I recently came across Zoocasa.com as I was doing some research on companies that are really finding innovative ways to use social media and build strong customer communities.

Following a model similar to FreshBooks, Zoocasa is slowly building up a very strong online community of its own. To get a better understanding of what sort of a thought process went into some of the marketing activities at the company, I decided to have a quick chat with Saul Colt (Head of Magic at Zoocasa).

I was initially thinking of making this a conversational blog post but looking through my notes made me realize that Saul gave me two critical pieces of advice that I thought I’d rather share with you.

1. You don’t have to treat marketing activities as programs (with a start and an end). Building an affective bond with consumers is a continuous process. A process that doesn’t necessarily have a start and an end but certainly has milestones and interim goals that constantly reassure you that you’re on the right track. Saul likes to refer back to the 4E process that he found very useful while he was at FreshBooks - Execute on Extraordinary Experiences Everyday.

2. Treat your community as a pretty girl – Building a community is sort of like building a relationship. Its a constant struggle, and you always need to pay attention to what your customers are saying. In Saul’s words “sometimes you need to spice things up a bit, and shave that beard”!

Here’s one of Saul’s presentation’s from the Zoocasa blog. Enjoy!