Building Sustainable Corporate Web Communities

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 serviceIdea generation

Market research Developer relations

Amplifying Word of Mouth

Employee communications

General Marketing

Reputation management Product testing

Public relationsLONG 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?

http://www.ion.icaew.com/itcounts

What is ICAEW doing with ion?

• Web 2.0 Strategies 2008 - “Best New Web 2.0 Initiative”

• Shortlisted Accountancy Age - “Best Use of the Internet - Business”

Some other examplesSocialMediaToday.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

Not in support of any goal…

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/– http://www.nevillehobson.com/2008/10/09/fir-interview-francois-gossieaux-on-tribalization-of-business/

• Online Community Best Practices– Jeremiah Owyang– http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2008/03/14/online-community-best-practices-slideshare-and-zero-cost-p

ublishing/

• Wikipatterns

– Stewart Mader and friends– http://www.wikipatterns.com/display/wikipatterns/Wikipatterns – http://ikiw.org

Contact details

David TerrarCEO - D²C Limitedand Executive Director - ITBrix / WordFrame

p: +44 (0)1727 838285 (direct)m: +44 (0)7715 159423

e: dt@d2c.org.uk and david@wordframe.com w: www.d2c.org.uk and www.wordframe.com skype: david_terrartwitter: DTlinkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/davidterrar blog: http://biztwozero.com