Malone and Marashlian, a part from being likable and incredibly hilarious (check out their Halloween costumes), are living and breathing the core of community building by making themselves entirely available to the users of their product. Their using Ustream.tv to broadcast live daily from their offices in Sorrento Valley. Got a question, problem, or just want to maximize your usage of their software? Just ping Troy during business hours on PeloTV and he’ll not only answer your question, but he’ll show you how to do it yourself using WebcamMax, a super awesome camera utility that allows you to switch to a view of your desktop (I found a neat alternative for the Mac called CamTwist), to visually walk you through the step by step process of your inquiry. It’s customer service meets community building using the best of social media, and I absolutely love it.

I was surprised to find such innovation so close to home, but it turns out that Malone and Marashlian haven’t always been so savvy. In fact, Malone’s old school marketing and PR approach led him to Marshal Kirkpatrick, a New Media Consultant and Lead Writer for ReadWriteWeb. Malone emailed a plethora of bloggers with a press release looking for web coverage only to find that his approach was fruitless and flawed. Kirkpatrick was the only blogger to respond, and Malone decided that he’d rather have Kirkpatrick’s help as consultant than a single blog post. Obviously Malone’s decision has paid off. He’s making innovative strides and thinking like a savvy web entrepreneur.

I give him huge kudos for trying something new and not being afraid of taking risks. Did I mention that in the process of switching to this “new” marketing approach they totally eliminated their marketing budget that was thousands of dollars per month? Small business owners, are you paying attention? Let’s just hope that Pelotonics can scale their customer service efforts with their growth. Good luck guys!

I’m in the process of finalizing my presentation, but I’d really like to add your thoughts, experiences, and opinions on why you think startups should or should not use social media to build their customer communities, what you think the best practices and pitfalls are, and which startups you think are using social media in ground breaking ways. All thoughts and opinions and welcome, and if I quote you, I will give you credit and a little link love.

Help a girl out!

What Do Startups Need to Know About Blogging? from Jennifer Van Grove on Vimeo.

The Doing Needs to Come From You

Any audience or customer community you do have doesn’t care about what your team has to say (unless it’s their unique point of view in their words and voice), your latest press release, or your brand new ad spot (unless your Apple). Please do not treat your blog readers, Facebook friends, and Twitter followers like your own personal marketing channels—the message doesn’t matter here, you do.

You matter.

What you’re doing matters. Who you’re doing it with matters. It’s what human that matters and what other people can relate to. If you fake it, you will be found out and you will ruin any credibility or influence you may have had with your fans, brand advocates, or customer community.

Some Advice to Britney that You Can Take to Heart

Gary Vaynerchuk says it best in his video directed to Britney Spears and her team regarding the @therealbritney Twitter account. The best takeaways are to remember that social media should not be used merely as another outlet for your message or press releases. Social media should be used for learning, sharing, listening, and genuine conversation.

Be Human, Build Relationships with Bloggers

A number of important ideas were discussed in the session, including the widely accepted social media mindset that “pitching” a blogger is less about the press release and more about the relationship between the blogger and the PR professional. The conclusion being that the PR folks need to take the time to professionally befriend bloggers, make connections, and be human if they’re seriously interested in getting their companies blogged about.

Blogger Relationship ROI?

When the panel opened things up for questions, the audience was stunned by a question from Michelle Evans, Marketing Services Manager for Grouse Mountain, who said the following (this is a paraphrased version)…

Why should I take the time to build relationships with bloggers who don’t have a ton of readers? Where’s the ROI?

She went on to talk about the time it takes to build a relationship—time being a commodity that she, and/or the PR people she works with, have to justify to senior management—with time spent to build a relationship being disproportionate to the value that a blogger can provide, given most bloggers don’t have a TechCrunch-size audience.

A member of the audience said…

Her tweet tries to clarify a bit…

It seems to be a question that Evans is really trying to explore, she states the following in a blog post dated before BlogWorld…

clipped from imseekingbalance.blogspot.com

The challenge for people like me (marketing types) and our cohorts (PR people) is to figure out where the line is drawn between giving people free stuff just because they write a blog and putting out meaningful pitches to influential bloggers in our area of business.

and then she asks…

clipped from imseekingbalance.blogspot.com

Where do you think that line should be drawn? Subscribers? Alexa rankings? Google page rank? Technorati? Which bloggers make the list of desirables? Tell me…

Rethink Your Strategy; From PR to Community

Michelle Evans isn’t wrong. She’s thinking like a traditional marketer. In many ways, her challenge is the challenge that many marketers and PR professionals face. She blogs, she tweets, but where does she find the ROI to support blogger outreach to the people that write her checks? I talk to people everyday who have the same challenges.

This is how I would advise a client of mine:

1. Take a step back. Stop thinking about which bloggers to give free stuff to or send meaningful “pitches” to, and start thinking about why you want to reach bloggers in the first place—to get more customers/clients. Stop trying to find the line that separates the influential bloggers from the non-influential bloggers. That line doesn’t exist.
2. Find your customers online. If the goal is trying to get more customers, start thinking less about bloggers to pitch and more about the people who could belong to a broader community. In the case of Grouse Mountain,  the broader community would probably consist of locals, action sports enthusiasts as well as the everyday traveler. How do you reach these people online? Instead of finding bloggers with alot of traffic, search for people, blogs, and twitter users with action sports and travel interests. Listen to them. Engage them in real conversations. This is where the relationship building comes into play. You can’t measure each relationship, but you can track the % change of company mentions across the web, or even across social sites.
3. Make your customers feel like rock stars. Give your customers a platform, and give them a reason to talk about you. All the activities that Grouse Mountain offers are inherently desirable for people to capture and share with their friends online and off. Focus on finding ways to make it easier for visitors to share their memories online. Maybe the average customer doesn’t use Twitter or doesn’t blog, but they will likely take digital photos. Wouldn’t it be cool if the company encouraged visitors to tag their photos with “Grouse Mountain” and used their website to display these photos, or make postcards (contact creator, give them credit and % of sales) out of the truly phenomenal photos like this one? Even better, Grouse Mountain could display all “Grouse Mountain” tagged content online or in the lodge. What a cool way to make customers for life. People love to see their name and/or their content on display, just reference #pr2 effect for an immediate way to prove this.
4. Take baby steps to prove ROI. The bottom line is that management is never going to green light resource heavy endeavors without proof. I get that. You have to start small and with something measurable. Pinpoint the things you can measure and measure change: online mentions, tagged photos, twitter followers, blog comments, and, of course, ticket sales and return customers. Ultimately it will come down to management being open to try something new and understanding why it’s important to inspire the community to talk about them online. Not everyone is ready to rethink their marketing strategy.

These are just my thoughts, I’d love to hear what you think. Do you face the same challenges in the workplace? How do you show ROI? How do you demonstrate the value of social media and/or blogger outreach efforts to management?

A group of San Diego’s savviest entrepreneurial minds, including Nate Ritter, who helped spread crucial information when the San Diego Fires were consuming our city, are combining forces on a project code named Hero Channel called Crisis Wire. An idea for “an aggregated emergency informational system” originated by Nate, as described in this post, is now being supported by a team of 15 volunteers, from Refresh San Diego, who all believe in the idea and have the skill to give it life.

As described on IdeaBlob, the final product will…

clipped from ideablob.com

Aggregate emergency/disaster information from every media source including tv, radio, blogs, twitter, and more. Published on one page per disaster and then separated into neighborhoods where pertinent, this website could put the info into the hands of the people who need it most.

I hope that you’ll join me in supporting this project—help it win the $10,000 award by voting for the idea or simply providing feedback and insight to the team.