Over the Christmas break I took the family out for dinner at a local restaurant we have been wanting to try. The place is called Liberty Market. The guy behind this new establishment, Joe Johnston, has started restaurants in the local area that my family and I love, so we thought we would try his new place. We went on a Friday night, 2 months after the place opened. When we walked in we were greeted by Joe the owner. He had recognized us from his other places and asked us if we had been at this new place before and made some recommendations on the menu. After our dinner we went back up to the counter to order dessert and he flagged us over to the Espresso bar where he was working that night and had us order there. We ate our dessert, he treated us to a shot of a Café Cubano on the house and we talked with him for awhile. He made us feel welcome and like someone special when we are just an average customer.

Now I am sure Joe, with his many successful restaurants, doesn’t need to be working behind the bar. I am sure he has others that can do it for him. The place has been open for over 2 months, so he wasn’t there to work out the kinks in the opening weeks either. He was there to nurture the community that comes into his new restaurant. By meeting us at the door, talking to us and making us feel special eventhough we are just normal customers did 2 things. First, it gave us a great experience (by the way the food is awesome) and made us feel like coming back. Second, it gave us a little story to tell others and we become walking marketers for his restaurant. Genius!

So what does all this have to do with Social Media and Online Communities? A lot. If your association establishes a new online community you need a “Joe”. Someone that is there to be sure the place is clean, the discussions are hot, the content is fresh and the customer is greeted and has a great experience while using the site. Online communities and social media are usually treated as a technology buy and the thought is people will just start using it because it is there. Wrong.

Your “Joe” needs to be that owner that makes sure that your online community is a valuable resource and gives the customer an experience that helps them in their daily duties that they will go tell their co-workers about. Social media scares a lot of people because the technology can be daunting. The reality is that building an online community boils down to people and being treated like we were at Joe’s restaurant. If you open a restaurant and the food is OK, the atmosphere is OK and there is no person or “Joe” to mind the store and make sure people are being taken care of, your success level will be …well just OK. If you give someone a vested interest in your online community and make it part of their job, with incentives and your ‘Joe’ has a love for what they are doing, your online community will become the thriving success that Joe’s restaurants have become. You just need to be sure you have someone to mind the store.