Left: One of the 5 diagrams from the report: Successful online communities experience the following stages.
I spent a few months researching and preparing for this two-piece report series. I’m proud of my deliverable on Online Community Best Practices. Like a term paper, this report is based off research, interviews, insight, and data. I interviewed over 17 people (many community leaders that you know) to find out the commonalities between successful communities.
Many of you are new to analyst reports, (myself included) the document is written in a very succint, actionable, and clear way, and every line is defensible , as it’s based off findings. This blog, while sometimes has elements of a report, has more opinion and topics based off my sole experience rather than the research of industry leaders.
Here’s the executive summary of the Online Community Best Practices
Online Community Best Practices
Communities Are A Powerful Tool, As Long As You Put Members’ Needs First“An online community is an interactive group of people joined together by a common interest. It’s also one of the most powerful tools a marketer can deploy for customer retention, word of mouth, and customer insight. To host a successful community, think of it as you would product development: Start by focusing on objectives, chart a road map, assemble the right team, and plan to be flexible. Then build your success by launching the community with the backing of your most enthusiastic customers and staying engaged as the community grows. Above all, remember that control is in the hands of the members, so put their needs first, build trust, and become an active part of the community.”
While the report is only available for Forrester clients (like your company has products, this is ours) I can share with you some findings that seem to be a problem for everyone. First of all, many companies have a hard time being successful with their community if they want to control it too tight. The most successful companies let go of the control and acted more like a host, rather than a policeman. Secondly, many companies had a hard time kick-starting a community, just because you build it, doesn’t mean they’ll come.
If you’re a Forrester client, you can access the full report at the Forrester site. Please leave a comment on the site with your feedback, or on this blog. Essentially, I’m like a product manager, and I hold my customer opinions very closely, if you’ve further questions, I’d be happy to talk further.
Here are some of the companies that I interviewed, ACDSee, AirTran Airways, Ant’s Eye View (Jake McKee), Avenue A | Razorfish, Carnival Cruise Lines, Charles and Helen Schwab Foundation, Cnet TechRepublic, Constant Contact, Dogster, Intuit, Leverage Software, Microsoft, MySpace.com, Organic, Reuters AdvicePoint, SATMetrics, Telligent Systems, and you’ll even note that I credited Shel Israel for his definition of communities, I spearheaded this conversation on this blog, and in twitter. Each of these folks that were interviewed will receive a copy, stay tuned for an email.
Update: The report spread fast, really fast. Just a few hours after this post, one of the top German luxury car manufactures has requested a meeting today, to talk about online communities.
Jeremiah –
Not to take the conversation in too far of a different direction, but I like the marketing aspect of what you just did. You’ve used the site to build an active following and for many old-school “info-media” companies done something anathema: given “content” away for free (your posts).
Coming from one of those old-school info-media companies that struggles with this type
It’s certainly been said before, but these types of activities (community building, free content) are going to be the future of marketing for many companies. Moving beyond the canned whitepaper or brutal cold-calling, customers are going to flock to companies that provide value as part of the conversation that results in a sale. These companies that paradoxically give things away are going to reap the benefits in increased sales.
Out of curiosity – it’d be neat to see if your report’s two week sales outperform other new report’s over the same period (two weeks post launch).
-Tony
Hallo Sonya,
sind wir zufällig Kunde von Forrester?
Viele Grüße
Susanne
The Market Research SIG of the Washington, DC chapter of the American Marketing Association is considering a brown bag lunch about online communities. Would you or someone else from Forrester be available to share findings or provide a few case studies about success stories?
The DC Chapter of the American Marketing Association has a Market Research Special Interest Group. In the coming year, we would like to host a brown bag or evening session about online communities for about 50 people. Would you or someone else from Forrester be able to present findings or case studies in such a forum?
With respect to ROI, one of the great “soft” returns I usually point out are ways to move the needle in the right direction when it comes to colleague engagement. Many companies are struggling with poor Gallup scores year-over-year, and just engaging the workforce through community sites (social networks, blog/discussion forums, idea management sites, wikis) can be a great (and low-cost) way to increase engagement.