What do pick-up truck owners and the followers of a Finnish-born software engineer have in common?
I will give you a hint, it’s part of our humanness, how we organize ourselves into social groups. Our need for this governs interactions with products, brands, businesses and each other. More about this in a minute.
It’s been verified by Ford. Americans officially love their pick-up trucks! According to a study published by Ford just a few days ago, most pick-up truck owners would give up a lot before they would park their pick-up. Here are a few of the eye-opening results:
- 79% would give up alcohol for a year before they’d give up their pick-up truck
- 71% would give up coffee
- 47% would give up using a phone for a year
- 38% said they would give up sex before giving up their pick-up
In 1994, a Swedish speaking Finnish software engineer launched an open source operating system – Linux. When Linus Torvalds published his Linux kernel (core), version 1.0, the world was not familiar with open source anything. It would be almost seven years, for instance, before Wikipedia would launch in 2001.
Programmers began contributing their work to improve the Linux kernel almost immediately. Their dedication to improving Linux was impressive, and in the process, the programmers became raving fans of this operating system.
Since 2005, when tracking of changes began, over 15,000 developers from more than 1,400 companies have contributed. By 2006, only two percent of the Linux kernel was written by Torvalds himself, the other 98% having been donated by other developers.
Through the open source community process, Linux has evolved into one of the most stable operating systems ever created. Google Android, powering an estimated 86% of all cell phones worldwide, is based on the Linux operating system.
So, what do pick-up truck owners and the followers of Linus Torvalds have in common?
They are all members of a connected communities.
At this point, you might be saying “These are interesting stories, but why should I care about these communities?”
Because building a community within your business is a critical component of creating the passion and engagement necessary for attracting and keeping loyal customers.
What’s necessary for you to know when building a business community? Here are three critical areas:
1. Know your customer “avatar” and why the customer belongs.
According to Hedges & Company Market Research, the customer avatar for the Ford F-150, the most popular truck in America today, looks like this. Average age of 55, 84% male, 16% female. 75% of all new Ford F-150s are purchased by white males, though Hispanic buyers account for 22% of total incremental growth. The vast majority of these new trucks are in large and medium-sized cities.
Why people choose to belong to the pick-up owning community is a matter of debate. Some say it’s because they have a lot to haul, others say it’s a status symbol especially in the US south. The debate continues on pick-ups.
It IS important for you to know why your customer would belong to your community. Would it be to get or contribute technical information? Is it to learn from more experienced community members? Or are they lonely, and looking for more human connection?
At this point, it’s also important to explicitly know and state your personal and company values. In successful communities, you and your customer avatar share similar values.
2. Decide on a communication platform.
In the mid-1990’s the Linux community was organized in a series of email lists. Code changes, freezes and updates were all coordinated through the list. In addition to the email lists, another communication platform was the Linux Journal. This printed publication reported on Linux updates and other open source products.
How do you want to communicate with your customer? Most companies now use Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin for this purpose. What kind of experiences do you want to create for your community? Are they virtual or in-person? Who leads the communication from your company?
3. Determine what the shared success of the group will be.
For Linux, success was the continuous improvement of the product. And through programmer investment in this continuous improvement, they ended up valuing Linux more.
Researchers at the Harvard Business School call this the IKEA effect. Because most IKEA products are sold unassembled, the assembly process by the consumer bonds them to the finished product. Their work contribution causes them to overvalue the product and the IKEA brand.
If your company supports small business, shared success might be integrating customer feedback gathered in the community into future versions of your product.
Or, growing a customer’s business as a result of community membership.
In fact, showing a correlation between involvement in your sponsored community and positive customer business results is one of the best outcomes possible. Interestingly, when one customer engages with another in a community, it doesn’t much matter which customer grows from the engagement. As long as one of them grows, they both feel the satisfaction and bond to each other and your company.
Business communities improve customer results, and the value that customers place on your business. This is the power of belonging, strengthened by three steps to building community in your business.
I’m interested in how you interact with customers in your business community. Please share what works for you.
Jeff@COOForYou.com
888-588-0357