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Making Whuffie
Good manners and a few tricks of the trade can make social networking a success

by Angela Hey

Do you tweet on Twitter, advance your career on LinkedIn or hang out on Facebook? If so, you probably have what it takes to succeed professionally: Whuffie.

Whuffie is social capital, "the currency of your reputation," according to Tara Hunt in her book "The Whuffie Factor." She explains that to gain Whuffie it is not enough to have connections, you must actively participate in online communities, giving as well as getting.

I learned about Tara and her book at last month's Online Community Unconference, organized by ForumOne at the Computer History Museum. An Unconference is one where the agenda is created after everyone has arrived and attendees contribute their ideas. Community managers from corporations like Yahoo!, Google, Intuit and Cisco shared how online communities have helped their bottom line. Traditionally, companies have found online communities useful for recommending new products and solving customer problems.

Newer Web 2.0 communities use the wisdom of crowds, or "crowdsourcing." For example, consumers can help companies by designing and voting on new products and features. Community champions can be more effective than traditional adverts in creating buzz about a company and its products. On its smallbusiness.intuit.com site, Mountain View's Intuit advises entrepreneurs on all aspects of starting a company, not just finance. Google uses the power of community to contribute software, create informative maps and solve problems. Recommendations from colleagues for LinkedIn's job seekers provide valuable information for hiring managers.

Companies have to think through the risks of hosting an online community. What happens if the software platform changes? Data can usually be transferred from one system to another, but it may be arranged in a new way. Whenever Facebook changes something, it seems a new fan group starts to protest the change. When a leading advocate for your company gets annoyed and starts promoting a competitor, what do you do? What happens if you discontinue a product line and the community loses interest? Community managers can help a company save face and solve issues by being authentic and open, responding to customer comments.

How does one measure the success of a community? Google's free analytics will give you some idea of who's browsing your site, where they come from, what words they are searching for and how long they spend on a page. A common theme at the Unconference was that, whether you are Cisco or an individual, it takes time and persistence to build community. So keep measuring growth, but don't be surprised if it takes six months to a year of hard work to get people interacting with your community.

Online community building is now affordable for individuals. Software platforms like Ning make it easy for anyone to create their own online community where people can contribute information, photos and videos. Any event organizer that wants online publicity can give participants a hashtag like #myevent2009 so that a search engine can find their online tweets and comments easily. Instead of creating a Web site, a small business might start out with a free Facebook page or a marker on a Google map to start building community and ultimately gaining Whuffie.

Meetup combines online networking with real live meetings. Go to Meetup.com, select "Find a Meetup Group" and you'll find over 1,000 communities for business, hobbies, networking and professional education within 25 miles of Mountain View. Social norms are still emerging, but good manners, learned from face-to-face relationships, go a long way towards accumulating Whuffie.

Angela Hey can be followed on Twitter at amhey or contacted at amhey@techviser.com.