Narcissus Your Fan Page is Ready.

On the heels of CloudWashing, a practice in which you just add the word SaaS or Cloud to any product marketing fodder, I have noticed Community Washing at disturbing levels.

Let’s take a moment to reiterate something that should be common knowledge.

In the movie “Field of Dreams”, Kevin Costner is plagued by a voice whispering, “If you BUILD it, they will Come”. 

As much as I want all the great ITSM organizations out there to have the great pumpkin show up, and their “membership” to instantly convert to a “community” by just adding a twitter, blog and facebook page, this will NEVER happen.

Community can’t be built. 

Community happens when people show up, and then you build something.

1.        A mood

2.       A Tone

3.       A Conversation

Community doesn’t use social media; social media is just the latest place people are showing up.

I feared when I created this list that this would turn into a nightmare of marketing puke.  Fortunately companies like Zendesk, Cherwell and now Hornbill have kept it somewhat community focused by sharing information.

So do the world a favor become a KING MAKER in social media.  Create Kings out of your followers, friends and associates.  It’s not that hard, just put others in FRONT of you.  It’s like Karma and stuff.

If your marketing department, sales team or user base doesn’t see you EVERY DAY making a big deal out of others here is a great article on Wikipedia for you to read.