Managing Social Networks

I'd wager none of us are going to start a social network beyond the analog version of getting face-plantingly drunk across the street at The Frying Pan. So a panel discussion on managing social networks might seem sort of useless. 

But a brand of any size is a social network. There will be devotees and critics. Those with high emotional involvement and those with more casual interest. So the cross-application of user behavior in social networks seems (at least to me) to offer a lot of insight into how brands should manage their social interactions. Maybe I'm stretching the analogy. But I don't think so.

This panel included founders of Fark.com, Reddit.com, Ars Technica and Blogher.com (a website for an emerging crop of digital Bella Abzug's.) Here's what I took away:

1) Twitter search is your friend. Why? Because the heavily invested people can give you a somewhat distorted perception of where your social network (or brand) does right and wrong. Twitter let's you casually poll people with moderate involvement (enough to tweet but not enough to be self-anointed apostles.) The net caution is this: "Beware of the tyranny of well organized minorities".  

2) Communities can be self-policing. One of the big questions for social networks (even bigger for brands) is how much policing to do yourself? The opinion here was that deleting comments certainly isn't capital punishment. And that preventing "flame wars" (hostile and insulting interaction between member users) is critical. But apart from that, it's far more efficient and honest to outsource the defense of your brand.  Every brand will have defenders who are emotionally articulate. I think that's something brands tend to forget.

[Note: Drew Curtis from Fark.com likened a social network to a house party. "Anybody's welcome until somebody takes a dump on the carpet." A timeless thought couched in marble-prose. Just thought I'd share...]

3) The best kind of communities feel small. This was a lightning bolt to me. I feel like every time a brand approaches the idea of social networking, it's always to create a galactic, mega-enormous, visible-from-space kind of experience. What do you end up with? Bunches of sub-topic forums with no posts and a community  that feels like a ghost town. It's no wonder we think this way. Our brains are trained to measure success on the large-scale. The #1 spot on the Super Bowl. "Mass" media. "Big" spots. "Huge" production budgets. 

4) Your community is your evangelist. Any social network or brand is going to have uber-passionate members. So enlist them. Give them titles. Add a "pro" to their membership. E-mail them directly. Let them pilot offshoots. Reddit hands out mini-Reddit's to involved members with sub-genre interests. It requires little institutional management but spreads the word as only brand apostles can.