The Chip-to-Cheese Ratio: when are corporate communities too commercial?
Let me admit up front that this is a blog post about a blog post. Apoligies in advance if that is too post-modern for you. But I think I have good reason to blog about a blog: I need your help.
Yesterday I wrote a post on Intel’s corporate community site asking if community members thought the site was too commercial. The site itself–called Open Port–and some of our community managers had received recent feedback that their focus was too marketing in nature. This is weird given all the community managers for the site are serious tech dudes who just happen to have a passion for the space they manage.
The Nacho Analogy
To help the community frame the discussion, I used my colleague Bob Duffy’s nacho analogy. He theorizes that nearly every restaurant carries nachos on their menu. Yet not all nachos are created equal. Some are better than others and Bob contends that it’s the cheese-to-chip ratio that counts. Too much cheese drowns the chips and too little cheese makes the chips dry and difficult to swallow.
Now employ this metaphor to corporate community content, the “cheese” being commercial–or marketing–content and the chips representing content that is more technical and conversational in nature. What is the ideal chip-to-cheese ratio on a corporate community? Since it is a community that is sponsored by a corporate entity, we know it won’t be 100% chip. But in an effort to stay true to the desires of our community of technical enthusiasts and IT folks, we certainly wouldn’t serve up a plate of pure cheese either (besides being gross, we’d quickly alienate our audience).
I pose the question to you all. When companies host communities, how much of the conversation should be chip and how much cheese?
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Wednesday, May 28th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
It really depends on how you define marketing. If it’s promotional marketing, I would say NONE — unless they ask for it. Seth Godin talked about this a few years ago when he wrote the book, Permission Marketing.
But marketing can be defined as research and/or information gathering for the purpose of product innovation and design. If the community is giving their feedback about a particular product/service and the company makes changes based on that feedback … well, that is marketing.
I had a recent convo w/ Bob Pearson from Dell. He had this to say:
“The reality is we have received over 9,000 ideas from our customers and we have implemented over 120 in a little over one year. Our Linux customers deserve full credit, for example, in convincing us via IdeaStorm (no other forum) to offer Linux on consumer systems (Ubuntu). We were also the first company to offer XP again after Vista was introduced, also due to our IdeaStorm Community. My point is that our customers are excellent at letting us know of their ideas and it makes a real difference in helping us improve our products and services. We also have EmployeeStorm internally and have over 4,000 ideas with similar success. Of course, we look at this as the beginning of what can be done and look forward to integrating this type of approach with leading social media sites, in the future, so our customers voice is heard loud and clear….and in real time.”
source: http://www.britopian.com/2008/05/22/community-is-like-a-tupperware-party-on-steroids/
Wednesday, May 28th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
That would be like trying to figure out the perfect nacho. There is no ideal ratio, only personal preference. Some readers want no cheese (lactose Intolerance) some people like so much cheese their chips are soggy.
It’s one of those things where you have to let your community guide you in the making of the nachos.
Wednesday, May 28th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
Well, I can’t argue with Bob Pearson, and I think Tac has the right idea, which I think is what Kelly is getting at with her post on Open Port. It really comes down to active listening. Sometimes we get caught up in our own passions and rather than listening, responding, and doing our best to enable the dialogue, we get attacted to the tools and start communicating our own passions. I see this happen with many programs, where we ourselves are caught up on how we can use the tools to help evangalize.
Now there is nothing wrong with that. As corporate community managers and marketers we are a valid part of the community, especially if the site is a corporate hosted community, but at some point the cheese may be laid on a little too thick, so you have to be listening and you have to be fast and responsive. In the case of Open Port I think there is something to the criticism and the community managers should take note and take action to reduce the cheese.
Wednesday, May 28th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
Hi Kelly:
I am working on some community motivations projects right now - and I think each community has different drivers and preferences. However, if you understand the motivations of the community participants, and use this as a filter for what you (the community owner) do in the community - you will usually not go wrong.
More coming soon.
TO’B
MotiveQuest LLC
Wednesday, May 28th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
I’m going with 99% chip to 1% cheese. The communities I’ve seen within my industry that are the most successful are fairly “no-nonsense” (ie - cheese-free). Not misunderstanding “cheese” for “cheesy”, just that customers in our biz are pretty sincerely interested in spending their limited time on measurable value.
Wednesday, May 28th, 2008 at 5:05 pm
Chabuhi has the right idea… 99-to-1 sounds about right!
Wednesday, May 28th, 2008 at 5:13 pm
@ Tom Diederich & chabuhi,
Do you think there are different expectations community members have when they visit corporate community sites? Why might someone visit a corporate site vs. an independent site to engage in community if there wasn’t some relationship to the products or services offered by the company? Do corporate communities have any lattitude in the amount of cheese they offer?
Wednesday, May 28th, 2008 at 5:51 pm
I see where Kelly is going here. I think we can expand this to what’s the value of a corporate community. Why have any cheese? Why go to Open Port when you can go to Slashdot. Why go to the Obama Blog when you can go to the Huffington Post?
I think the answer is in access to subject matter experts. I could go to Engadget and get a lot of buzz on the next generation iPhone. But what if Apple had a community staffed with product engineers, AppStore developers and vendors I could engage with. I love to hear why there’s no copy and paste from the guys who decided not to include it . That would be some good cheese.