Building Web Communities That Add Value

Building Web Communities That Add Value Can organizations build better web communities with predictable success? David Terrar – D²C and WordFrame with contributions from: Dennis Howlett – AccMan & ZDNet Philip Woodgate – Goodman Jones

Agenda Why build communities? What motivates people to participate? What is ICAEW doing with ion? Other examples Success factors for community sites Can we build communities with predictable success? Conclusions and best practice Recommendations References

Why build communities? New Product Development Customer service Idea generation Market research Developer relations Amplifying Word of Mouth Employee communications General Marketing Reputation management Product testing Public relations LONG TAIL SALES PROJECT COLLABORATION Co-innovation Member networking Capturing Knowledge

What is a web community? An online community is an interactive group of people joined together by a common interest.

What motivates people to participate? Expressing themselves Support Listening Sharing Recognition Power The culture of the organization "Culture is a mealy-mouthed way of talking about power.“ - Euan Semple

Participation Inequality Jakob Nielsen’s 1-9-90 rule Diagram courtesy of http://www.useit.com/alertbox/participation_inequality.html

What is ICAEW doing with ion? http://www.ion.icaew.com

What is ICAEW doing with ion? http://www.ion.icaew.com/itcounts

What is ICAEW doing with ion? Winning awards: “Best New Web 2.0 Initiative” Web 2.0 Strategies 2008

Some other examples SocialMediaToday.com

Building a community User won't just come like Facebook What is the purpose? What's in it for me? Champions Teamwork Coherent technology framework Prepare to lose control Moderation guidelines Community manager needed Corporate standards Not just bottom up

Content and community management Seed the community Need professional content Engage professionals and be prepared to pay Need the community manager acting like a party host Content guidelines Help, support, videos, livechat Focus on what the users want Marketing is vital

Success factors for community sites Speed of adoption Number of active users Number of posts Number of comments

Life cycle of a successful community

Can we build communities with predictable success? The more CONTENT you have the more MEMBERS you will get. The more MEMBERS you have the more CONTENT you will get. The better you match CONTENT and MEMBERS to MEMBER PROFILES the more MEMBERS and CONTENT you will get.

Community best practices BEST Clear goals + purpose Right talent Commitment + time Topic engenders passion Social + communal WORST Start with technology Marketing “campaign” Mixing business/consumer motives No facilitation Metrics vs. business measures

Conclusions The Technology Infrastructure of the community is important The Social Infrastructure of the community is MORE important

Recommendations Recognise it will be hard work Focus on usability Community manager needed, and they have to act like a party host Content, content, content Basic marketing e.g. email key posts Brand advertising and incentives don't work Use available resources e.g. Wikipatterns Coherent technology is important People and culture more important Make sure the key stakeholders involved understand new marketing Make sure they understanding social networks by using some and getting their hands dirty

Key take away from Enterprise 2.0 Conference 2008 Boston

Recommended reading Meatball Sundae: Is Your Marketing out of Sync? – Seth Godin

References Tribalization of business study 2008 Francois Gossieaux http://www.emergencemarketing.com/2008/04/24/2008-tribalization-of-business-study-preliminary-results/ Online Community Best Practices Jeremiah Owyang http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2008/03/14/online-community-best-practices-slideshare-and-zero-cost-publishing/ Wikipatterns Stewart Mader and friends http://www.wikipatterns.com/display/wikipatterns/Wikipatterns http://ikiw.org

Contact details David Terrar CEO - D²C Limited and Executive Director - ITBrix / WordFrame p: +44 (0)1727 838285 (direct) m: +44 (0)7715 159423 e: [email_address] and [email_address] w: www.d2c.org.uk and www.wordframe.com skype: david_terrar twitter: DT linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/davidterrar blog: http://biztwozero.com

Building Web Communities That Add Value

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