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Tara Hunt

Author, The Whuffie Factor.



Online communities and marketing —
a pioneering expert.







Tara Hunt is a true pioneer in online marketing and one of the most respected authorities on online communities—how they are evolving, how they are changing both culture and business, and how businesses must behave in order to succeed in the participatory web economy.
    Tara was named one of 2013's Entrepreneurial Women to Watch by Entrepreneur magazine and Fast Company named her one of the Most Influential Women in Technology in 2009.
She is one of the most respected and cited thought leaders in community marketing—how to delight and enchant the people in the communities your company serves with products, experiences and communications that honor the expectations of online customer communities.
    Community marketing is not about pushing messages or creating strong brands, but building relationships and engaging communities. Tara is an expert in using the tools and the opportunities of the participatory web to succeed, tools for building social capital—that is, whuffie.
Tara is the author of The Whuffie Factor: Using the Power of Social Networks to Build Your Business, a breakthrough book on community marketing. It provides the strategic map and specific tactics for success in the new economy and its elusive, lucrative world of online communities.
    In the world of Web 2.0, market capital flows from social capital—from what Tara calls whuffie. This is the future of business and Tara Hunt has the knowledge and experience of someone who's spent her career mastering how it works.
Tara was instrumental in making BarCamp, an international network of user-generated conferences, a worldwide phenomenon. She also is an active promoter of the Coworking movement, in which independent workers share workspace.
    She speaks frequently at conferences around the world, including Mesh, the Future of Web Apps, ETech and Web 2.0 Expo.

Community Marketing

How businesses can thrive by participating in online communities.

The internet, mobile and other advanced forms of communication are allowing communities to form and gain power more quickly than ever before. In this new world of Web 2.0, there are no "consumers" anymore, no passive parties. In this age of peer to peer power over all other forms of messaging, word of mouth is no longer merely a powerful tool, it is quickly becoming the only trusted source of information.

Today’s brands aren’t built in boardrooms or ad agencies or brainstorming sessions. Today, brands are built by communities. People choose what should be supported, spread and how it should be talked about. It is the marketing manager’s job now to understand and support them in their choices. A good marketer today is a Community Advocate.

Tara describes how community marketing works in her new book, The Whuffie Factor: Using the Power of Social Networks to Build Your Business. Whuffie—that is, social capital, the currency of your reputation—is the key factor for success when engaging the innumerable and indispensable communities that are proliferating online. As only the deeply thoughtful and experienced practitioner can, Tara understands the rules of engagement with these communities and the business potential of the social network platforms that now dominate the participatory Web.

Tara Hunt’s Community Marketing approach teaches companies how to properly inhabit these community spaces as welcome, even invited participants in a dialog, rather than as invaders or manipulators with their own message.

As online communities become stronger and stronger sources of consumer information, your sales will be driven on how well you are received in those communities.


How to be a Social Capitalist

The people—especially youth—who inhabit online communities don’t care what you have to say, sell or even give away. Word of mouth drives their buying decisions. They trust a new kind of social capital that is emerging in the social networks they create online. Your success as a business will increasingly depend on this kind of trust. To earn it, you have to find the communities that matter to your business, connect with them and spend some time.

Tara offers audiences practical ways to build social capital in the presentations based on her new book The Whuffie Factor.


Credentials
  • Author, The Whuffie Factor
  • Online Marketing Director, Riya.com (an online media company with a product for searching, organizing and tagging digital photos)
  • Owner, Rogue Strategies
  • Online Marketing Manager, HRPAO

Honors
  • 2013's Entrepreneurial Women to Watch, Entrepreneur
  • One of the Most Influential Women in Technology, Fast Company (2009)
  • Marketing Magazine 2003 Digital Awards - Certificate for Promotional Sites/Gaming (www.joestiff.com)
  • Applied Arts Magazine Best of 2003 - Best Poster
  • Applied Arts Magazine Best of 2003 - Best Poster Series

Named to Fast Company's Most Influential Women in Technology, one of 9 "Evangelists"—thought leaders how are changing our ideas about technology