Today’s LA2M lunch is featuring Dave Linabury from Campbell-Ewald. Dave oversees Navy For Moms, a Ning-based community for mothers with children in the Navy or thinking about the Navy. It’s a great idea. I’m pretty jazzed about today’s session since this is what I do at work. More or less.
The biggest barrier for the Navy’s recruitment was, duh, moms. C-E was challenged with overcoming that barrier, especially in the Boston area. After some research, a private launch and activity from influential moms, the site took off immediately.
Some interesting points about the site from today’s presentation:
- Young adults are now coming to Navy For Moms instead of Navy.com to get info and ask questions about joining the Navy
- C-E reviews every piece of content that goes live to ensure security for the sailors (can’t give away their locations, obviously)
- There are more than 27,000 members, thousands upon thousands of pieces of content, from videos to photos and more
- Groups and events are huge with the moms; tons popping up all the time. From a sociology perspective, subgroups are key
Dave says he asks his team to think like sociologists instead of marketers, and I couldn’t agree more. These women and family members are looking for community and advice. The people running the back-end of their site need to think like that, too.
Another amazing point: Are we measuring ROI or IOR? Something to think about.
“Social networking is about connections, and that’s more important than anything else.” Couldn’t agree more.
“Dave says he asks his team to think like sociologists instead of marketers, and I couldn’t agree more.”
Seriously. Especially for a site that could have potentially sensitive interactions as this, people don’t want to be sold shit when they join your community. That’s why they joined your community instead of just watching your commercials and moving on.