building an online community: strategy, launch, engagement, growth
DESCRIPTION
Building an Online Community: Strategy, Launch, Engagement, Growth. Presented at Enterprise 2.0, Boston, June 19, 2012TRANSCRIPT
Building an Online Community –
from Strategy, Planning and Launch to
Effective Engagement and Adoption
Catherine Shinners
Our Conversation Today• Why communities matter-A macro economic perspective
• Community principles and dynamics
• Four stages of community
Inception
• Strategy and Planning
• Business strategy alignment
• Community business model
• Community architecture
• Critical success factors
Establishment
Growth
Maturity
• Case Study
Asset value transition
3
Changing asset baseOver two decades, intangible assets became key drive of economy
Networked Organization
4
Market Share Gains
Operating Margins
Market Leadership
Closer customer relationships
Customer support
Product development
Collaboration with partners
Agile decision-making
Empowered teams
The rise of the networked enterprise: Web 2.0 finds its payday,McKinsey report No. 22, Spring 2011
Communities – exploiting the long tail
5
The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More, Anderson, C. , 2006
Community Principles
Communities have a lifecycle
Communities havea unique set of dynamics
Participation
value is
achieved
through
participation
Community dynamics
Collectivecreated &
expanded from
wide
contributions
Emergence
value emerges
from collective
interactionsPersistence
contributions
captured for
sharing,
viewing
Independent
engagement
anytime,
anyplace, at
will
Transparency participants see
each other’s
contributions
The Social Organization: How to use social media to tap the collective genius of customer and employee, Bradley, A., , McDonald, M., Harvard Business Press, 2011
Community Lifecycle
Inception Establishment Growth Maturity
•High value content sparks engagement
• Comm. Mgr. direct outreach, initiates discussions, prompts response, relationship building, seeks interaction to content
• Program of online events – forums, expert bloggers, original content
•Growing sense of community
•Regular communications
• Social media channel engagement
•Recruit volunteers
•Survey, poll members
•Recognition programs
•Promote community
•Advanced analytics
• Higher levels of interaction , engagement
• Community sense of shared history, achievements
• Volunteer-led activities
• Advancement in UX, platform, metrics, analytics
• Community more self-sustaining
• Subgroup, affinity group formation
•Reformation of purpose
A life-cycle perspective on online community success, Iriberri, A ., Leroy, G., ACM Computing Surveys, Volume 41 Issue 2, February 2009
Stage 1: Inception
•Engage and education stakeholders
•Identify strategic business alignment
•Plan for inception & establishment
•Determine critical success factors and KPIs for
early phases
•Lay groundwork & infrastructure for growth and
maturity phases
Business Strategy Alignment
• Customer engagement and loyalty
– Obtain feedback and information on customer needs & requirements
– Improve customer service
• Visibility and reputation
– Improve or enhance reputation
– Increase access to expert knowledge
– Exchange information with credible sources
• Productivity
– Increase quality of knowledge & advice
– Increase idea creation
– Enhance problem solving
– Accelerate new business and product innovation
– Save time during information seeking and sharing
• Employee communication & trust
– Better understanding & alignment across organizations
– Increase level of trust
10
External Facing Internal Facing
Inception
Community Business Model
Competitive Strategy
Position in value
network
Revenue Impact
Value Chain
Market Segment
Value PropositionBeing involved in this community is important to me because…
Customers or prospects, partners or employees. Market segment(s), targeted level (CXO, leaders, end users etc)
Expert curation > original content > topical forums > showcase customer leadership > demonstrates commitment to customer
Differentiation, customer loyalty, satisfaction, underserved segment, disruptive potential, product insight
Identify how the community is aligned with business initiatives or strategic engagements or programs
Enhance customer loyalty, accelerate opportunity with partners, give access to expertise, value to product or support.
Inception
Community Architecture
•Original content
•Expert curation
•Regular, online events
•Targeted discussions
•Promoting trending topics
Community Management
Facilitates, stewards daily interactions Manages volunteers
Face of community, promotes community Monitor, measure, report
Evangelizes , recruits internal , external advocates Define, refine strategy, outcomes
Content & Events
Programming
• Social media
engagement & promotion
• Regular member
communications
• Marketing strategy
(online, partners)
•Compelling, evolving UX
•KPIs, Benchmarks
•Identify, manage tools
•Educating stakeholders
• Metrics reports for
humans
Governance
Terms & Conditions Company PoliciesExecutive Sponsor Legal, IT, HR
Social Media,
Marketing,
Communications
Platform, UX
Analytics ,
Operations
Inception
Critical Success Factors
• Effective education of stakeholders
• Identify executive sponsor
• Resourced for lifecycle and business strategy success
– Community manager, social media manager, content specialists, analytics talent
– Content and programs: Plans and budgets for events, content development, content curation, recognition programs
– Communications and marketing plan in place
– Metrics: tools, services to analyze effective performance
• Governance model alignment with larger organization
• Technology and user experience attuned to targeted community
13
Inception
Stage 2:
14
Establishment
• Cultivate, facilitate along spectrum of engagement
• Identify leaders, influencers
• Recognition, volunteer programs
• Regular cadence of events, programs, communications
• Refine resource requirements for growth
• Internal and external advocacy
• Partnerships in place
• Active cycle of engagement
• Analytics, metrics aligned with purpose, relevant to
management
• Benchmarking, active listening
Cycle of Engagement
Custom content research = Unique
news & resource discovery
Ongoing content refresh = Increased site traffic + Newsworthy SM activities
Social media interactivity = Additional content discovery + credible voice
Featured leadership voices + topics of
the day = people like me
New interactive technologies = modeling collaboration & SM use
Promotions, SM communications,= stimulated community engagement + new members
Community Management, Content, UX , Original Programming
Social Media, Communications
Establishment
Stage 3:
• Shared sense of history, ownership in community
• Community management, content and events program still strong
• Varied, tiered volunteer program – empowered leaders
• Affinity group formation
• UX and analytic evolves with sophistication of community engagement
16
Growth
Stage 4:
• Robust level of subgroup, affinity group formation
• Increasingly self-sustaining interaction
• Evaluate purpose-mission –tune or repurpose
17
Maturity
Case Study• Business benefit - visibility and
reputation
• Segment – education leaders and innovators
• Purpose – foster peer-to-peer leadership dialogue – education innovation
• Expert curation, original content, events, featured luminaries
• Recognition program
• Customer UX oriented at education leader segment
Public Service of Cisco
Inception
Know Your Leaders Inception
Using Social Media for
Public Service of Cisco
Establishment
A Focus on Community Building
Awareness and global reach – new members
Engage with and facilitate leader conversations
Drive participation and community engagement
Advance sense of connection for leaders
Better understand community needs – active listening
Establishment
Awareness, Reach Recruitment
Awareness
Global Reach
Engage new members
• LinkedIn Group
– Promoting events, content
– Bring content to relevant discussion groups
– Email through LI - campaigns to bring in your
members
– Targeted, focused outreach to influencers,
leaders, innovators
– Meet and greet – call to action to join
– Targeted ads to leaders with geo expansion
– Global content, commentary
Establishment
Community Connection
Engagement
Participation
Active listening
Authentic voice
– Listen & participate in relevant domain groups
– Monitor expert discussions
– Calls to action to community events
programming
– Monitor domain #hashtags for trending topics
– Participate in #hashtag live chats
– Promotion of community events, content
• YouTube
– Great, original content featuring peer leaders
Establishment
Community Engagement
Be an
authentic,
active
participant in
the
conversation
You have to
be engaged
to get
engagement
• Focus, target outreach at members level,
quality engagement peer-to-peer
• Actively participate in conversations, bring
great content, cultivate authentic stance
• Bring new experiences – help them
become more adept
• Innovate, experiment, display leadership
Establishment
Value Metrics for Community
A New
Framework for
Measuring
Results in
Social Media
Jeremiah Owyang &
John Lovett, The
Altimeter Group, 2010
• KPIs
– Audience Engagement
– Share of Voice
– Advocate Influence
– Idea Impact
– Sentiment Ratio
• Benchmarking
• Test-experiment with tools, frameworks
Growth
Catherine Shinners
PresidentMerced Group
Palo Alto, CA and Cambridge, MA
blog: www.collaboration-incontext.com
www.mercedgroup.com
www.linkedin.com/catherineshinners
@catshinners
Skype: CatherinePaloAlto
Social Business Strategic Consultingand Enterprise 2.0 Services