Online Community Strategic Framework and Best Practices. Web 2.0 Sites, Social Sites, Online Community Sites... call it what you want, this framework will provide you with an approach that works for engaging your customers and nurturing your prospects.
4. COMMUNITY STRATEGY FRAMEWORK BUSINESS GOALS LAUNCH PLAN Content Plan Event Plan Promotion/Outreach Plan Member-to-Member Interaction SOCIAL MEDIA LANDSCAPE MEMBER NEEDS
5. COMMUNITY STRATEGY FRAMEWORK BUSINESS GOALS LAUNCH PLAN Content Plan Event Plan Promotion/Outreach Plan Member-to-Member Interaction METRICS/ROI SOCIAL MEDIA LANDSCAPE MEMBER NEEDS
6. 1) Business Goal What is your business objective? Boil it down to one sentence that gets to the core of your objective. Increase Sales Increase Brand Awareness Decrease Cost of Customer Service Co-creation of New Products Establish Yourself as a Thought Leader Better Search Results Provide Additional Information Educate Customers Enable Customers to Collaborate and Share Knowledge
7. 1- Business Goal (communities need a reason) King Research, June 2007
8. 1) Business Goal The business goal of PD 360 was to raise student achievement . They accomplished a lift of 11.3% improvement in student achievement through an online learning community for teachers with on demand professional development .
9. 1) Business Goal …know who you are, what type of online community would you be?
10. 2) Social Media Landscape What is Social Media Anyway?From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia At its most basic sense, social media is a shift in how people discover, read and share news, information and content. It's a fusion of sociology and technology, transforming monologues (one to many) into dialogues (many to many) and is the democratization of information, transforming people from content readers into publishers. Businesses also refer to social media as user-generated content (UGC) or consumer-generated media (CGM).
11. 2) Social Media Landscape What does social media look like? Where are your customers having conversations? Online Customer Communities
12. 2) Social Media Landscape How is your brand or the competition’s brand represented in the social ecosystem, where are there gaps, and what is your plan to position your brand accordingly? Search for Brand Mention Blog Pulse Technorati Delicious Google Blog Search Monitor Activity Levels Facebook MySpace YouTube Ning Flickr LinkedIn Competitive Analysis and Tracking
19. 3) Member Needs Analysis Share Knowledge: Explore ideas and participate in one-on-one private discussions or public group threads. Access actionable experienced-based solutions from like minds Connect With Peers: Network with one another to find exactly the individual you need who shares your passion. Combat isolation, share emotions and experience a sense of camaraderie. Access Tools:find resources that allow you to do your job better, shorten decision times, decrease risk
37. 4) Engagement Model What will you publish? Where will you publish? How often will you publish? Balance (content, events, 1:1, outreach) Integrate with traditional channels
40. 4) Engagement Model…plan for active readers or ‘lurkers’ Make it easier to contribute.Netflix lets users rate movies by clicking a star rating Make participation a side effect.For example, Amazon's "people who bought this book, bought these other books” Edit, don't create.Let users build their contributions by modifying existing templates rather than creating new Reward — but don't over-reward — participants.Don't give too much to the most active participants, or you'll simply encourage them to dominate the system even more. Promote quality contributors.Give extra prominence to good contributions Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox, October 9, 2006
41. 4) Engagement Model …promote quality contributors and create ways to spotlight good contributions Prepared by www.InnerCircleCommunities.com
43. 4) Engagement Model 3 Key Factors to Creating Community Atmosphere Quality, up to date content Clear objective value Strong moderation and facilitation The Host’s Role in Establishing Culture Recognize positive participation Solicit and respond to member feedback Communicate with members Takeaways Value statement Clear code of conduct Open lines of communication Host plays a visible role User experience/feature set tailored to audience Content – quality, relevant and up to date Acknowledge positive contribution Create welcoming culture. A welcomed member is more likely to come back, contribute and tell others
44. 4) Engagement Model …a moderator is instrumental in creating the culture Establish Rules Create Guidelines for Contributing Be Prepared to be a Bouncer at Times Prepared by www.InnerCircleCommunities.com
48. Affinity Group Chairs4) Engagement Model…build your bench of hosts or “creators” Prepared by www.InnerCircleCommunities.com
49. 4) Engagement Model…create awareness by highlighting members and promote/invite using traditional channels CIO Magazine has a monthly column highlighting interviews with their community members. This is a great way to drive membership and promote your community. Drive traffic from traditional channels to your community. Some members might want exposure. Prepared by www.InnerCircleCommunities.com
50. 4) Engagement Model…facilitate ways for introductions Member profiles reflect interests, activities and needs New members need a place to introduce themselves Prepared by www.InnerCircleCommunities.com
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52. Events offer members a chance to come together
53. Online or offline, maintain variety, keep it fresh
54. Leverage existing assets
55. Monthly member-led webinars, save the recordings
56. Target webinars for each affinity group, Q&A via discussions
58. Content, articles, research, white papers, podcastsPrepared by www.InnerCircleCommunities.com
59. 4) Engagement ModelCommunities Need Ways for Attendees to Pitch In Communities love to solve a problem They want to help, your community will give them a chance Prepared by www.InnerCircleCommunities.com
63. Running Start: How to Succeed in Your First 90 Days – collaborative project
64. Career Path Model – started as knowledge center content, then webinar
65. Business Continuity – started as knowledge center content, then webinar, then regional hosted event
66. Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) playbook, a how-to guide and resource to help CIOs better manage the SOX compliance processPrepared by www.InnerCircleCommunities.com
83. 5) Success Metrics/ROI Build an ROI set based on your dimensions of value. Include a mix of qualitative and quantitative… you don’t need a laundry list like below. Pick a few relevant ones. Unique Visitors New Member Registrations Page Views Retention/Attrition Member Loyalty Member Satisfaction Most Active Members Top Searches Message Posts Conversion Advertising Performance Influencer/Evangelism Identification Member Lifecycle First Time Contributors Content Rating Ratio: Unregistered to Registered Visitors Ratio: Page Views per Post Reputation Changes Ratio: Post per Thread Content Tagging Comments per Blog Post Ratio: Searches Per Post Podcasts and Video (links, uploads) Member Blog Posts Size of Networks/Buddy Lists Sales Customer service tickets Cost savings for customer service Tech support tickets Cost savings for tech support Product feedback for R&D Product trial downloads Mentions on other sites Ratios of comments per post Forum posts answers Average response time Referrals to community Renewals and upsells Participation in online tools User complaints # of users leaving / deleting accounts Leads provided to partners
85. Online Community Takeaways Trust and Respect Moderation : critical to entice lurkers to participate Ecosystem: strive for balance (content, events, interaction, and outreach) Profile: understand your groups, predict needs, and communicate appropriately Create Atmosphere or Community Culture: provide forums for group collaboration and small group interactions (chats, calls, member hosted events) Plan:Goals, metrics, outcomes and monetization Organizational Buy-In: leverage corporate assets Share: communicate what you learn with the organization Variety:keep it interesting, fresh content on front page (news, articles etc.) Heroes:pick heroes to benchmark your community against, not necessarily in your industry Prepared by www.InnerCircleCommunities.com
86. Social Media Takeaways Listen first Be respectful, human, considerate and passionate What is in it for your customer? If nothing, don’t bother. Community before commerce It is a cocktail party not a lecture Tolerate criticism Encourage personalities People congregate around relevance and value
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88. Do you feel socially fatigued? Bring it back to the basics Listen | Learn | Launch