I thought this was an excellent quote by Yihong Ding, found in this RWW post about the value of Community Managers:

“As we know, most of the Web 2.0 companies are built upon user generated content. Philosophically, User Generated Content is embodied human mind. This embodied mind is generally the fundamental asset for the company. Maintaining a proper community so that users may embody their mind with high quality is thus a central issue for the growth of the company. The duty of community managers is to supervise and maintain the high-quality production of the fundamental mind asset used by the company. Therefore, I would say that community manager is a critical job title for most of the Web 2.0 companies.”

This holds true for any company, not just Web 2.0 companies.

Every company today needs to recognize this.  While user generated content may be a core component of many Web 2.0 companies’ business models, the conversation and “content” provided by a company’s users/customers is of the utmost value to all businesses.

Therefore, ensuring that it is sought after, provoked, nurtured and communicated appropriately and applied correctly is of immense importance.

Still not satisfied?

• Jeremiah Owyang created a score card that you can use to help you determine your need for a community manager.

• Connie Bensen also lists some good questions that you can ask yourself, to gauge your readiness to take the plunge.

I’ll give you one question: Who in YOUR company is responsible for listening and engaging your community?

If you have to think about it, you’re in trouble.  It’s time.

Thinking about doing some marketing?

Here are some absolute basics:

1) Meet a need - Make sure that what you’re marketing really meets a genuine need. If you don’t have a product or service that meets a need, you shouldn’t be marketing.  You should be finding out why you’re doing what you’re doing.

2) Find the people who’s need you meet - If you meet a genuine need, find the people who’s need you meet.  Once you meet a few people’s needs, ask them where you can find more people with the same need.  Where can you reach them with your message?

3) Make sure the people with the need you meet know that you meet their need - Tell them how you meet their need. Show them how you meet their need. Better yet, have the other people who’s needs you’ve met tell them and show them how you’ve met their needs.

That’s it.  Simple huh?

Bottom line is - If you don’t meet a need, don’t bother.

Make sure you meet a need, and then make sure that everyone that has that need knows that YOU meet it.

Paul Isakson put together an excellent presentation called “What’s Next in Marketing + Advertising”.

Check it out:

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I walked into Starbucks Friday afternoon for a cup of tea, and came across this:

I knew what was coming…

Starbucks recently launched a new site called mystarbucksidea.com, powered by Salesforce Ideas.

I love it when I see a company (especially a large name company like Starbucks), utilizing technology to listen to and involve their customers in more of what they do.

I thought it was cool that they were populating ideas that were brought up prior to launching the site, like this one:

“Please go back to your original idea of an European coffee house and get rid of the
extraneous items like cds, stuffed animals, countless foods and all that factory
holiday junk. I love the original Starbucks better. And Howard Schultz, I love you.

- An idea from our Annual Meeting of Shareholders on March 19, 2008 in Seattle”

Jeremiah gave some good quick thoughts here, and Jim Bruene over at NetBanker added some great thoughts here as well.

Great move Starbucks, and wonderful execution on the roll out of the site and marketing campaign. Now the challenge will become being agile enough to respond and execute on the top rated ideas as soon as possible. Do it now, as early as possible. It will really pay off.

I’d love to talk to the individual at Starbucks that was responsible for making this happen.