Learning about Wikibrands
Wikibrands – Reinventing Your Company in a Customer-Driven Marketplace
by Sean Moffitt and Mike Dover 2011
For the Digital Book Report at Social Media Marketing course at George Brown College, I read the book Wikibrands. This book is a wealth of information. I found it hard to get into at the beginning, but as it takes you deeper in to the subject, it gets easier to read.
As the name of the book states, Wikibrands presents the tools to reinventing a company in a marketplace that today is highly influenced by customers. It deals with the inevitable fact that traditional marketing doesn’t do the trick anymore. To win in the current competition a company has to be able to create, manage and leverage from its presence in the digital world. Smaller companies can benefit greatly even from a low level of engagement in social media, like clever campaigns or contests, however when done right, the possibilities for growth and success are unlimited with a larger presence and involvement.
This book concentrates on the entire concept of creating Wikibrands. Shortly put, Wikibrand for the authors of the book is a company, product, brand or any kind of cause (e.g. Movember for prostate cancer) that involves the customers and any other strategic partners in developing and strengthening their image and boosting their market presence. However, the book has so much content and goes very deep in to the subject that it is complicated to give a comprehensive definition of a wikibrand.
Creating a successful wikibrand is a multistage process that needs many ingredients and the right starting points. Often companies end up having a presence on various platforms but not a clear strategy. The book emphasizes the involvement inside the company. The executive level has to support the initiatives. In addition, in their research, the authors found that biggest obstacles for companies to create effective customer collaboration and social media engagement are the lack of company guidelines (p. 147). The number of company employees attending the conversation can be high, and it is hard to create open conversation when the rules are not set.
As a primer for building a wikibrand, ‘The FLIRT model of crowdsourcing’, created by a Finnish community expert, is suggested. It is used to show how the Strategy, Execution, and Technology are involved in building a brand. The authors have expanded this model by adding four components under the heading Maintaining the Ecosystem (see figure 6.1).
There are many useful lists to follow, e.g. the list of questions helping on developing a content strategy. The issues to be dealt with are found under the simple questions: What, Where, When and Who. The important thing is to have answers for the questions before the conversation is happening in the online world and the crowd is answering those questions for you. Another great list to follow is the ‘Fifty Question Assessment: Readiness for Brand Community’. These questions give you a thorough understanding of your brand from understanding your business objectives to organization’s culture, focus, purpose, all the way to customer values, lifestyle and desires.
To make the provided information practical, the book has a wide range of interesting examples from large corporations like Dell having 100+ online communities to very small companies having outstanding results because of engaging their customers with small efforts. Weather a big or a small company, the main message is that successful brand messaging is a result of two-way, honest and well-managed communication.
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