A number of times recently I have come across websites that offer fake social interactivity. Pages are billed with keywords like "group", "community" or "club", and you confidently expect something that offers the kind of dialog offered by their real-world equivalent. Clicking for the sake of curiosity, though, you find either more company news, special offers, or some edited testimonials and questions. Every time I see this, I wonder how customers are going to react. I mean, how they will feel if you ask them to a party, and then when they get there tell them to keep quiet while you talk about yourself?

What I imagine happening is that marketing partners or employees are told the company needs some kind of social networking feature. Then, when individual options are discussed, they look like too much work for little return (blog, wiki) or too open (online forum). Companies decide instead to play it safe and use the "feature" to include marketing content that didn't make it onto the home page. Making the marketing department, and the management, happy - even though customers are disappointed!

But social interactivity is a genuinely useful tool. It means essentially two things - creating open dialog and sharing useful information. One thing that doesn't belong in the picture is company information. It's just bad form to start a conversation by talking about yourself. The choice of medium is important, but it's the underlying aim that is crucial. If there is a genuine desire to open up the communication, this will make itself clear. But, if your company and product info are not promoted, where is the value? The answer is that it is indirect. Customer relationships are improved through active involvement, and your expertise, trustworthiness and intellectual leadership are implicit. In the case of innovation factories, customers can actually contribute to your expertise and product development, too!

The fear of customers damaging your reputation is unrealistic - people using facilities that you host are generally going to behave well. Joining up already shows a degree of loyalty and respect. If you have given a customer cause for complaint, that's an opportunity for you to demonstrate good customer service. If they misunderstand something about your products, that's a great chance to explain it better and share useful information with others. And in the unlikely event that a contributor abuses the medium, it's not you but they who look bad.

The question is simply, what kind of open communication do you want with your customers, and do you have the resources to do it right? How you answer those questions determines the medium you use. If the answer is, we want a feature but not real communication, you are just wasting resources. You need to look at how the web has changed things in the last few years. Information is so open now that buzzwords are of little value - it's now all about being accessible and authentic - the real danger lies in faking it!