Author, blogger, and word-of-mouth expert Jackie Huba led an engaging discussion on the value of niche communities on Tuesday morning during Austin’s second Social Media Breakfast, held at Genuine Joe Coffeehouse in North Austin.
Jackie kicked off her talk with case studies from Fiskars and Maker’s Mark, two companies who’ve established communities through ambassador groups. With Fiskars, that community didn’t come together around their actual products (such as scissors), but around the hobby of scrapbooking.
Also emerging was a lively discussion around the value of “lurkers” in communities, a topic attendee Kyle Flaherty and Shel Israel have since blogged about.
After the breakfast, Jackie sat down with me for a one-on-one interview to recap the highlights of her talk, including:
- Why Jackie thinks niche social networks are the “plastics of the future”
- How customer communities can build loyalty and encourage participation
- How Fiskars and Maker’s Mark have cultivated brand ambassadors.
- What to do about lurkers
- SWOMfest ‘08
Jackie Huba on niche networks at Austin's Social Media Breakfast 2: Play Now | Play in Popup | DownloadRunning time: 9:09
Media links from Austin’s Social Media Breakfast 2
- Event description and attendee list
- Twitter posts tagged #SMBAustin
- Eugene Hsu’s photos
- Are you a lurker?
- Be a listener
Image courtesy of Eugene Hsu.
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[...] Austin’s third — Social Media Breakfast. (See more about last month’s Breakfast here.) These SMBs have been put together by recent Boston-to-Austin transplant and all-around good guy [...]
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