BlueShirt Nation (BSN) – in case you did not already know- is Best Buy's internal social network. Bazaar is an extension of BSN that brings vendors into the space to interact directly with employees for questions, suggestions and insights.

My work lately has been been on the launch of Bazaar which launched officially early this month.

My current challenge is content vs. users. Since I am a student of the Gary Koelling and Steve Bendt school of social media development, I am of the belief that you build small. Then you recruit a few passionate users. Get them using the space. Then let them tear it apart and tell you all the things that suck about it.

My dilemma is that I have a number of anxious vendors that are eager to dive in and make a 1,000 Blue Shirt friends. They are beating the doors on one side. On the other side, I have a pool of BSN'rs that are engaged but need to be more active to keep all the vendors engaged.

We have started with just three vendors in the space. Each vendor has about 10 representatives for now. I'm keeping the number low as we are still working through some user interface improvement and a few bugs.

After we work through those issues, I want to invite the waiting vendors into the space.

In the meanwhile, I feel like I'm watching paint dry as the number of posts between vendors and users are slow in coming. They are there. I'm just anxious for so much more as I see the potential for valuable insights and innovations.

We've started marketing to the active BSN user base and done some internal news releases. Neither of these efforts were employed during BSN's initial launch. It almost feels like cheating. BSN's growth was all viral and word of mouth.

But it is a chicken or the egg dilemma. Content first? Or users first? The users may come from these marketing efforts. But will they ever come back if there is limited available content since we're just getting started? Just writing this makes me think that I need to work even harder to manage expectations all around the room. I can think of ways to spike the traffic and create buzz but those tactics seem to fly in the face of social media etiquette.

The tactics that feel in-bounds are any kinds of face-to-face encouragement to users who I feel will provide good content. I'm thinking about specific positions within the company who I could ask to blog more frequently. People that are already passionate about the company (without being too much like one who has had too much of the Kool-Aid) and are maybe just looking for an invitation to an outlet. Part of that face to face encouragement will also include store visits to invite employees to check out the changes.

I mentioned that we are soliciting active users through some internal marketing channels. I am not real proud of going this route though it feels like the right thing to do in the interest of bringing users in to these vendor rooms while they are getting started.

There are some tactics I really want to try that are definitely inappropriate. BSN is nothing if it isn't genuine and transparent. But the promotions-guy in me wants to pull off a stunt.

I like how Bill Maher invites guests who are polar opposites on his show and let's them duke it out. I recall hearing how William Randolph Hearst would do the same thing by inviting dinner guests who he knew were in opposition on an issue. It's tempting to follow that tactic. A good argument can provide endless entertainment.

Any kind of argument might create some nifty buzz. I'd stage a fight about something controversial but I'd have to confess to it's lack of authenticity later. I suppose, if it was obviously staged but was still entertaining, that could be acceptable.

Oh well. I'm just thinking out loud. Any thoughts?