How the community was born:
Our goal was to build an online community where people who live and breathe customer references, customer testimonials, and customer evidence could come together to share best practices, ask questions, and share resources. Interaction would be free and could be as frequent as members needed. Honestly, we wanted it for ourselves as much as we wanted to help our industry, community, or our company.
We knew we needed to create the community where people already spent time on social media sites (Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter) and keep the membership limited and the topics specific so that the discussions would remain relevant to the members. The CRKSN does not promote the solicitation of goods and services, and encourages only marketers who are deeply interested in customer references to participate.
We also knew that it wouldn’t be successful unless we opened it up to our competitors as well as our clients. We may have exposed a little of our inner workings, but so far it has been completely worth it. I’ve learned more in the past two months than I did in the previous 12. The adage that we reap what we sow only encourages us to put more into the community—after all, we are human and want to keep learning and growing in our field.
Get involved:
If you work in the customer reference and evidence world and aren’t already a CRKSN member, don’t delay:
Join the Customer Reference Knowledge Sharing Network on LinkedIn.
Join the Customer Reference Knowledge Sharing Network on Facebook.
Follow the Customer Reference Knowledge Sharing Network on Twitter.
Listen to Our Audio Interviews with CRKSN Members on BlogTalk Radio.
If you are a member, tell us what you think so far.
What’s next?
In addition to continually bringing resources to the table, we’ll be creating an Officers/Advisory board of folks outside of Projectline to help the community remain neutral and useful. We’ll be giving cards to current members to pass out to potential members at marketing events. In addition, we will continue to record and promote audio interview with CRKSN members.
What do you think?
tags: CRKSN, customer reference knowledge sharing network, customer reference programs, Facebook, online communities, twitter
