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Comet Branding Radio: Tara Hunt and The Whuffie Factor (The Power of Social Media Capital)

On Wednesday, August 12 at 11 a.m. Central, we will be speaking with Tara Hunt, author of The Whuffie Factor: Using the Power of Social Networks to Build Your Business. In her book, Tara points out that we need to recognize that in online communities money is not the currency of choice. Rather, whuffie – social capital – is what determines your success online. CLICK HERE TO LISTEN

We became aware of Whuffie recently when we stumbled across a video Gary Vaynerchuk posted called “I had a wild day, you? Turning negatives into positives!” This video actually originated back in January (way to be on the ball right?) and it chronicles Gary’s day when his site Cork’d was hacked.

In the video he talks about how he went on Twitter and was looking for eight to 10 hours of developer help to fix the hacker issue. In his tweet he offered an exchange of his help for theirs instead of money. Take a look at the video to get the full vibe, but in the end, he was momentarily chastised for basically being cheap. However, we was actually trying to offer his knowledge and social capital – something he was claiming is worth more than money – instead of a simple transaction.

During this Twitter exchange Tara Hunt (@missrogue) came to Gary’s defense saying the Gary has enough Whuffie and that offering his services instead of money is more relational and less transactional. This got me thinking and we started to poked around to learn more about Tara and Whuffie. One thing has led to another and now we find ourselves (via social media) able to chat it up with Tara herself.

Tara was the founder of Citizen Agency, a community-marketing consulting firm based in San Francisco, and is now leading the marketing efforts for Intuit’s partner platform. Her blog, Horsepigcow.com, explores themes in marketing and economics and has been pivotal in raising her own whuffie in the online marketing space.

As Tara discusses in her book, one of the most important things to recognize when working in the world of online communities is that money is not the currency of choice. Rather, whuffie – social capital – is what determines your success online. Here’s a short video in which Tara describes Whuffie and her book.

It’s an interesting twist on the age-old game of commerce for businesses and the people who are leading them in their online expeditions.

Whuffie can’t be bought in a traditional sense. Instead it is earned through listening and integrating feedback into your product or offering and by participating in the community that you seek to serve. Sound interesting? Scary?

Join us as we talk with Tara about how to grow your whuffie and what to do with it once you’ve earned it. Should be a fun and interesting show, so don’t miss it. You can listen by clicking HERE.

As another sneak-peak, here are Tara’s five key principles for how anyone can raise whuffie online:

1. Turn the blowhorn around. Stop talking and start listening.

2. Become part of the community you serve.

3. Create amazing customer experiences.

4. Embrace the chaos, communities are made up of people and people are not predicatble.

5. Find your higher purpose. What can you give to the community and still be profitable?

Tags: social media currency, Tara Hunt, The Whuffie Factor