What I Learned Last Week

I wrote two posts last week, one defining value and another on moderating comments, that were well received. That means comments,  most of them  interesting and add a new dimension, provide interesting casesor include a new perspective.

Usually when I write a post it is about something that I have done numerous times in the past, or something that I had been thinking and talking about for some time. These two posts I am talking about were different.

I have been doing a lot of work and research into defining value.  I think that as we move deeper into the Social waters we will see value emerge as a key metric – replacing financial and operational metrics.  I wanted to take the first step knowing that it had not been vetted and probably needed some work.  I was right and it was a fantastic experience to get you involved (a new, updated post is coming) in improving my definition.

The other post, on moderating comments, was more raw.  It’s I had been thinking about, and that I had experience in blogs of all sizes – some very large and my smaller size blogs.  I also added some best practices from what I have done with communities and social networks, and created a post that — I will be the first to admit — was not probably the best I could’ve done.  As a result, a couple of people took me to school — and I gladly learned about moderating comments.

So, what did I learn?  Two things:

1. Trust your community.  If you do a good job building it, they will always be there for you to support you and help you get better.  You cannot do “it” alone (whatever “it”means to you) anymore. Build and trust your community.

2. Always, always, always take the time to do things right.  Even though you building a community of readers or followers, they are your “customers”.  They pay with their time and patience to read your blog.  Treat them for what they are: your top tier customers, and they will remain your readers.

Bottom Line: apply these lessons to your blog, to your social deployments, and to your communities.  It is all about the value your provide, the value you receive, and how you acknowledge both.

How are you doing in building you communities? Putting time and patience into them?  Getting the results you wanted?