OPEN

Image: a pop-up on Disney.com – presumably not for the kids :-)… 

(Helluva week this week, so there’s going to be an element of catch with some of my posts this week – please bear with me…)

Back at the start of the year the excellent Church of the Customer blog wrote a piece responding to the Disney.com reinvention as a “MySpace for kids”.

They are predicting failure based on the simple observation that none of the existing successful social networks have been created via a big marketing launch (the “movie marketing model”)

I’m not familiar with what Disney are planning to do, but I agree with the general principle of what the Church-ers are saying about social networks and brands trying to create communities, per se.

In the course of our research for clients I come across strange forum and social network ghost towns every now and again, as empty as big brand’s Second Life palace, all glittering and shiny but showing no signs of social media life. No links from blogs, no posts that aren’t from marketers and friends of marketers who designed the things.

It’s a weird experience when you come across one of these (usually via a pay per click ad, tellingly).

At the end of the day, unless you understand how social networks work, not just what they look like, a “build it and they will come” approach to branded social networks is doomed.

Ask not “how can I create MySpace for whatever”, ask: how can I be useful to my community? If a home-grown social network grows out of that at some point, well good for you – but you can’t just build a shiny venue and hope everyone’s going to come running to thank you.