Regardless of your hobby, profession or even your belief system, these days it’s easy to find a group of people just like you. Go to online community organizer Ning and you’ll discover over 1 million communities, for everyone from sand volleyball enthusiasts to landscape architects to supporters of the Kwam Um School of Zen.

Now it seems more and more companies are getting into the act, especially those focused on the Gen Y (Millennial) market. From game maker Xbox to the Vans shoe company, companies with true-blue followings have created thriving online meeting centers where the devoted can exchange ideas, discuss products, solve problems and even schedule meet-ups.

But while social communities can work for some brands, it definitely feels like a stretch for others. So upon learning that Allstate had joined the fray with its Good Hands Community, I was skeptical. After all, who wants to join a community sponsored by an insurance company?

Yet, even before looking at the site, I saw how it might work—if Allstate didn’t stray too far from its core area of expertise, insurance. The Good Hands site could be a place where customers could engage with agents on insurance issues, from making sure they had the right coverage and deductibles to learning how to adapt policies to life changes like a new car, new house or new baby.

But the folks at Allstate appear to have set their sights on a much wider mandate. As the Good Hands Web site states, it’s a community where you can “share your thoughts with others about hopes, dreams and challenges. Together you can share ideas about keeping families safe, saving money and preparing for what’s next”.

The community home page feels a little more down-to-earth with menu categories that include “Making a Difference”, “Daily Spending” and “Personal Finance”, and discussions on “helping others” “stay-cations” and “living debt free”. It’s all well intentioned, but the topics feel a little off-base for Allstate and better suited for the Peace Corps, AAA or Capital One respectively.

For auto insurance policy holders, there is a category on “All Things Wheels”. But I can’t seem to find any discussions on auto insurance, as posts are concentrated on issues like checking my oil, being alert at the wheel and hybrid automobiles. How about helping me figure out how much collision I should carry on my 8-year old Saturn?

The other thing that doesn’t feel right is there is not an insurance agent to be found on the Good Hands site. You see, the chief bloggers and hosts of the community are Allstate employees Ben and Amit who are both identified by the title “Strategy and Content Manager”. No offense guys, but I think Allstate policyholders would prefer to communicate with honest-to-goodness insurance agents.

So overall, a kudos to Allstate for the effort. It’s a nicely designed site that really is trying to engage with current and potential customers. But let’s not forget, you’re an insurance company. And with so many potential communities for people to join these days, it feels like Allstate may be stretching its good hands a little too wide.

Final note: For a company that does an online community right, check out Intuit. Its Intuit community connects customers with small business owners and features discussions hosted by Intuit-sponsored business professionals. The Intuit community keeps the focus where it belongs: helping small businesses succeed.

Tom Rapsas is an independent Creative Director, Writer and Strategist. He can be reached at tomrapsas@gmail.com.

Editor’s note: I was fortunate to moderate a panel at  Loyalty Expo 2009 this week titled Building Engagement with Millennials. The panelists were rich in expertise engaging and building brand with Generation Y as well as using email and social media as tools for communications. Bjorn Larsen Founder & CEO Edhance,  Atle Skalleberg VP Marketing Student Universe, and Ragy Thomas Co-Founder & CEO Aiti Solutions took part.

One of my fascinations with extending the Loyalty Marketing model beyond its traditional borders is in working through resistance and dissenting opinions. I partnered with Loyalty 360 to use Twitter during the conference with mixed results and learned that not everyone shares the same view on what it will take to build loyalty among Millennials or if it can be done at all.  Contributing Author Brian Kryzanski offers his view on GenY with this post “Generation crY”

Click here to see the connection between Generation crY and “You’ll Get Nothing and Like It”

Let the debate begin!

Generation crY

I want everything now, for free. I want to be treated with respect and don’t try to outsmart me, because you can’t. I want to come right out of college into the CEO chair because I know everything and always win. Simply put, I do not fail! Welcome to Generation crY- a generation of spoiled brats who were brought up in Never Never Land and told by their parents that they are no less than perfect. A trophy for everyone, no losers, no wrong doing, completely invincible, and everybody plays! What have the Boomers and X-generation created?

When I was growing up, and it wasn’t long ago, I was taught that hard work and determination is rewarded. I didn’t get trophies for simply showing up, and didn’t make the team if I wasn’t great or at very least showed 100% passion and effort. I was taught it was ok to fail, to lose, and it was just one step closer towards winning. My high school baseball coach use to say “second place is no place”, and if you were not first or the best, you were told you stink and no one sugar-coated it. You practiced harder, played tougher, studied more, and still were not guaranteed success. If you did bear fruit from your efforts, you then truly know what it is to be a winner, or successful, and appreciate the process.

Athletes are great examples of exactly what I am talking about. Pitchers pitched 9 innings and threw over 120 pitches “back in the day”. People played when they had bruises and bumps, and there were no such things as Social Anxiety Disorders. Why do we have that? Simple, when they get to the “bigs” and are not stellar, they cannot comprehend it. Rookie quarterbacks demanding multi-million dollar contracts before taking a snap in the NFL, or crying it’s not their team of choice – our fault!

We have made Never Never Land a reality! A place where our upcoming consumers are never fooled! The days of hard work and sweat equity are over, and we have created an environment that we are not only responsible for, but challenged as Loyalty or any other genre of marketers to succeed in.

We are told that we are too old and don’t understand the space they play in. Ah, but are fools being fooled? After all, we created Never Land and Tinker Bell has been hard at work creating a new Never Land called My Space, Facebook, and Twitter!

Are the Boomers and GenX marketers really worried, or are they simply still playing the game that they started years ago? We will continue to tell them how good they are as long as they continue to drink the cool aid. Maybe when the responsibilities of GenY increase they will realize that Facebook cannot warm the baby bottles and they actually have to get up and put it in the microwave! Don’t underestimate the X-Factor. We have built the technology and societies you play in, and hold the pixie dust that has been sprinkled among your communities. If all it takes is pizza and beer to hear how good our tactics are working, then we get off cheap.

History has demonstrated that the appearance of conferences, books and self-proclaimed “experts” on a new topic are leading indicators of an emerging “hot” trend. “Leading” is the key word here and sometimes the hype, best practices, and top 10 lists are launched for trends that, in the end, never make it to prime-time.

Marketing to Generation Y is a topic of great importance as the 80 Million+ group of increasingly influential consumers attract lots of attention in the market. I have been watching, listening, and learning to gain insight into what it will take to engage a conversation with Gen Y and create brand affinity over the long term, if it is possible to do so at all.

While I’ve been working, I’ve bit my lip as I see a number of folks claiming to be the next Millennial Marketing guru. I tip my hat to all who are playing in this sandbox, but am humble enough to know what I know and don’t know.

While I won’t agree that there is a best practice list for Millennial Marketing that can be stamped with any degree of authority, I can offer a stake in the sand based on my work to date.

6 Steps to starting the conversation with Generation Y:

1. Meet them where they are – Refrain from traditional message blasting, sell less, share more information, and offer lifehacks related to or enabled by your product or service.
2. Minimize the Loyalty Asterisk™ – Cleanse the fine print, the myriad of conditions blasted in the final seconds of a radio ad, the stuff that deflates consumer enthusiasm and builds skepticism about your brand. If you can’t construct a clean and easy to understand offer, go back to the drawing board.
3. Position your brand as a Trusted Advisor – Don’t just sell them your product, teach them how to use it. If you approve Gen Y for a credit card, tell them about Universal Default. If you offer them a Debit Card, tell them about the $35 burrito (ask me about that one later).
4. Fulfill the promise of Data – Through social networks and social media tools, the promise of “1 to 1” marketing may finally be affordable. Banks, airlines, and others already possess vast stores of customer data which have been underutilized to large degree. Let’s put the data to work to deliver personalized offers and build brand credibility.
5. Don’t try to rationalize the need – Anytime you are in a meeting and someone trashes the entire genre of social media, call a timeout. We don’t have to understand why Gen Y loves Facebook and Twitter, we just need to understand how our brands fit in. They think differently than we do…you don’t have to “get it”, just “do it”.
6. Don’t forget everything you learned – Financial and predictive models underscore any successful marketing strategy. Remain attentive to traditional financial models.

How often have you seen trophies, plaques, and crystal featured in advertising as evidence that a product or service has received the “highest ranking” by the survey company? If you are channel or web surfing your haste might benefit the advertiser. Associating the award with the brand triggers a quick mental linkage between the two as you log a positive impression in your memory banks and move to the next channel.

If you pop the hood and investigate how these rankings are assembled, you’ll know why Gen Y (Millennial) consumers rely increasingly on recommendations received through social networking sites as well as word-of-mouth from friends and family.

The flaw in the system could not have been more clearly stated than in the sign next to where I was swiping my debit card to pay for car repairs at a local dealer.

“Did you know that a score of 9 or less is a failure? Please grade us “10” or tell us why you can’t.”

I paraphrased this a bit, but imagine if this customer satisfaction rating system were applied to kids in school or “us” at work. Try telling your child that anything less than an “A” is a failure and see how motivated they will be to climb that mountain. Or, imagine that the annual employee performance evaluation allowed raises only for those scoring a perfect 10 across the matrix of KPI’s (Key performance indicators) outlined by the boss.

Insisting on delivering a perfect 10 does nothing but dilute the scoring system itself. There are few customer experiences which are perfectly executed and there should be nothing wrong with being graded less than 10, especially if comments are provided to help interpret the score.

The proactive management of customer satisfaction scores continues “after the sale”. Every time I take my VW to the shop, I receive a phone call asking me to participate in a “short survey about my experience”. The first call comes within 3 days of my visit and the firm will continue to call every other day or so for up to 2 two weeks until I speak with them. Even though they tell me that participation is voluntary, it clearly is not, for they will chase me down like a hound-dog on a good scent trail.

Vladimir Putin might approve of this methodology. Consumers WILL participate in surveys and they WILL give us a rating of 10. Flip this around and imagine how the conversation goes between the sales rep from the survey company and a large auto dealer. Does the supplier go beyond assurances that they will manage the process and seek high participation levels, making promises to deliver the highest scores ever? Do they bring a catalog of award trophies to that sales meeting, encouraging the client to choose the one they will advertise before the campaign even kicks off?

Much has been written about how we have raised an entire generation of young people on participation trophies and certificates in fear of hurting someone’s feelings. We can argue that elsewhere, but I do not believe this approach helps consumers make better decisions about spending their hard earned money.

The appeal of recommendations made in social networking sites is the focus on content and not integers. I may not know the difference between a 9 and 10, but I can learn a bunch from reading a description of a post-sale service experience from another VW owner.

Marketers would be better served to change the game before their customers stop reading their survey results. Making the process more transparent will encourage more subjective input from customers. Don’t be afraid to learn what your customers really think about you. If you can’t stand this idea and stick with the old system, dissatisfied customers will leave anyway. I think anything less a 10 has the sound of a slamming door as they go across the street! …………. Bill Hanifin