How can you create a successful community? How do you approach people to become active members of your community? How do you make sure you enter into a dialogue with your members? Thousands of community owners, marketers or consultants are trying to find answers to these questions.
There are no simple answers. There are very few studies and analyses related to this topic. An interesting one is “The 2008 Tribalization of Business”, a survey which has been conducted by Deloitte, Beeline Labs, and the Society for New Communications Research. They measured responses of more than 140 organizations, B2B, B2C, and non-profits which have created and manage online communities.
So, what is the greatest value of online communities?
The greatest value of online communities is increasing word of mouth (35%), increasing brand awareness (28%), bringing new ideas into the organization faster (24%) and increasing customer loyalty (24%).
The study showed that the greatest obstacles to making community work are not technology-related or getting funding, but getting people involved in the community (51%), finding enough time to manage the community (45%), and attracting people to the community (34%).
What I liked to read was that the main motivation drivers in a community are: people giving and getting help. The main drivers to community effectiveness according to the study are:
- Ability for community members to connect with other like-minded people: 54%
- Ability for members to help others: 43%
- The community is focused around a hot topic or issue: 41%
- Quality of the community manager/community management team: 33%
Further, they share their eight emerging best practices to consider then setting up a community:
1. Start with the end in mind: Be aware of your business strategy and your purpose.
2. Focus on the value to the members: Make sure you are really serving their needs and know what motivates your members.
3. Don’t start with the technology: “Too often people get drunk with Web 2.0 tool excitement and then try to push their business and customer goals into the wrong tool.”
4. Keep it simple and intuitive: Make it easy to navigate.
5. Keep it fresh and active: Constantly add content and create excitement in your community.
6. Have dynamic community leaders: Make sure you have some leaders in the community. Avoid to control the community.
7. Think through who to involve – or not: Ensure commitment from top management and help from other sides but keep them out of active management.
8. Get a passionate core of participants active before launching: Make sure you have a critical mass of passionate users before you launch.
You find more details on the study here.
