“For a civilization to flourish, man must plant trees under whose shade he will never sit.” ~ ancient Greek proverb

To successfully build an online community of adoring fans for your brand, you must not only plant seeds in social media — whether it be commenting on Facebook customer posts, responding to a tweet about your brand, or engaging with your prospects and customers by posting original compelling and magnetic content that is not self-promoting — but you must also adopt practices that generate good karma.  Too often I see wineries making a fatal blunder on their Facebook pages, posting only content about their brands, wine scores, upcoming events, etc. and not responding to comments and posts made by others, whether prospects or existing customers.  Is this because wineries are understaffed and too busy or is it because they just don’t get the entire concept of online engagement?  Regardless of the answer, by neglecting to engage wineries are leaving money on the table and not leveraging the true power of social media to extend their customer reach and retention.

So how does one go about getting good karma, you know that give a little, get a little concept of what goes around comes around?  The good news is the answer is very simple: you seek to make a difference by giving back and helping others.

A personal story best illustrates this point.  A few weeks ago, I saw a Facebook post a friend had shared on MyWineWords, a social media forum for winos like myself.  Intrigued, I checked out the website, loved the fluid integration with social media platforms, and signed up as a member using my Facebook credentials (all of this is free btw).  I was anxious to share this great site with my other wino buds, so I tried to send them an invite using MyWineWord’s “invite your friends” functionality.  Not sure if it was me or the fact that I was drinking tad too much good Buttonwood Cab Franc that night, but I ran into trouble inviting folks so I sent MyWineWord’s founder, Allie Merrick, a ‘help’ email at 9 p.m. She immediately responded — even though on east coast — with instructions for my ole soggy brain on how to use invite and invite I did!  But the story doesn’t end there.

Being a woman business owner, I tend to gravitate to helping others who are in my same boat.  I also dig the creative process developing 1st-to-market innovative ideas that have landing gears as well as wings.  Allie and I struck up a virtual conversation about ways in which she could build out her mywinewords.com site and I gave her my 2 cents regarding a vision I had for building online Wine Lounges for wine club members to sip, savor and share. Long story short — albeit may be bit late for that! — Allie and I have now struck up not only a collaborative business partnership but also a virtual friendship.  And I attribute this newly discovered opportunity to good karma, as I planted a tree at MyWineWords even though, at the time, I was not envisioning sitting under its shade.

In a recent article in Fast Company’s new column, Life in Beta, author Anya Kamenetz provocatively writes on the case for generosity and the Internet’s potential to unlock our natural impulse to share goals and on a new global economy built on the kindness of strangers.  She describes how the Internet and social media are changing human relationships and maybe even human nature but not in a bad way, rather in a positive one.  I agree with her that the Internet can indeed unleash acts of generosity and true connection. And, the truth that anyone who goes online takes advantage of the kindness of strangers.

Sociologists attribute the desire to contribute to online communities to a ‘reputation economy’ in which people gain self-esteem and standing by giving away their time and opinion.  Indeed, information is the thing people will share most readily, followed by time, followed by goods.  A slew of new innovative websites are being cultivated to facilitate the giving away of goods and services, with these hubs translating the principles of sharing from the virtual to the real world.  See for example couchsurfing.org, giftflow.org, ourgoods.org, sparked.com, thredup.com, blog.p2pfoundation.net and collaborativeconsumption.com.

Today it’s easier that ever to give away something that’s of little value to you but perhaps of considerable value to someone else wherever in the world that person might be and thereby generate good karma! For me, just knowing that this is possible because I have lived it makes me more likely to dive into the reputation economy, to continue giving back and to really make a difference. Isn’t that what life is all about?

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