Facebook is a terrible tool to build communities outside of your immediate friends and family. It’s a good platform to maintain existing relationships. It performs badly when it comes to creating new communities based on shared interests. I’m still active in many forums and stats show they tend to build powerful, long-lasting communities.

The emergence of niche networks.

Big social networks have received all the attention in recent years but the real action happens in community forums. There are millions of these sites that have a combined audience comparable to Facebook. The one big advantage Facebook offers for marketers: Scale. It’s so much easier to communicate a message on a unified platform compared to millions of communities, often behind password walls.

In addition, you need to be passionate about specific topics: Unless you’re into Dubstep in Brazil, why would you ever know about forums discussing that topic? Or baseball forums in Germany. Sumo forums in Los Angeles. Bobblehead forums. These forums are surprisingly popular and extremely resilient because of their community bond. For every interest there is an online community to accomodate: fishing, hiking, TV shows, Rugby, Bakersfield fans – you name it. They live and grow every day even if you know nothing about them.

Real relationships

I joined a EDM (Electronic Dance Music) forum in 2000 and still participate every day. The conversation has transformed from sharing club experiences to political discussions, parenting issues, travel advice, general entertainment. I’ve never met 99% of the community but we’re a lively bunch and engage on a daily basis. It’s fascinating to experience this use of the Web and the untouchable strength of community.

Don’t miss out on the opportunity to engage in niche networks

Facebook has become the Microsoft of Social Networks. It’s there, you can’t escape it but you don’t love it. We use it every day but we are really not passionate about it. I’m sure Facebook will be around for years to come, just like Microsoft won’t disappear. The real love and passion happens in niche networks. By integrating more social features into their forums, niche communities will soon begin to have their heyday. Soon means about now.

All this talk about Facebook and Twitter have distracted from one the most important strengths of the digital medium: bringing people together to form a community. The current Forums 1.0 will soon be transformed into more advanced and socialized forums.

Scale is important.

The bond and passion of a community is more important. And a much better playground for your brand.

I’m a big believer in Neil Postman’s premise that we’re amusing ourselves to death. The masses are appeased by spectacles and don’t seriously discuss things like budget deficits, our role in the world, environmental challenges. The worst part of this idea of panem et circenses is sports. People can talk for days about meaningless games that do nothing to elevate us as a society or make this world a better place.

The worst time of the year in sports is the NFL draft. The proliferation of statistics has led to a secret society of stats and meaningless data. You have the Wonderlic Test. The 40 yard Combine dash. And all this data stuff lead teams to pick Tom Brady in the 6^th round. Right after Giovanni Carmazzi, Tee Martin and Spergon Wynn.

The same adulation has taken over our industry, and, yes, our clients. We make sure to forget about our gut reaction. Looking at data is our initial response to anything. We have metrics but they are most often completely meaningless. In the advertising industry, the only metrics that should count is: “Would I show this with pride to my wife/friends/family?”

While the whole sports world is going nuts on stats and data, whenever you look at a winning team there’s always this little thing we call “heart”. The Los Angeles Dodgers of 1986 had heart, Kirk Gibson the biggest. The 1980 US hockey team had heart.

Heart.

Where is yours?

It’s interesting to see that some of the thought leaders in the Social Marketing space encourage everyone to work through the holidays.

Chris Brogan says in his “Work Now” post:

“Work now while they’re coasting.

Yes, see your family. Yes, take measure of where you’ve been. Yes, do everything in your power to realign and rethink what you’ve done and put it in terms of where you’re going next.

But then get your hands dirty and work. Now.”

Mitch Joel connects The Matrix with the drone mentality of many people

“You see, while I’m Blogging during the holidays, spending time to think and soaking in the good will of my family and friends, you’re dreading going back to work next week.”

And, Adam Daniel Mezei (also mentioning The Matrix) asks “Who’s working this week?”

“Yeah, don’t you just love the buzzing claptrap that the “Holiday Season” is the time for family, when families get together to reacqiaint themselves with each other in the spirit of the Festive Season? What bullsh-t…

Look, friends, for some of us, family day is every day. Moreover, we have a “special” family day each week so one guilt-ridden “24 little hours…” isn’t going to solve the roiling rifts in your crooked family dynamics, trust me when I tell you.

Mighty family ties are something you cultivate over the weeks, the months, and the decades. You forge these bonds over the long-haul, Charlie. Like a lush garden, you water that sh-t every day to make it flourish. If you don’t, you suffer the consequences. Then you need the “Holiday Season” to make your amends and fulsomely apologize to the family you’ve willfully neglected over the past eleven months.

Xmas isn’t some glorified milestone to declare a family ceasefire, okay, where you ultimately decide to consecrate the day via a reaffirmed mission to stop adulterating against your suspicious spouse, being generally hateful to your peers and colleagues, being disreputable in your business dealings, and speaking gossip against your fellow members of society; an act, according to some, which is tantamount to flesh and blood murder. It isn’t about suddenly deciding to be a good girl or boy, papering over your erstwhile reprehensible actions of the past calendar year (a secular, doubtful, and 13 days forward-jettisoned Gregorian year, at that) through a bevy of tastefully wrapped expensive tschotchke gifts which which you expect to razzle-dazzle your intended recipients, in the hope they won’t prolong their trenchant hate-on for your egregiously-sinning ass for another twelve sorry months.

Sorry, it doesn’t work like that…

For those of you who think those of us who actually work these final two weeks are anti-family workaholics who can’t see the forest for the pine trees, here’s a newsflash: we’re more family than you can shake a 20-piece KFC chicken bucket at!”

No matter what these folks write, taking time off is essential. Just explore the links on this post to find enough evidence that taking time off is important. I’m not saying you should become a TV vegetable for hours on end and do nothing. Read that book you never had time for. Do the activity that was always too much for your work week. Hang out a day with your loved ones without any goal, objectives and time limits.

The time between Christmas and New Years is precious. Don’t waste it with just wasting away. It’s not about working more. It’s about doing something better. Whatever floats your boat.

Daydreaming might be the best way to go:

“Daydreamers rejoice, for now, research shows how doing nothing but daydreaming improves our focus and generally, makes us smarter. Author Jonah Lehrer writes how the study conducted by Susan Whitfield-Gabrieli and John Gabrieli of MIT suggests that an active idle state of mind activates long-range neural connections in the brain that are linked with high performance in IQ tests and better thought process and intelligence.”

No matter what you, don’t feel forced by anyone to do more. Just get yourself ready to do something better. Today. Tomorrow. In 2011.

“When we are narcissistic, we are not on solid ground (earth) or thinking clearly (air) or cought up in passion (fire).  Somehow if we follow the myth, we are dreamlike, fluid, not clearly formed, more immersed in a stream of fantasy than secure in a firm identity.” – Thomas Moore

Mediocre brands love to talk about themselves. Just like the dull dinner companion or date that can only talk about him or herself. It’s hard to escape a dinner date, it’s easy to escape mediocre brands. I just tune them out, throw their stuff in the garbage, don’t even see them.

Great brands talk about what they believe in. What they are passionate about. What they love. They take a stand and tell you what they’re standing against. Sharing with the world what your really believe in is inspiring. Sharing a passion with the world makes people want to connect with a brand. It’s so much easier to connect with people when you share your real identity with the world.

What is your brand passionate about?