think visibility 2012: building online communities on wordpress
DESCRIPTION
In this presentation I talk through how to build a community using Wordpress. There are a few considerations to think about - freeium vs paid for model, content strategy, membership options and which plugins to use. 2 years ago we set up http://www.onlandscape.co.uk/ which is an online community / magazine for landscape photographers.TRANSCRIPT
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Create a Community Using Wordpress
Email: [email protected]: www.optimumexposure.co.ukBlog: www.charlottebritton.co.ukLinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/charlottebritton Twitter: http://twitter.com/charlottebritto
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What do you want to get out of this session?
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What will be covered?
42.6% of UK consumers buy something online at least once a week
• Social media & online communities
• Using Wordpress as a platform for building online communities
• Setting up community & building
• Example: On Landscape
• Questions
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Future of Social Media
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Online Communities – Why?
• It’s not blogging, tweeting or posting content on Facebook for the sake of it
• Building an online community around your brand / organisation is key
• It’s not about your business, it’s about your customers
• It’s about engaging with your audience / customers
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What is AN Online Community?
Where a group of people with similar goals or interests connect and
exchange information using web tools.
(source: Jeremiah Owyang)
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Example Of Online Community
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Paid for vs Freemium Models• You need to create value in your content
• Can’t just be blog posts
• Niche content is vital
• Needs to be content users want to read, not what you want to tell them
• Go for a more magazine style with specific dates for releasing the next issue
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Extension or Stand Alone• Is the community an extension of an
existing business (e.g. ecommerce site growing fan base via content)
Or
• Stand alone model (Brand Yorkshire or On Landscape)
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Paid for or Free?• Need to have value in content for people
to pay for membership
• Need to have balance of free vs paid for content to entice people in
• Membership – what will the market tolerate? Monthly, 6 monthly or yearly
• Need to build business model around community
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Research Niche Market• Start engaging in the existing forums /
blogs to understand the market
• Need someone with the knowledge to converse / respond
• Build up profile, so a trusted source in other forums / blogs
• Understand competitors, complete SWOT analysis & design content & functionality
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Niche Content• What content get comments on other
forums / blogs
• What style of writing works?
• Balance video, MP3 & written content
• Guest authors
• Crowdsource content
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Subscriptions / Register• Manage subscriptions & content
• Need to define membership levels
• Free content for SEO & to hook people in
• Free content is your sales pipeline
• Align this with payment (if you’re making it a paid for model)
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Subscriptions / Register
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Plugins for Membership• Have used Your Members initially
• Migrated over to S2 Members plugin
• Similar functionality but improved technical support
• Use plugin that integrated with Buddypress
• Learnings: use best plugin, don’t just go for a plugin that’s got good reviews & developed locally
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Search Engine Optimisation• SEO is a key way to promote community
to target audience
• Ensure free articles are optimised for specific related terms
• Design content that is around key phrases & content that is around hot topics
• Yoast or Wordpress SEO is good plugin
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Email Sign up• Integrate with email subscription so can
email people when new issue is released
• Key way to drive comments / interactions
• Campaign monitor or Mail Chimp are good platforms to use which have Wordpress integration
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Growing Community• Blog with good interactions is a
community in the lowest sense
• Don’t launch forum or other functionality until grown interactions
• Use Twitter, Facebook & other forums as source of growing awareness.
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Growing Community
• Free content is important way to engage & drive visitors
• One article drove 4,000 visitors from US photography forum
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Growing Community• BuddyPress plugin integrates with
membership plugins and enables additional functionality:
• Groups
• Extended profiles
• Private messaging
• Forums
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Optimise Wordpress• Need to ensure server can handle large
volumes of traffic
• Caching is important – especially when 1 article can get many visitors
• Server – invest in the best you can afford
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Skills for Online Community • Wordpress Development & design skills
• Content writing – need someone with knowledge of niche market & can write
• Moderation & community curation – need to be able to weave & drive conversations
• Social media – know how to drive conversations through Twitter & Facebook
• SEO – to optimise free content
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OnLandscape – next steps
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Rounding UP• Think about if community is stand alone
or extension to existing business
• Niche good content is vital
• Issue release or continual flow of content
• Think about free vs premium & business model
• How grow visitors into community
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Thanks for you time..Any further questions?
Email: [email protected]: www.optimumexposure.co.ukBlog: www.charlottebritton.co.ukLinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/charlottebritton Twitter: http://twitter.com/charlottebritto