Groundswell Ch. 5-8 - Reading Reflection 2

The topics covered in Li and Bernoff's Groundswell, from Chapters 5 through 8, outline how any business can tap into the groundswell. They focus on five critical activities: listening, talking, energizing and fostering support. The tricky part about this is that none of these activities are mutually exclusive; to be successful, a business needs to engage in all five activities at once and continue to maintain this over time.


"So where Camaro owners might talk about their car's power and Lexus owners about their car's luxurious styling, Mini owners would rather see themselves as members of an exclusive club f people who belonged together. As the first buyers of this odd little car, they bonded with each other. they identified themselves -- and each other -- as Mini owners." (Li, Bernhoff, p. 91).

I found it interesting that Li and Bernhoff described Mini owners as if they were already an exclusive group, just because of their groupthink that extended beyond the one-dimensional chat forums. Thinking about car owners in this way made me realize that there are many other groups like Mini enthusiasts. There are a good deal of consumers who are excited by their unique purchases, interests, hobbies, and, in some cases -- such as the Sloan & Kettering's study -- illnesses. 


Take, for example, The Knot. The Knot (formally XO Group) is a company that publishes wedding magazines and separately, houses online caches of vendors, reviews and wedding tips. Anyone who has planned a wedding knows that there are at least a dozen wedding magazines on the market, but The Knot is different. Why?



The Knot's Community Forum: Anything but the Peanut Gallery

The Knot has created an absolute empire of a community forum, arguably one that could rival Yahoo! Answers.The Knot, like BMW's Mini Cooper, realized that they had a greater market they could tap into when they started their company in 1996. Throughout the course of a couple's engagement, many struggle to navigate the ins and outs of etiquette, vendor organization and wedding planning in general. Any website can meet those needs with a few online articles and informational how-to's. The Knot took this a step further, and created a Community forum for its fans, solely dedicated to hashing out the finer details of their weddings. It's a place to ask honest, unabashed questions -- and receive feedback just as honestly.

The Knot Community is widely known as your go-to place to get unbiased feedback from real brides who have "been there, done that". Their contributing members are from all around the world, are of all ages, and  the best part is: many were married years ago but remain on the forum to offer support simply because they LOVE the community they've found.

They took an interesting spin on Li and Bernhoff's advice to engage their customers, and continuously energize them. Most magazines likely wouldn't think to host a group forum; what's the value add when you've already provided support in the form of articles? But the value lies in the fact that The Knot is doubly helping customers help themselves. The Knot isn't directing sponsoring a vendor, or directing you to a service of theirs that you'll pay for (other than their magazine). But nonetheless, you're getting help on that linens dilemma you DESPERATELY need to know about, and they're getting more hits on Google. It's a win-win.

The minute you arrive at The Knot's Community forum, you see the banner above that literally says "Someone out there is wondering the same thing. Join the conversation."
When you buy a Mini, you're locked into that car until you sell it. It makes sense that you'd be a longtime member of the Mini Forums. When you're planning a wedding, however, that's very temporary and fleeting time of your life. So for The Knot to have built up a community so strong and tightly-knit that the women who interact on it stay even YEARS after tying the knot? That's impressive. I think this success can be attributed to a few things:

Just HALF of The Knot's sub-forums.

1.) They reward frequent contributors, not only with nifty badges that say "Top Contributor", or "Member Since...", but by dubbing them the board monitors, who are responsible for establishing and maintaining the forum's rules and guidelines. The Knot doesn't allow its own employees to hop in on the chat, although I am sure their employees steadfastly monitor the posts. Everything is kept in check and responded to by real women.

2.) They keep the chaos exceedingly organized. Planning your nuptials is a balancing act of many tasks and decisions., and that's absolutely reflected on their website. Even though it is organized, you can tell; there's a lot going on. The Knot created a sub-forum for just about any wedding-planning topic you can think of. Floral vendor isn't responding to your texts? There's a board for that. How to handle that nosy great-aunt who invited herself to your rehearsal dinner? Someone else has already been through it and lived to tell the tale.

3.) They never stop improving their site. Confession: I've been visiting TheKnot.com sporadically for several years -- the first handful of times were for an internship where I actually worked with them, and more recently, my own wedding planning endeavors. I'm pleasantly surprised at how often they re-organize their site, specifically the expansive Community forums. The Knot is constantly adding new topics, as questions and responses grow increasingly specific. Here, they're accomplishing energizing their customers, as well as helping the groundswell support itself.

4.) The Knot is always listening from the sidelines. Sure, you don't see "KnotWriter03" stalking your post about how you're not sure how to choose a vendor when you're on a dime. But they're for sure watching, and no doubt this provides great fodder for their next issue's articles. It's hard to run out of great content when you have a sea of loyal fans stating exactly what's on their mind.

At the end of the day, The Knot puts a good deal of time and energy into maintaining their community forum. They've done the same for their newer subsidiaries, The Nest (designed for couples buying and furnishing their first home), and The Bump (you guessed it...it's basically The Knot, but for expecting couples and new parents).

But unlike most companies, they aren't using their carefully crafted forum to sell their own business. They're simply hosting an online chat realm, where their audience can come to speak with others who are either wedding planning or identify with others in the group.

What do you think of this forum tactic? Is it a waste of time for XO Group to create these chat forums, since they're not immediately seeing any purchases by their customers?

Or are they onto something genius?