Mann on Obligations and Your Blog’s Community

This episode of ‘The Sound Of Young America’ podcast was recorded live at the Integrated Media Association conference in Atlanta at a session with the slightly disconcerting title of ‘Blow Up Your Brand.’ It is a round-table discussion covering a range of online activities. The content that is relevant to this research begins at about 37 minutes when contrarian blogger Merlin Mann talks about his experiences dealing with the community that builds up around a high-profile blog. He makes a number of admirable points.
“If you put out great work that says a lot more about you than a press release.” [28.29]

“Creating community is not as simple as turning on comments.” [37.40]

“Any time you turn on a community aspect it not only needs moderation of some kind, but you are obligated to listen, respond and then show how that input had an effect on what you do. And if you do that I think it is very cynical.” [38.10]

“If you encourage community and social media around what you do, you need to be prepared for the day that it goes in a direction that you never expected and becomes wildly successful in a way that you are completely unprepared for. And your PR people are going to have a stroke when they see all the @ responses on Twitter. People giving a very unvarnished public opinion that you asked for.” [43.22]

“Know where you stand on that and understand that, at a certain point on the web, you give away a lot of control when you accept somebody else carrying your freight.” [43.48]

TSOYA Podcast, 27 March 2009

The Sound of Young America