your layout you would need to either manually edit your theme or get a new theme. You might want to try upgrading to Wordpress 2.1, that certainly won’t hurt and might help things.

  2. Summary: Day 1 at the Web 2.0 Expo 2007 « Marketing Nirvana on April 16th, 2007 2:14 am

    [...] It’s definitely exciting to meet individuals who are so passionate about their area of expertise, that not only do they have blogs but also venture out on a Sunday morning to catch the first panel discussion on the first day of a educative web 2.0 show. Nice start to a show…The next three days are going to be exciting. [...]

  3. Yulia Smirnova on April 17th, 2007 6:22 am

    Ilya, thank you for the tip on the solution. Now, I just need to find a techy guy to help me solve that, otherwise, I might delete my blog completely by mistake doing myself (trial and error) :) Anyone?

    As far as the big companies and the wagon, I have seen a lot of people who are internal “intrapreneurs” and they are literally jumping through a bunch of barriers before they can land on the customer evangelism wagon! But, it is happening, even if it takes a while.

  4. memesponge.com » Blog Archive » Web 2.0 Expo Day 1, Knowledge Nuggets and More Inspiring People on April 17th, 2007 9:23 am

    [...] « Attending Workshops at Web 2.0 expo - Community Evangelism [...]

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      Everything posted on this blog is a product of my own thoughts, ideas, reflections based on the professional interests. It is based on the public information, works of the colleagues and fellow researchers that are cited respectfully and my opinions as an industry professional.