publications

Developing an Online Community

by Dave Wilkins and Drew Darnbrough

In the relatively short time since it became available to the masses, the Internet has connected more than 1.5 billion people and profoundly changed our world. For businesses, the most significant results have been immediate access to a wealth of knowledge and the advent of new business models. Today, the latest incarnation of the Internet—the social Web—gives people and business instantaneous access to shared brainpower, feedback and insight through live interaction.

The social Web emerged out of a belief in the power of collective intelligence—the certainty that knowledge expands as more people are exposed to it, and that such exposure improves the original information or idea, thus benefiting everyone.

The transparency and openness involved in online social media can terrify traditional business leaders. But consider the benefits of allowing people to provide more diverse insight about your business: better product research, reduced development costs and enhanced brand visibility through word-of-mouth marketing. In these cases, social media can be a catalyst for companies looking to provide better support to their customers, open the channels of communication and build brand loyalty through direct connections with target buyers.

Many of the world’s biggest, most well-known brands are already actively using social media and online communities to strengthen and grow their businesses, particularly in this shaky global economy. For example:

• Ford Motor Company uses online discussion forums to support the owners of their voice-activated, in-car Sync system for mobile phones and digital music devices, dramatically reducing their support costs while simultaneously creating a powerful market research channel.
• Amway launched a member-driven community called MyBestSize to enable its global Independent Business Owners (IBOs), consumers and employees to connect, inspire and motivate those interested in weight loss or weight management.
• The American Automobile Association’s Mid-Atlantic territory is creating online communities for both its employees and members. Internally, they are aiming to foster an open and transparent workplace by enabling associates to have a more direct connection with executives, and to drive innovation from the collective intelligence of the workforce. The external member community is focused on increasing customer awareness of AAA’s products and services, improving satisfaction by making customer information more readily accessible and extending market reach to Generation Y customers in the 18–27 age group.

Through social media and social networking technologies such as discussion forums, blogs, podcasts and social profiles, these leading companies and many more like them are improving fundamental business processes and operations by embracing the collective intelligence and expertise of not just their own workforce, but their customers and prospects as well.

Why should you implement an online community?
Social media and community solutions allow you to complement, broaden and expand your existing approach to business processes—from market research and product innovation to brand building and customer outreach—by letting you connect directly with your target audiences through interactive technologies. Some of the other common reasons why companies develop online communities include:

• Brand building: To build stronger relationships with various constituents.
• Innovation: To leverage the collective insight, wisdom and creativity of customers, prospects, partners and employees.
• Event management: From user groups and sales meetings to television events like the Academy Awards, a community helps to create bonds and share information that make the live event more successful.
• Market research: Through a robust series of programs using various social media applications, members get to know the company and each other.

Network provider Ciena Corporation, for example, recently launched a community exclusively for members of their BizConnect global partner program. The community enables participants to benefit from online knowledge-sharing and makes it easier to do business with Ciena. According to Bill Rozier, the company’s vice president of global marketing, "It became apparent that we can benefit from new, innovative ways of effectively communicating with our key partners to enhance those relationships." By fostering an ongoing, open dialogue with partners, Ciena hopes to enhance partner satisfaction and empower them to compete in high-growth markets.

Dell’s IdeaStorm is a well-known example of a product innovation community in action. By asking their customers for ideas (and listening to them), Dell is:

• Generating insights into how they can better serve constituents.
• Building a captive audience of highly motivated consumers.
• Creating new ideas to fuel growth.

Making an online community work for you
First, don’t think about an online community as a technology implementation. Technology obviously plays an important role in your community, but to ensure your success, you should follow these steps:

1. Develop an overall community strategy.
2. Map that strategy to a specific set of social media applications.
3. Develop a plan for both content moderation and member engagement.
4. Measure your success.

Key to your community’s success is determining the right mix of social media applications, programs, and content for your specific goals and business processes. Begin by developing an understanding of the various social media applications available to you. Ensuring that you’ve mapped the most appropriate blend of social media applications to your business processes can help you and your members facilitate more conversations and easily share information.

Having community tools in place doesn’t mean members will magically appear and keep coming back. You need to build a plan to both moderate content and engage your members. Moderation involves designating people to review flagged content, particularly for brand-sensitive fields such as health care or politics. Member engagement focuses on planning and facilitating activities to keep your members involved in the community. Communities depend on interactions (through webinars, surveys, newsletters, etc.) to keep member interest high. In designing a programming strategy, it’s critical that you consider member needs and develop program visibility several months in advance.

With the right planning and the right applications in place, you can develop a community that will complement and enhance your business—and help you transform your traditional approaches to marketing, product development and customer outreach into open, transparent, and ultimately, financially rewarding experiences.

Dave Wilkins is senior director of product strategy, and Drew Darnbrough is senior marketing manager of Mzinga, a provider of social software solutions for learning, marketing and customer support. Dave can be reached at or on Twitter at @dwilkinsnh. Drew can be reached at .