When I talk to startups, I hear a lot of this (amongst other things).
“We need to find someone big to get the word out and support us”.
In another words, they think they need an evangelist. Someone to promote their product to a group of people and sing praises whenever they can logically do so.
At first glance, this might seem like a great idea to have someone with pull to evangelize your product via their personal brand. After all, getting users is your number one priority and having someone bigger than you recognize and promote your product is sign of success. While this all fine and dandy, you should not make an evangelist the center of your community. Here’s why:
1. What’s Mine Is Yours, What’s Yours Is Mine
When evangelists become the center of your community, your startup is basically merging two identities, your brand and the evangelist’s personal brand. Often times, your brand will be overshadowed by the personal brand. Your number one priority should be getting your brand recognized independently.
2. It’s No Longer YOUR Community
It is their community. The people following them will be the types of people who will follow them anywhere. That means if your evangelist decides they no longer want to evangelize your product and pick up and leave, by making them the center of your community, a large chunk of users will follow. No one person in your community should have that much power.
3. The Most Successful Social Network’s Are Not Defined By One
Take a look at Facebook and Myspace. They are the largest social networks on the web today, can you recall a time where either social service was defined by one person and one person alone? Sure, there were a lot of people who would promote Facebook/Myspace but none of them was made the center of the community and sole promoter by Facebook or Myspace. Not one person’s personal brand was associated with their brand, a good thing to do in hindsight.
With all that said, evangelists are not a bad thing. They can be great if done right, and it is quite simple do it right. Just don’t make them the center of your community. Don’t give them special privileges such as putting them in a suggested user list and refrain from telling people, “well so and so is on my network and he/she loves it!” Your community should be defined by all not by one.