Marketing Research Online Communities (MROCs) are more and more prevalent. But how do they work? That's what this presentation endeavors to explain, in a "rough" kind of way. This was presented to students at Said Business School, Oxford in June 2010.

1. A Rough Guide to Online Research Communities and Community Management

2. WHAT IS AN ONLINE COMMUNITY?

3. Anonline community is a website in which a group of people with a common interest or goal come together tosocialize, interact, voice their opinions&complete tasks in orderto gain rewards – both physical and virtual.

5. Ok, that’s all well and good but, what is an online research community and what does it do?

6. An online research community uses the social elements, and web 2.0 tools, of an organic online community and focuses them on a research brief.

7. Research communities are private. Participants are selected via their demographics, interests and relevant criteria for individual projects. All research communities have a goal that users will work on their own, and with other users, to achieve. To achieve the goal tasks will be set for users to complete. Tasks take on different formats and will ask users different questions relating to the overall objective. When the project is finished users are rewarded for participating.

8. What is a Task? A task is a question/project/challenge you set your community members to complete. Making tasks interesting, engaging and practical is vital to making sure your community is successful. What is a Task Plan? A task plan consists of a set of tasks that you are going to ask your community members to complete of the course of the project. A task plan makes it clear to users what they’re being asked to do & gives community managers guidelines dictating what they need to gain from the research..

9. How Do Online Research Communities Work?

10. There are 6 different roles in an Online Research Community: 1) Clients 2) The Research Team 3) The Community Managers 4) The Technical Team 5) The Recruitment Team 6) Users

11. Client Has Brief Client Speaks to Agency About Brief Agency Recommends Research Communities to Fulfill Brief Client Agrees Agency Briefs Research Team Research Team Take Control of the Project and Brief Technical Team, Recruitment Team, and Community Managers Recruitment Team screen and recruit suitable users Technical Team make sure websites are fully functional & bug free Research Team write community task plan Community Managers assist all teams and understand all aspects When all these tasks are complete everything gets handed over to the community managers and the community can begin

12. The Research Team liaise with clients and feedback to CM, they also change the task plan with CMs input. The CM reports all bugs and issues to the Technical Team who solve issues and report back to CM. The Community Manager looks after the community helping users with problems and liaising with all other teams. CMs also look for general insights and themes. The CM reports all inactive users to the Recruitment Team who chases them up, recruitment can also help with user issues. The Client Team view the community and feedback to the Research Team & the CM with suggestions and changes

13. The Recruitment Team check users participation and with the input of the community managers decide who will & who won’t receive rewards The Technical Team receive users feedback on the technology and with the community managers decide changes to the platform The Community Managers feedback the insights and themes they found within the community to the research team After the community finishes The Research Team analyze the results and pull together their thoughts and ideas The Research Team and Community Managers report findings back to the client The client is happy The project finishes

14. How To Manage an Online Research Community http://www.pilkipedia.co.uk/wiki/images/1/18/Gareth1.jpg

15. Managing an Online Research Community is all about balance. You are the voice of the community when speaking to the Research Team and the clients. But you are also the voice of the clients and the Research Team when interacting with users. It’s up to you to make sure that the brief is fulfilled and, at the same time, users remain informed and happy.

16. Top 5 Tips for Managing an Online Research Community 1) Listen 2) Know Your Audience 3) Be Human 4) Stick To Your Guns 5) Reward Responsibly

17. Allowing users to be creative delivers better results. If you want users to be creative you have to be creative as well. If you ask a simple question, you will get a simple answer, but that will only get you so far. If you are clever with your task plan then you will reap the rewards. Allowing users to express themselves visually produces exciting output. Encouraging Creative Thought

18. Visual Content Has A Massive Impact, It Brings Users, Opinions & Ideas To Life.

19. The Future of Online Research Communities

20. from insight to concept...

21. Thank You All For Listening & Taking Part In Project Vernors

22. please fire any questions to me: matthew@facegroup.co.uk@mattsimpson1985 www.facegroup.co.uk