WordCamp San Francisco 2009: Tara Hunt Makin’ Whuffie
by Patrick HavensTara Hunt
Tara ‘miss rogue’ Hunt has spent most of her adult life online, either participating in or building communities. From the first wave of online marketing as it emerged in the late 90’s all the way to being a pioneer of new marketing in Silicon Valley in 2005, leading the wave into Web 2.0: the participatory web.
Tara understands how the the participatory web is changing all of our relationships: B2C, B2B and C2C. She doesn’t believe in pushing messages or creating strong brands, only in the power of building relationships. She co-founded Citizen Agency in 2006 with the mission of teaching her clients how to work more effectively with the communities they serve and how to embrace and adjust to all of the changes in culture businesses are facing. She maintains a popular blog over at HorsePigCow.
Tara wrote a book, The Whuffie Factor, to be available in April of 2009 published by Crown Business (division of Random House). The Whuffie Factor discusses the underlying secret of online communities: success in online communities is about building social capital online.
Tara has her book talked about. And then Tara comes out and we are introduced to Cory Dotrow, who termed a currency called whuffie. It can be used to relate in online social media.
She has thousand of people which she has both strong and weak relationships with.
Connections over time equals whuffie.
Connections don’t happen over night.
1. Turn the bull horn around.
People want to be treated special. So make sure to listen.
Focus on individuals while being part if a community.
Dell
dell hell website pointed Dell into create Direct2Dell and Michael Dell created a blogger lounge at CES to listen and then create IdeaStorm.
2. Become part of the community
Who do you serve?
Not everyone. Each person is different.
Find out and join them to learn.
Authenticity matters
What makes your customers like what you want to use to talk to them and integrate it.
You need to be remarkable
3. Create an amazing feelings
You can design for them
Automagicness: a user experience that makes it seem that things just happen as you wanted.
Automatically (a favorite word of mine and used by her) is shown in a couple sites where they take the info given and assume it knows what to do.
Throwing Sheep: fun lightweight activities that are simple that adds to the experience. For example Facebook’s poke and I like… (One was site for a baby growing up that took date info in picture to judge age of baby and what it may be.)
Dopplr shows the velocity of a person related to their activities.
Lighten Up: the ability to inject fun into serious and professional interactions.
Southwest Airlines rapping steward video shown.
Flickr added a talk like a Scurvy Dog (Pirate) under languages. It allowed them to connect.
Lighten up the 404 Error Page and change your email auto-responders.
4. Embrace the Chaos
Control the message and it’ll bite back.
Balance the openers and transparency. You’ll be better prepared for the unexpected.
Join in the conversation.
We create our own rat traps. So embrace the Chaos.
Whuffie grows.. The more you give away the more you gain.
5. Find your purpose
Find a way to give back to your community.
Gifts that won’t leave you broke.
Think customer-centrically.
Measure the number of people referring your website. Send referrals yourself so they come back to look for more.
Empower them like you have been empowered. Help them go farther.
Spread the love. Akoha
What you get is better word of mouth, customer referrals and social capital/whuffie.
Q: What social platforms would he suggest to promote music blog.
A: Get involved where they are at right now. And have Twitter, MySpace and Facebook pages follow the demand. Raise whuffie first and then follow demand.
