Social Media Enchantment: The Guy Kawasaki Way

Last night I was enchanted and I couldn’t help but draw out Guy’s ideas on “how to make enchantment endure by building an ecosystem”. The idea applies to anything you wish to do. In today’s social world, it’s about building an ecosystem around your company and it’s social media, brand advocate and community program. Guy does an awesome job of explaining it. Check the visual below, before I dive into the details of applying it to your social media and community strategy.

How to Make Enchantment Endure

The components/key players of the ecosystem are visualized above the grey line and the part on how to incite people to create or join your ecosystem is below.

“The presence of a community that complements a cause fosters endurance.” – Guy Kawasaki, Enchantment.

The Key Components

Key Components of an Ecosystem

As Guy explains in his book, the key players or components are what you need to connect with or put in place.

User GroupsUser Groups: You need to encourage, support and at times seed users groups around your products or services. Don’t make a mistake of assuming that only the big guns like – Apple, Microsoft, Harley Davidson, do this. User groups typically begin small often at times just group of five people who come together to discuss an idea. Most people join a group to either network with others, find solutions to problems, share ideas etc. For more details read Why do people join a community.


Websites & BlogsWebsites & Blogs: There are numerous independent experts, fans and advocates who generate content, whether it’s to praise or whether it’s to share some unique perspective or some tips and tricks. The acts as another leg of the ecosystem.


ConsultantsConsultants: Independent entrepreneurs who develop expertise in helping others. They have a vested interest as they can provide services on top of your offerings.


DevelopersDevelopers: Almost any company today depends on software professionals. Or as TechDirt put it, “Almost Every Company is a Software Company. These people enhance your product by creating extensions and services thereby increasing the benefits of your product/platform. Also read: Forbes-Now Every Company Is A Software Company.


ResellersResellers: These are the people who first connect with your customers. Including them in your social media, community strategy is key. Most often today, company community or social media initiatives are restricted to their marketing department or should I say the individual community manager in the marketing department. Step out and embrace all the customer touch points, be social across your organization.



ConferencesConferences: Guy says this best “You know you’ve arrived when you’re big enough to hold a conference about your cause”. Pulling off a large event is certainly not easy and it’s often the big guns who’re able to do this. However, you’d be surprised to know how large community led events could be. Some user group events rival the size of full fledged conferences conducted by large companies and at an extremely low cost.


How to Incite People to Create or Join your Ecosystem

A Great CauseA Great Cause: 300,000 gamers help feed worlds poorest – by signing up to play an online game. Source: Source: SMH.com.au. As Guy says “If you create a great cause, you may not be able to prevent an ecosystem from forming”.

I’m a PC” – besides kick starting this $300M ad-campaign. A grassroots movement was initiated by the frenzied Microsoft advocates MVP’s and Regional Directors, part of the Microsoft evangelism program, generating blog posts and videos supporting Microsoft.


Identify & Recruit EvangelistsIdentify and Recruit Evangelists: As shown above your advocates and evangelists will move heaven and earth to support your cause. There’re already out there, you need to provide an ecosystem for them to gather together and support them. The leverage is unbelievable.


Pick a Champion to LeadPick a Champion to Lead: You need a highly motivated individual(s) and team(s) within your organization to lead and support the faithful. Microsoft has an entire team within the organization playing this role. The Developer and Platform Evangelism (DPE) team. It’s a part of their marketing team which is dedicated to evangelise and help others evangelise. The teams didn’t start big, it was individuals within who helped this happen. Guy Kawasaki himself is credited as being one of the first to use evangelistic methods to promote Apple, a computer brand through a blog.


Give People Something Meanigful to doGive People Something Meaningful to do: Your advocates, communities are not just going to be sitting there waxing eloquently about you, they need something meaningful to do. Create programs which encourage them to participate, whether it is to crowd source ideas. Whether it’s to help support each other, whether it’s to build add-on’s for your products, or speak at your events and conferences where they share knowledge with others. Or even causes which support those in need.


Publish ContentPublish: Today everyone can be a publisher of information, however, you need to seed this activity by providing enough content. Encouraging co-creation of content, in the form of books, magazines, wikis, newsletters. Share with your ecosystem content before it becomes public, give your advocates early access.


Welcome Feedback - CriticismWelcome Feedback / Criticism: This is a super important aspect of building your community ecosystem. According to a study conducted by the Strategic Planning Institute, historically 96% of dissatisfied customers don’t bother to complain. An astounding 63% of these silent dissatisfied customers will not buy from you again. (Source: Socialnomics). A very small percentage of people take the trouble to provide feedback. So paying attention, responding and welcoming criticism is extremely important.


Foster Discourse

Foster Discourse: Enabling discourse not only between yourself and the people in your ecosystem, but between the people within the ecosystem is key. A web forum can work wonders here.


Reward SystemCreate a Reward/Recognition System: Acknowledging and thanking the members of your ecosystem is very important. Simple stuff like badges, award certificates, trophies, the occasional trip to the Bahamas Winking smile or a fully sponsored trip to your key conference or summit or even subscriptions to magazines and free books. Rewards and Recognition can help sustain a healthy ecosystem.


Publicize the EcosystemPublicize the Ecosystem: The last step is to publicize the ecosystem. Irrespective of whether you’ve created the ecosystem or others have, go all out and publicize it. Read this: How Two Coke Fans Brought the Brand to Facebook Fame.


Finally, do yourself a favour and buy a copy of Enchantment, you will love it.