How are you using rituals and values to create celebrated divisions in your online community? Even offline communities break down into tribes – which is the last step of my 12 step online community strategy framework. Swarms or tribes or Teams or whatever you want to call them are united on Purpose (the purpose of the community) but divided on Values (the options/variables). In other words, we come together on a topic but divide on how it should be addressed. This creates story, interest and passion. In a politically correct world, marketers fail to address fundamental value issues such as where do you stand? CEOs don’t speak up, advertising is pushing product not brand equity. As we enter into the social economy, we learn that those that stand for nothing fall for anything (Alexander Hamilton) and that is not what your consumer wants from you. To take it further, if you have access to a publishing medium, you had better stand for something: all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing – Edmund Burke. Where is your online community strategy making strong statements? Where is your social media campaign clearly identifying with a community value? And I don’t mean a 10% discount on your products… Vote #TeamSilkCharm now! 
Chickfila recently announced that gays weren’t welcome at their stores. That would be a brand putting out their value systems. So John Goodman and the team at Funny or Die hijacked the KFC brand and put out an alternative brand value. That would be humans doing what they do best – choosing what side they are on. *laughs*
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP) — In Rock Hill, S.C., Wednesday, customers were waiting 75 minutes for a Chick-fil-A chicken sandwich, when they could have driven down the road to McDonald’s and been in and out in five minutes.
About 50 people wait outside a Chick-fil-A in Kansas City, Kan., waiting to get inside on “Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day.” Across the nations, Chick-fil-A restaurants were packed. Photo by Malachi O’Brien It surely seemed strange to at least a few observers, but the folks in Rock Hill — and at jam-packed Chick-fil-A restaurants across the country — were making a statement, standing up for a chain that has been criticized by media members, politicians and activist groups because of Chick-fil-A President Dan Cathy’s support for the biblical definition of marriage.
“Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day,” as organizer Mike Huckabee called it, may have been more successful than even he envisioned. More than 625,000 people had signed up on Facebook to participate, and it seemed that each one came — and brought a friend
(via Baptist press)
So KFC should’ve done this video themselves (?) but it’s probably better someone else did as KFC would’ve toned it down.
Every time you see a TV show with TeamJoel or TeamChristina or you play a computer game with Alliance vs Hordes, or Vampires vs Zombies just remember that it’s part of the marketing strategy. Because you unite people on the Purpose (to watch an audition show) but divide them on values (who should win) you create tension and interest. How often do you see that in advertising or marketing in general (not sports marketing) ? Is it all either good (aspirational) or bad (fear) and nothing in between. How can you divide your community to conquer them hmmm?
If your community is up in arms about something and you have nothing to say, you are irrelevant and wasting your time, personnel and money attempting to participate. Time to man up (or woman up). Social Media marketing is fun and important and more interesting than counting banner ads and Facebook Likes.
NOTE: For the purposes of this article, I’m not pro or anti gay. I am as much interested in anti-gay Chick-a-fila Appreciation Day rite of passage as I am in the KFC parody for pro-gay support. However personally I would buy KFC. Except I’m on a diet so I have to go find some pro gay marriage tuna and salad. 
PS If you still aren’t convinced, and believe everyone just wants to get along in social media, I want to ask you – #TeamFacebook or #TeamTwitter or #TeamGooglePlus? yeah, thought so. 
via Laughing Squid
UPDATE: Chick-A-Fila introduces a Hate Sauce :another parody. Amusing if it wasn’t sad. Sad if it wasn’t amusing. You choose. #AndThatsThePoint