I attended a session yesterday morning that is pure gold for any marketer interested in social media: Tara Hunt’s Makin’ Whuffie: Raising Social Capital in Online Communities.
Don’t be daunted by the length of the slide show. Many slides are photos or just a word or two; the deck flies by.
For the uninitiated, whuffie is reputation-based currency — aka cred. The term was coined by Boing Boing creator Cory Doctorow in his science fiction novel “Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom.”
A series of lists and commandments, Tara’s advice comes as close to a community-building playbook as I’ve seen, including how to:
- Turn the bullhorn inward.
- Understand and become part of the community you serve.
- Be remarkable. The the dazzle is in the details. E.g. look at this lovely business card someone gave me yesterday!
- Create amazing user experiences.
- Embrace the chaos; you can’t control the message.
- Find your higher purpose.
It’s a SmartBriefed version of Tara’s soon-to-be-released book, “The Whuffie Factor.”