I love the month of February. As a marketer, I actually watch the commercials as opposed to fast forward through them. Annoyingly, I want to discuss why this or that campaign is so spot on for the brand with my roommate (she still wants to fast forward). There is a huge push for good marketing this time of year. Of course, there’s a little tiny challenge mixed in: which audience are you going for?

We have two major events that take place within a few weeks of each other. The Super Bowl is known for inspiring commercials that can be talked about for years to come (there’s a website just for the aggregating the commercials). In some cases, it can make or break a brand. We’re already reviewing Super Bowl spots online before the game has even been played. On the other hand, there’s Valentine’s Day. People accuse it of being an over-marketed fictional holiday celebrating commercialism (forgetting there is a historic origin to the day). Plus there’s candy. Lot’s of it.

When we look at these two events in conjunction, the marketing messages a brand may be conveying could be at odds with each other. Not every company is so successful with dual-identity marketing, and campaigns from firms like Allstate are the exception. The Super Bowl and Valentine’s are at two extreme ends of the identity spectrum, making marketing tough.

Perhaps it’s the gender issue. I’m just going to say it: football is considered manly and Valentine’s is considered girly. Now, I’m all about people smashing into each other (I learned to play hockey), and I consider movies with Mexican standoffs to be romantic. I probably am an exception and could just confuse other marketers. Or I’m a niche that really isn’t going to be hit during this February marketing frenzy. At the end of the day, however, you see brands almost have to “choose” for a campaign.

Sure, there’s always a blending approach. There had been a diamond commercial a couple years back where the proposal/gift giving was shown on the screen and the players commented on the type of diamond, etc. Even in trying to find the commercial to share, I actually found more feedback on whether or not the commercial is discriminating. It’s hard to try and have it both ways.

Instead, a brand might just have two completely different campaigns, serving the two markets, and even if you watch a ton of TV or are exposed to the brand constantly, you may not even be aware that both campaigns are running. It could be much more cost effective and efficient for the brand to take two directions than try and do one blended approach that could be quite unsuccessful. Victoria’s Secret has a few different ads running, and even in the voting video for the Greatest Super Bowl Commercials, you can see the two very different approaches based on who’s watching.

What do you think? Should brands have to choose? What examples have you seen where a blended approach has been successful?

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Ellie Scarbrough, founder of pinkkisses.com, may be an expert on mending a broken heart, but she does all of that because she listens to her community. I had the opportunity to gain insights from her, and here are her best tips:

Contrary to popular belief, building a bustling and cohesive community online is neither simple nor self-sustaining. It takes time, strategy, persistence and a deep belief on the part of the founder that the content is absolutely vital for it’s members.

To put it another way: Founding a community is like birthing a child.

It’s an emotional ride and there’s a constant nagging that you just might mess it up in some way. You inherently know that to do it right, you’re going to spend a ton of time learning from others who have done it before and even more time finding your own way. You’re not going to expect anything from it financially, at least for a while. Yet, you’re going to have to love it through all of the brilliance and the bratty moments. And, there will be both.

But, there are certain things you must do as a business owner if you want to create a space online where people share, unite, and most importantly, grow in numbers.  Here are my four tips for before you build it, when it’s ready to launch and once it’s in use:

1. Identify a need

On the day I graduated from college, it never would have occurred to me that, at 32, I’d be running an online community of over seven thousand women focused on forgetting their exes and finding their inner bombshells.

But two years ago, I created Pink Kisses, a site for women going through heartbreak, for a very simple reason: I had just experienced the toughest breakup of my life and simply couldn’t find smart, thoughtful tools and conversation to help me start heading in a bold, new direction. I knew I had to create a space where women could kick their heels off, let their hair down and get real. I started asking everyone (including the barista at my coffee spot, and any random woman I happened to ride an elevator with) if they’d be interested in the kinds of tools and tips I wanted to offer. Overwhelmingly, the answer was yes.

If you’re not 100% sure how real the need is for your community, just ask. People will be pretty honest about where they will and will not spend their valuable time.

2. Model what you want

While building Pink Kisses, I discovered that if I wanted other women to open up about what was going on in their own lives, I had to be honest about what was happening in mine.

The best online communities are safe places for sharing.  So I decided to put my story of heartbreak on my website, for anyone to see. This helped catalyze story-sharing from my new community members, and also ended up being the perfect ice-breaker. It gave members an excuse to ask me questions, relay horror stories of their own, and eventually, start a larger dialogue together about the process of breaking up and moving on.

I knew that nothing I wrote or created could ever be insincere if I expected the same out of my members. So if you test everything you create in your community by setting the example – always with an attitude of sincerity and openness – you will be on the road to success.

3. Spread the word

Just because you’ve decided to build a community doesn’t mean people will automatically join. In the first year after launch, you have to make it your number one mission to let the world know you exist. Because, let’s be honest, they won’t otherwise. With so many distracting sites for women on the web, you have to be able to grab their attention and hold it long enough for them to fall in love with your budding community.

How? You can start with social media campaigns that can create buzz even before you launch. Decide which two social media sites are the best places to connect with your intended audience, and get to work telling everyone you know to connect there. Start a month or so before you go live to have an audience already interested in your brand. Stay authentic, be real and let people know what your brand stands for – without being “salesy.” Let people feel like they’re part of something, like they’re getting a sneak peek. Then, once you’re launched, get them to help you grow. That’s exactly how we built our incredibly involved & loyal Facebook community.

Also, get your story out there on traditional media fronts: TV, radio, blogs, newspapers, magazines… don’t be shy. Within a month of launch, I was on the TODAY Show talking about Pink Kisses. In the first year, I told my story everywhere from COSMO Radio to The Wall Street Journal.  Online, I wrote for the Huffington Post, Crazy Sexy Life and more blogs than I can count. I never said no to an interview and never stopped looking for opportunities to partner with other websites or outlets to get the word out.

4. Listen to what your members are saying

The people engaged in your site are your very best source of information. So once you’ve launched your community and shouted its existence from the rooftops, pose your members two simple questions:

• Ask them what’s missing.
• Ask them what they love.

Not only will they want to share, they’ll be even more loyal members if they feel like their voice truly matters, and that this community is built around their expressed needs.

On a more macro level, we’ve made a conscious effort at my company to continually study the emotions, experiences and patterns that emerge around breakups. Every time we conduct a survey or a focus group, we are amazed at what we’re able to discover about how we can better serve our community. Often, I’ll pick up the phone or write an email just to see how my members are doing.

As you can see, collecting community feedback can be a very involved (but crucial) process.  So create a strategy around asking for feedback, and be sure to do something each month to keep you in touch with the pulse of your community. Never miss an opportunity to learn more about your members or your opportunities.

The takeaway: women are social creatures. We crave a sense of community and enjoy sharing our lives with others. But, there are tons of places we can now go online to dish. If you want to break into the realm of building an online community, you have to be bold, focused and you have to create something worth visiting. Once you’ve created the ideal space, you have to tell the world about it. With all the noise, it’s not enough just to sit back and wait for members to find you. Build something incredible, bring people to it, engage them in their contributions big or small. And always, always, always ask for feedback.

Whenever you start working for a company, there are a number of things to learn about during your first few months that can make life easier: how to make a new pot of coffee, who knows where the office supplies are, and any internal politics that could blow up in your face. No matter where you work, though, there is something you never really “learn” completely: working in a virtual team.

I say you can’t learn completely because of the fact that the team and dynamics will always be changing. Just as you get the hang of product deployment with your team in Los Angeles, they get a new point person and you also have to pick up Chicago. Or the company decides to close brick-and-mortar offices in favor of virtual offices, only to reopen those offices when leadership becomes suspicious virtual employees aren’t working enough.

Those are completely virtual examples, but then there’s the blended remote set up. In this scenario, an employee may work from home (or any location) a few days a week, then appear at an office the other days. I have worked this schedule myself before, especially because I had to work at 6:30 am to be available for London, but the Director of Marketing worked in California, and her day went past my 7:00pm.

There can be a stigma for remote or blended schedules, however: parents who want to be more available to their kids may opt for this, and that usually means women. These remote employees may not be as available as someone in the office, may appear to be slacking off, and may reduce their opportunities for promotion. Whether or not those things are true does not matter if there is a perception of truth to them.

Recently, Microsoft Office 365 and 85 Broads teamed up to survey professional women nationwide to capture their insights and feelings around the topic of remote working and technology.

The survey found that women would prefer to work remotely an average of 3.1 days per week, that they feel the arrangement leads to better work/life balance, and that the leading issue of remote working is slow response time for communications when someone is away from the office.

Young women today may find themselves with an opportunity for a blended schedule, but there are some things to keep in mind as you also prepare yourself to take on roles as a manager. Staying in sync with your peers is one thing, but it is quite another to lead your team when you add in the virtual element. The following are some tips based on the survey results:

• Make appointments. You set aside time to meet with someone in person, so why not make appointments for important telephone calls? By booking time, you can be sure that your coworkers will be prepared and focused.
• Focus on objectives. Work with your manager to define clear goals and objectives against which your performance can be measured.
• Stay online as much as possible. If you are not online, it is likely that people may think you are not working—even if you are. Respond quickly to e-mail and your colleagues will know you are being productive.
• Be assertive. Don’t always wait for people to contact you. Ask for information if you don’t believe you have received it.
• Establish a schedule. Keep home work hours similar to those you would keep at an office. Your manager, coworkers and customers appreciate knowing when you are available.
• Be present. Check in with your team regularly throughout the day and be responsive to their questions and comments.

I also want to add my own tip: Be transparent. That can be something as simple as sharing viewing permissions of your calendar with your team. You can always make individual appointments private, but it is easier to build a trusting relationship if peers and direct reports can see where you spend your time and when you have windows during which they can reach you. This can also mean keeping a running project list in a shared drive so others know what is on your plate.

Face time will become a premium as we all become more virtual. It is critical to develop good remote working habits early since your work situation will always change. This means making the time you spend in an office count and being highly dependable when you are virtual.

Readers interested in learning about the survey with Microsoft and 85 Broads can find more information here, as well as further tips about remote working and “Your Office, Your Terms.”

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