Social Media Tactics: Engaging Your Community Pt. 1: Chris Pirillo
Website: Chris.Pirillo.com
Twitter: @chrispirillo
Youtube: LockerGnome
Bio:Chris Pirillo is a magazine columnist and tech expert for CNN.com, and has been active in the social media space for years. Blogger, live streaming host, book author and the founder of Gnomedex, an annual technology and community conference, Chris adds tremendous value to his community by actively engaging other technology geeks, doing so by hosting conferences, communicating through his live stream and through his Lockergnome blogging network and social network, Geeks.
Social Media Tactics discusses various ways social and new media users build relationships and add value to their audience. Each week, we will look at various marketers, entrepreneurs, designers, writers and analysts, focusing on one person/group that uses the tactic successfully. This feature is designed to show you some of the best ways to enhance your own brand and social media presence, while demonstrating how some smart users employ social media tactics.
Nowadays, geeks are sometimes the most active in the social media space – it’s ironic what a departure that is from the idea of geeks just 10 years ago. Chris Pirillo has spent years helping to build the geek community, especially in Seattle. It is no surprise that he continues to be at the forefront of the new media and blogging space, as he has both the initiative and the built-in community and popularity to help further internet conversations. Mixing both old and new technologies, Chris both builds and engages communities on a daily basis. Here’s a list of some of the communities that he manages, (not even mentioning those he participates in):
Some stats for Chris’ communities: His ustream feed has over 4,600 followers, his social network, Geeks, has over 21,000 members, and he has over 73,000 followers on Twitter. That’s an absolute ton of people who are connected to him and a large portion who are connecting through him. In addition to Gnomedex, Chris also attends many local Seattle events as well, engaging the community on the ground level. With such a large community (not to mention limited time due to other commitments), it’s difficult for him to engage every single member of his audience personally. However, Chris excels at engaging people in a number of great, macroscopic ways.
How Chris Engages His Community
Live Streaming: One of the aspects that sets Chris apart from other new media users is his large live stream following. Rather than creating short, targeted segments, Chris has a live broadcast on ustream where he actively communicates with his viewers*. Chris intertwines a live video stream with an IRC (internet relay chat) feed, where users can talk/interact with Chris and each other in #chris (irc.wylderyde.org) while watching the live feed. This is a great macro way to chat with a large group without feeling the need to answer each question/comment individually.
*Chris still posts Youtube videos with interesting clips from past streams. In this way, he serves both the larger, more casual community as well as the smaller, entrenched community.
Geeks (a Ning social network): Geeks is a network for geeks. As a big-time geek myself, I greatly appreciate a networking space created for people like me. Geeks has over 21,000 members (10% of whom are Chris’ friends) and is constantly active. Chris participates in the community, but generally lets it take its own course. With geeks, he has created more or less a self-sustaining community of people who like to geek out. Though he might not actively engage with it daily, the fact that he has created a large community that is able to grow and interact on its own is an incredible achievement.
Conferences: Chris, like many other people in the social media space, does a great job of connecting with others at social networking conferences like Tweetups. In fact, some Seattle area Tweetups are organized by Pirillo, himself. One of the most important things that Chris Pirillo does to engage his community, however, is to host the annual conference, Gnomedex. It has been hosted since 2001, and has been based in Seattle since 2005 and has featured speakers such as John Dvorak, Guy Kawasaki, and Michael Arrington, This year, Gnomedex will feature Chris Brogan, among others, and its theme is Human Circuitry – “the point where Tech and Humanity combine”.
Chris Pirillo is a great example of how to manage and engage a large community once it’s already been built up, but he can also serve as an example for a blogger or social media user with a small audience as well. Running a live stream integrated with chat is a great way to engage others if you have the ability, and interacting with others at conferences and meetups can help you build organic relationships with your community and audience. Sometimes it takes a real geek to employ killer macroscopic social media tactics.
How do you leverage some of these tactics for yourself or your business? Let us know in the comments below.
Jaremy Rich is the founder of winAround, a social networking website for gamers, and writes Techshots, a blog on technology, marketing and gaming.
Photo source: Flickr (Robert Scoble’s stream)
Awesome article. I love Chris Pirillo and am part of his Geeks network too :-). Watching his live streams are also a big pastime of mine. I don’t use any of the techniques listed for my own branding, but I have blogged in the past, so there’s that. Looking forward to seeing future posts!
Thanks Philip. Over the next few weeks I’ll be changing gears to other social media users who engage their communities on a smaller scale. I just felt that Chris was a great way to start off the feature. Check back next Wednesday for the next post!