Don’t Over Think, Just Do!

June 19th, 2008 Bob Duffy

Recently I was chatting with Josh Hilliker who is the Community Manager of the vPro Expert Center, and I believe Josh is an example of someone who has figured out how to be successful by not over thinking his community. Josh manages a site that revolves around an IT product. And to be frank it is a product that few understand and who’s value has yet to reach mass appeal. Now here’s the odd thing, Josh’s community kick but over our other communities based on broader appealing products. All logic says his community should reside in the shadow of these communities.

So what’s the deal? What’s Josh got going on the other communities don’t? Simply put Josh just does it. He doesn’t slow down to think whether or not his next idea to engage the community is the right idea. He doesn’t pause on whether he should or should not step out to another site and engage. Josh runs on instinct and expertise that is not encumbered by a need to analyze or perfect what he is doing before he does it.

However it’s not all full speed in every direction. Josh does his research and is grounded in his deep knowledge of his audience and community. He knows where they are online. He knows the conversations that are happening. He also knows that he must often quickly fail before he can succeed. And ultimately he focuses on opportunities not on barriers.

Now in contrast many of our experiences say we should plan out all our activities, consider the risks and establish strategies and tactics that sweat the details. One reason is with traditional publishing you get one shot to make that impression. I see this from folks planning social media activities. They are often focused on identifying and managing the risk, planning traditional content editorial road maps, and high production values that align to brand standards. All efforts that take time and slow the engagement.

With our communities this method has not been successful. One reason is every day is your shot to make that impression, and from one day to the next you may go from a bad place to a good place and back again. It is a fast moving medium and often the best methods are to just do and to stop analyzing. For many folks I know this is a hard concept who have been trained for many years to focus on barriers and to avoid them.

Like an active community, your community managers and strategists must move quickly. Josh quickly secures participation, plans activities and develops content for his community both onsite and offsite. It is as a rapid pace that allows him to be nimble, correct course while also being productive. Traditional marketing tactics that might have you entrenched in plans are just not nimble enough to be effective. While Josh is on his 3rd iteration of new idea, other community managers are still thinking and planning for an initial idea.

So to be successful follow Josh by: