Enterprise Social Media

The P. Diddy Method for Community Success

Posted on 20. Feb, 2009 by Bob Duffy in Community Management, Social Media, Social Media Tools

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Two years ago I had a challenge to build a community for an audience that was not already knocking at our door. This audience  used and valued our products but they did not connect with the company and the brand.  

So how do you become relevant?  How can you be successful with social media when you are not top of mind? 

After some trial and tribulation I can boil the community manager strategy down to a methodology akin to the actions of P. Diddy aka Sean “Puffy” Combs.  As the mack daddy player of hip hop he is a magnet of activity and relevance in his industry.   To follow the P. Diddy method you don’t need all the glitz, glamour and bling of a hip-hop music icon.   But there are things Mr. Combs does that relate directly to building relevant online communities.  

So here’s the P-Diddy 3 point plan for Community success

1. Build A Posse
2. Throw Awesome Parties
3. Go On Road Trips

So where do you sign up right?  Well if you have multiple community projects all supporting various initiatives and interests then you may need to be a sideline P-Diddy.  But don’t let that stop you from sporting sun glasses while indoors.  Your Community Managers are the ones closest to the community content.  They are the ones you should encourage to emulate Puff Daddy.

Here’s what to do.

Build A Posse: First thing to focus on is making friends. Know your industry players and subject matter experts  i.e industry peers, service providers, vendors, OEMs, industry fellow travelers, ect and have them know you.  Connect with them often. Be a generous and inspirational figure to energize them on your community topic. Take time to mention them and promote their interests. Interview them, bring them together in panel discussions, and help evangelize their voice and perspectives.  

Tools to use: Follow and interact with them on Twitter, Facebook and Linked-In. You can use a free service like BlogTalkradio.com, to do a phone interview that becomes podcast content for your site
  
Throw Awesome Parties:  Host online communities and events. Invite the right players, who you’ve made friends with, to be key participants and content producers. Don’t force the conversations but help it along.  As the host you are there to keep the pace and interest in the community lively.  So engage as needed but see yourself as the master coordinator that allows your community members to interact. 

Tools to use: According to a recent Forrester Research report Jive Software and Telligent are best of breed community platform solutions

Go on Road Trips: Get outside your community and participate in others sites.  Make your presence known. Attend real world events and use them as opportunities to capture content and 3rd party perspectives on your community topic.  Do a live web-cast. Interview participants at these events. Post these and your perspectives on your own community site.  

Tools to use: For live web-casts ustream.tv and BrightTalk are effective low cost or free services for live web-casting.

In the end it boils down be being connected and facilitating connections.  This is where Sean Combs is a master.  He is so successful at being connected in his industry that his personal brand stands for being relevant.  So have fun with this.  It doesn’t need to be hard work but it does require continual effort to ensure you are connected to your community and your community programs are seen as relevant portions of the conversation.

Tags: online communities, p. diddy, Social Media, web marketing

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