motoraddicts - niche online social networking for passionates

Community Building For Passionates

Some Lessons from a Web 2.0

Community Marketing Project

Lee Bryant, June 2007, www.headshift.com

Passion + need --> use cases

• Tap into human need

• Amplify passion

• Start with real use cases

The Idea

• Don’t market passionates, let them tell you what they want

• Experiment in Social Networking

• Create the ‘best petrolhead community website’

• Content focussed: the (user’s) car is the star

• Allow members to share their passion, pictures and video

What does the site do ? BLOGS

What does the site do ? COMMENT & DISCUSSION

What does the site do ? GROUPS

Castrol PCO HQ

Swindon, UKHeadshift

London, UK

Castrol Project Manager

Istanbul, Turkey

BP Tech Marketing

New Jersey, USA

Castrol Marketing

New Jersey, USA

Important PCO

Sydney, AustImportant PCO

Cape Town, SA

Who was Behind the Build?

Working Together

The Motoraddicts project wiki allowed an international team to:

• Participate in discussionsand research

• Collaborate and developideas and documents

• Comment on designs

and early concepts

• Monitor development issues

as they are raised

• Involve a wide and diversegroup in decision making

• Overcome time differences

The Road to Launch - 1. Market Research

Comprehensive market research was undertaken with target group including :

• Ethnographic Research

• Mood boards

• Interviews

• Concept tests

• Defined technical features

• Created an independent site identity that worked

• Built v1 (Beta)

• Tested by conventional usability labs in both US/UK

The Road to Launch - 2. Develop Concepts

• Early champions (mix of Castrol employees and external PCO Passionates) started an ‘Insiders’ blog

to discuss concepts and ideas

• Group shown Beta Version for feedback

• Provided access to Beta Version for 2 months in order to populate with relevant content

The Road to Launch - 3. Beta Test

First Iterations - Version 1.1

Shaping for the Audience:

• Community Over Branding

• Content over Look and Feel

First Iterations - Version 1.2

• Increase Visual Representation of Conversational Activity

• Improve External Feeds / Integration

Motoraddicts Today - Version 1.3

• Design Dramatisation

• Time for Video

• Hosting Groups from the

Real World : Car Clubs

• Introduce Brand

Ambassadors to the Passionates

Motoraddicts Today and Tomorrow

Continue with constant monitoring andruthless pruning - if it is not loved, it goes

• Foster Engagement

• Increase Richness and Reach

• Motoraddicts as a Platform

• Tailrank and ‘Digg-like’ features

• Other public social features (e.g. wiki)

• Embracing Innovation: The World of Widgets

• Much debate on legal and brand issues

• What do you do when the community’s values are not in line with your brand values?

• We have gone for a very un-branded approach

• Light touch moderation driven by community

members, supported by a ‘daily sweep’ by contracted moderation company as a safety net

Key Issues: Moderation

• Constant balancing act between aspirational ‘editorial’ content and user content

• Editorial partners (Haymarket) are very close to

the ‘scene’ - encouraged to behave as content ambassadors and set topics and tone

• Challenge of keeping content on topic and avoid super users dominating at the expense of others

Key Issues: Content

Key Issues: Group Culture

Key Issues: Dealing with Passionate Super Users

Number of photos > = 1 EXC Mr X (2000)

Mr X

• Member X dominated site - over 50% of user content

• Balancing benefits of regular

contribution with community domination

• Introduced ‘Carotica’ to site which has become widespread

• Has now left the community

• Member Y insisted profile include video of the 9/11 terrorist attack in Manhattan and also the US Flag

• Advised that we would prefer him to contribute

content that reflected aims of site - cars

• Balance between moderation cost and ensuring integrity

and relevance of user community

Key Issues: Sensitive user issues

• Balance between a finished and unfinished design

• Finished enough to attract users

• Sufficiently unpolished to encourage amateur content contribution

• Lessons learnt from Myspace et al

Key Issues: Design Challenges

Key Issues: from Virtual to Real World and back again

Motoraddicts has landed in the real world...

• Motoraddicts stalls at key events - member sign up, speak to expert contributors

• Branding on sponsored cars

• Recruitment of brand ambassadors - Funk

Master Flex, Top Drivers

And is widening its virtual world net...

• Soon to appear in a video game near you

• Achieved targets set for 2006;on course for 2007

• BUT ... site has not reached critical mass

yet, so we need to accelerate its tipping point to achieve real success

• Success is not just about numbers, but also lessons learned and experience of this new way of working

Key Issues: Performance

• Social networking with passionates is more desirable than marketing to passionates

• Social tools can help grow a project outwards in

concentric circles from its initial core group

• Community is hard to build and easy to break

• Balancing active and passive user groups is tricky

• There is still a role for editorial and facilitation

• Rapid iteration is better than perfect concepts

• If it doubt, let the users decide

Learnings

For more information, please contact us here:

lee@headshift.com

http://www.headshift.com

Many thanks to the following Flickr photos made available under a Creative Commons license:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/katphotos/518524823/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/the-jedi/490259826/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/jvk/141843359/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/burningpaper/45614192/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/raeallen/82013539/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/nico/749582/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/grosminet/281852516/http://www.flickr.com/photos/lwr/199510603/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/jazza5629/492980965/ Regardless of the CC license, if any photographer objects to the inclusion of their material then we shall happily remove it

Thanks For Listening!