Yesterday I spent an entire day at The Crosby Club in Rancho Sante Fe talking to business owners and members of the BBB about community building. For most, the term “social media” was completely foreign to them, and for the rest, they were having trouble wrapping their minds around why they should care. One of the mantras I repeat incessantly is that…

Your customers, your clients, your employees, and anyone else associated with your brand – they’re all taking and now, more than ever, they’re talking about you, your business, and your brand, and they’re doing it online regardless of whether or not you’re listening, or whether or not you care.

As I started to think about how I could help the less tech savvy audience wrap their minds around why, at the very least, they need to pay attention to social media sites like Twitter, something obvious struck me.

Brands are to community as parents are to children. Brands need to pay attention to what’s being said about them online in exactly the same way that parents need to pay close attention to their young children.

Community Building Happens Through Social Media

Social media is the marriage of social networks and digital media; it’s sharing and connecting your content with your online circle of friends. Digital media encompasses everything from digital photos to Facebook status updates – it’s just content that is either created or hosted online. Social media builds on digital media by making the sharing of all content fast, easy, rewarding, public, and likely to be indexed by Google.

At the very core of social media is community building. People use social networks to connect, exchange ideas, and ultimately add depth to the various types of relationships we have with our online friends. What you put into your online network is directly correlated to what you get out of it. The same holds true for brands and companies who are trying to engage with their customers online. Building a relationship takes time, commitment, and honesty. The challenge for brands, however, is that the customer community exists whether or not a brand chooses to engage with it.

Brand: Community, Parent:Child

Let’s explore the brand:community, parent:child analogy a little more. A parent is by definition a parent only when there is a child in question. The same holds true for brands, a brand doesn’t exist unless there is a community of people who support that brand. A parent is responsible for taking care of their child, for nurturing him/her, and for guiding that child to make smart decisions. A brand doesn’t have the same responsibilities that a parent has to a child, but a brand will suffer the same consequences if they ignore their community as a parent will suffer if they ignore their child.

Let’s say a mom is incredibly tired and decides to take a nap. While she’s sleeping, her two year-old child reeks havoc on the house, destroys the yard, and finally falls down and starts to scream. When the mom awakes she’s confronted with an impossible challenge – comfort her screaming child and try to bring the chaos back to order. Now take that child, multiply him/her by hundreds of thousands, put them all in the same vicinity, and you’ve got a really ugly mess on your hands. This is what is happening online. Your customers are screaming for attention, but you can’t hear them because you’re not listening.

Listening is the First Step

Yesterday a very grumpy golfer overheard my explanation of social media as a resource for listening and engaging with your customer/client community. He mumbled under his breathe that he didn’t want to talk to his customers and that he gets enough email as it is. There are so many reasons why he’s wrong, but his rumblings sent so many messages that I think are more important. First and foremost, he doesn’t care and he doesn’t want to listen. I wonder why he’s getting all those emails, perhaps it’s because there’s a general attitude that listening is an inconvenience for him. So he can choose not to listen and continue on his path of stubbornness, but those emails won’t ever stop, and the bad attitude won’t ever change.

In the bigger picture, using social media to listen is the simpliest thing a company can do to get a clearer picture of that big ugly mess described above. Choosing not to listen is a choice either motivated by ignorance or laziness – but the world we live in today is a Google world, so wake up! That big ugly mess is now being indexed on Google for the entire world to see. Don’t you at least want to know what it looks like?

[vodpod id=ExternalVideo.486524&w=425&h=350&fv=] from qik.com posted with vodpod

I signed up with twitter awhile ago and didn’t really see or get the value of it. Then a few months ago I switched jobs and starting reading more about the relevance of twitter; it all started to make sense. So I tried to sign in and get actively engaged, but despite my best efforts, I couldn’t figure out my password. Yeah I’ve got dozens and no I don’t keep them in a spreadsheet (actually I started a spreadsheet as soon as this happened). I didn’t want to create a new account and the system couldn’t seem to recognize my email address (so I couldn’t get a new password). I gave up and decided that I would die in twitterless obscurity.

Today I had an aha moment. I remembered my password! I’m back and although I have absolutely no followers yet, I’m confident I’ll get there…to a point where twitter matters in my life. So follow me darn it. I’ll totally return the favor if you do, plus if you live in the Manchester area you can send me a direct message and maybe we can meet up for coffee (because I need friends…I’m so alone out here after relocating from San Diego).

The funny part of the story is that I’m a huge idiot, but I might have found a way for twitter to help ensure dumb people like me don’t get stuck in a situation I did. So back to me being an idiot. In my profile area I had mistyped my email by one stinking letter, so of course the system couldn’t recognize my email address; I entered it in wrong! Doh! Perhaps twitter could fix this by email verification? Just a thought. Maybe they do this now and I got left in the dust. Who knows. Problem solved on my end anyway.

IMG_0106, originally uploaded by b_d_solis.

I love flickr and I love this photo I found of Teresa, Angie, and me at the Wynn on Wednesday night. What a great event! To read all about my evening check out this post.

I hobbed and I knobbed with Chris Heuer for a bit (side note – we need to reconnect about the Science and Technology idea that I only vaguely remember). What a class act and a hoot to boot. I simply love chatting that is effortless and meaningful. Of course Chris and I go back to Community 2.0 and Studio 54 in the MGM, so it’s easy to talk shop and to not.

I immediately feel in love with Teresa Klein who approached me by asserting her love for my super sexy gold shoes (Shel Israel actually has a picture of them somewhere (random indeed)). Angie and I became instant BFFs with Teresa and plan to explore the fabulous underground karaoke scene in Vegas this evening. Ellis Island anyone? A karaoke gal is someone I can call friend, it doesn’t hurt that we’re both female and fabulous.

As alluded to above, I also had the very distinct pleasure of meeting, conversing, laughing, and talking pics with Shel Israel. I wasn’t expecting him to be so wicked cool (the New Englander is developing inside me). Angie and Shel were especially preoccupied with one another, but I was stoked to find out that Shel has actually read my blog. That’s about as cool as having Craig Newmark comment on my post about craiglist.

There were several moments of shared anxiety about tonight’s pajama party. It’s nice to know that I’m not alone in my slight trepidation. In case you read this post and need an update, I did break down and buy some new pajamas and if you’re at the event tonight you’re required to comment on them…you know…just in case I attend another pajama party in Vegas.

I absolutely cannot forget to mention Rick, the fabulous Wynn bartender, who learned our names and our drinks in a matter of minutes. Rick rocks and the Wynn should recognize and reward this.

All in all the evening was mad successful and maybe, if I’m drinking a glass of wine later, I’ll share about the fun that was had at Rum Jungle and LAX after the event.