Groundswell

WOW. I have been hit by a flu or cold bug and feel absolutely spent.

My apologies in advance as I am taking the day off from blogging. I do look forward to getting back in a day or two as we have much to get out there.

Take care and have an Insanely Great Wednesday. M

More on the idea of an apartment resident forum on your website or portal. In the beginning it will be crucial for you to have people who not only stimulate conversation but moderate it as well. Let’s call them information specialists for now. IS people will have to produce the content and dialog and it is my opinion that they should be prepared to produce good quality but in large volume and in small chunks. This need will change as the forum evolves and we will talk about that in future posts. But for now lets’ talk about one reason why.

Most consumers consume data in small chunks that are easily digested. Take a look at Twitter, their platform forces one to formulate thoughts in 140 characters or less. Doing so gets to the heart of what consumers like; brevity and clarity.

Random thought: What if you could get your forum linked to Twitter so that you would by default be forced to pen your thoughts with brevity and clarity. Not only that, consumers who elected to “follow you” (a term used on the Twitter platform) would be updated each and every time the forum was updated. It would be a tool of active engagement. And, because the “tweets” (another Twitter term; used to describe a user update) are short and sweet they can quickly discern if they would like to participate with the information or move on. The point is they can participate on the fly and with brevity which is what you want from your evangelists. Some how in this you would have marry Twitter posts back to your forum. Or, does Twitter become your forum? I don’t think so as it would be important for consumers to be able to search past posts and I am not sure if you can do that in Twitter.

More to come as I hear the rustling of my three and five year old. I have spent the last 6 days with my two beautiful children doing everything kid like and now we are off to get ready for daycare. At three and five they have the energy of hyena’s and I thought I was non-stop. WOW! Wouldn’t trade it for the world.

Have an amazing Monday.

Your loving Twitter more and more and the biggest fan of manic Mondays. M

*Ideas on Apartment forums adapted in part from the book Groundswell.