Many organizations are involved with online community building activities, but few consider implications of their online communities on making their business more "green", or even better, more sustainable.
The case can be made that online community building activities support the three key areas of Sustainable Development:
Sustainable development is a pattern of resource use that aims to meet human needs while preserving the environment so that these needs can be met not only in the present, but in the indefinite future.
... The field of sustainable development can be conceptually broken into three constituent parts: environmental sustainability, economic sustainability and sociopolitical sustainability.
While I don't propose that online communities can magically transform organizations into sustainability superstars, but I do think there is a case to be made that online communities can help support a more sustainable enterprise for many companies. Let's take a look at each constituent category that makes up sustainable development:
I believe that online community professionals should hook onto the "green" juggernaut, especially in three ways:
- Anyone involved with corporate green strategy should include an online community strategy;
- Anyone developing online community metrics should include carbon savings as an indicator;
- Anyone marketing online communities should speak to their "green" qualities.
I asked for examples (via Twitter) of communities focused on green and sustainable development issues, and John Kembel, CEO of HiveLive was kind enough to forward a couple of his favorite examples of Green / Sustainability communities:
Ryan Martens (CTO of Rally -- rallydev.com) is a strong proponent of
greening the software industry through Agile + Community. See http://agilecommons.org/hives/6997a8ec6a/summary
E.g., using community to directly engage customers and involve them in
the software dev process rids companies of the 60% wasted development
in most apps (mostly because the conversation between product manager
and customer isn't tight enough). And they're doing lots of things as
a company in addition to promoting agile and using community.
2. Economic
There are a few obvious (and myriad not so obvious) economic benefits to firms engaging in community building activities, from the proven cost-reduction of support forums to the idea generation of innovation communities like My Starbuck Idea and Dell's Ideastorm. Online communities can be sources of tremendous value, and the value-creation happens in much more sustainable way (low environmental impact, source of value is easily replenished) than other processes like manufacturing of consumer goods.
3. Sociopolitical / Social Capital Development
The sociopolitical implications of online communities have inspired many an academic journal article, and the possible benefits range from a more transparent and representative government to supporting human rights worldwide. Online communities (and more generally, social media) allow for identity, sharing and connection at scales we haven't previously seen. As the world becomes smaller by being more connected, the connected individual (arguably) becomes more empowered. Specific examples of the sociopolitical implications of online communities range from social capital created and exchanged via Facebook, the mix of social and real capital that support the developing world on Kiva.org, or the potential for change that many hope for with the beginings of Change.gov .
It's Time to Consider Sustainability
The concept of thinking about online communities and social media through the lens of sustainable development is a nascent one, but given what is at stake, it's one who's time has come.
Quoting again from Jim's "Online Communities Are Green" post
We've always tried to cast our arguments for online communities in black and white. It's time to use a bit more green.
I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts, feedback and examples.
If you are interested in discussing this topic in person, as well as other issues related to sustainability and environmental concerns in the enterprise, please consider joining us for the Green Enterprise Unconference on December 3rd in Mountain View, CA.
Unfortunately, there has been a lot of very grim economic news of late. The purpose of this post isn't to give an overview of the current economic situation, but rather to highlight possible implications of a slower economy on business, and by extension, on online community budgets. More importantly, I want to start a discussion about Community Managers can help their community's survive and thrive during the downturn.
We have seen this cycle before, and relatively recently. When the web 1.0 bubble burst, many "community"-based startups ceased to exist, and spending on online community development in the enterprise all but dried up. From personal experience, most of the community initiatives at Autodesk were suspended in the closing months of 2001, and we shifted focus to our discussion groups and some customer-generated content activities.
What was different with Community 2.0?
By late 2004 and early 2005, key changes in in the marketplace, in organizations attitudes and in customer (user / people online / etc) behavior led to an explosive growth of social media, use of social networking and increased online community building activities by many organizations.
Key factors were (IMHO, I won't list all):
• Cost of platforms dramatically decreased, and in some cases fell to zero
• Consumer and workplace broadband reached ~100% penetration
• Consumers accepted less formal content, trust in "people like me" exceeded authoritities
• A certain segment of the group formerly known as "the audience" decided they wanted to actively create, participate and connect
• Many companies started to accept and practice the principals outlined in the Cluetrain Manifesto, and in the many key books, blogs and conference that followed, evangelizing the metaphor of conversation
Things Were Going So Well, What Happened?
Earlier this year, we started to hear significant rumblings from wall street that things were not ok, particularly with the credit markets. Over the last two weeks, the markets have been in turmoil. Many organizations are seeing the dark shadow of a recession. Some argue we are already there. One thing is clear: most organizations have shifted to a more conservative outlook for 2009.
As organizations take a more sober look at the last quarter of 2008 and make projections for 2009, there are some likely implications for online community programs:
• Budgets will likely shrink
• Headcount will likely be frozen
• Positions may be consolidated (merging of roles)
• Layoffs may happen
• It will be harder to upgrade / make improvements to infrastructure
• Pressure will increase quickly and dramatically for some articulation of value
• Programs may be cut back
• In extreme cases, some community programs may be abandoned
Thriving in the Downturn
I want to be very clear here: I don't think the global economic circumstances mean gloom and despair for the entire online community sector. The circumstances for Community 2.0 that I outlined above still generally hold true, and I still believe most organizations can create real value by engaging in online community activity. Signs that interest in online community is still high are all around. For instance, demand for qualified community managers and strategists is at an all time high (even though we are starting to see the first hints of staff reduction).
However, I do think that Community Managers have some work to do in order to navigate some of the potential challenges I outlined above. I've outlined the following tactics that can help (and I'd love to here your suggestions via the comments).
• Focus on Defining / and Reporting Value
In order for your community strategy to be sustainable, you need to be able to articulate value back to the organization. This value has to be articulated, at least in part, in the cultural language of your organization. In some organizations, it's all about impact to customer loyalty, it some organizations, this value is growing an audience (member registrations). You will likely wind up with a report that is a mosaic of quantitative and qualitative sources. We've studied this issue in the Online Community Research Network, and you can see a report excerpt here:
Online Community ROI and Revenue Techniques
• Reach Out to Other Departments (CSR / Marketing / Support)
Online Communities offer value to almost every department in the organization, from HR (recruiting), to Support (call avoidance), to Marketing (awareness / reach), to the Product team (feedback, customer led innovation). Now is the time to reach out to other teams and create cross-organizations ties, and involve other teams in community building and engagement activities.
• Show the Cost of Not Participating
One way to show value back to management is to paint a picture of not having a community or community engagement strategy, and the associated costs and losses. These hypothetical costs can range from increased awareness of competitors to decreased customer satisfaction and loyalty.
• Be Honest About Your Strategy
Take a look at the community touchpoints and programs you are engaging in. Are there a few that have little or no participation? Are there features that score consistently low on your community research? Now is a good time to look at shedding these features and programs that are not creating value for your community. This is also an opportunity to involve the community in continuing to shape the experience and ongoing direction. Lastly, are there features or programs that you are struggling to maintain, that would be better served out in the community ecosystem? For instance, a particularly strong, independent Facebook group for your brand that you have been struggling with, or a user group that has a competitive feature on their site? Let it go.
• Stick Together
The worst feeling in trying times is feeling alone and isolated. If you and / or your team don't have peers at other companies to talk to and share strategies and tactics with, start making those connections now. There are lots of meetups (like my Online Community Roundtable), conferences and organizations (like the social media club and the online community research network) to help support you.
What do you think?
I would love to hear what you think, either via comments or email. Are you seeing changing attitudes towards your online community initiatives? Have you been affected by the downturn? Do you have advice or suggestions to help other navigate these issues?
The Online Community Compensation study was initiated in July of 2008 as part of our ongoing research efforts with the Online Community Research Network. Our intention of the study was to get a broad look at online community compensation, factors that effect compensation, and the current environment of the community team and community staff roles.
Since then, we have been looking at other cuts of the data. One of the most interesting has been how salaries differ by region.
Key findings from the data
• The highest average / median annual salary in the USA comes from the research participants located in the northwest region. The average salary for the northwest region was $90k with a median of $90k.
• The lowest average / median annual salary in the USA comes from the research participants located in the southeast region. The average salary for the southeast region was $72k and the median was only $67k.
• There were general peaks on both the low ($0-$25k) and high ends (more than $150k) for all regions except the southwest regions.
• The northwest region peaked at the higher salary ranges than that of the other regions, peaking at both $65-75k and $85-105k
• The midwest region peaked at the lower salary ranges, peaking at both $45-55k and $65-85k.
As you can see below, our highest concentration of respondents was from the West, and in particular, CA.
Response Distribution by US Region:
Salary Averages and Medians by US Region
If you would like more information about the Online Communities Compensation report, feel free to contact me. The report can be purchased here.
One of the biggest challenges for those leading the community efforts for large organizations (or really, orgs of most sizes) is ensuring that the hosted community efforts of the organization are appropriate, valuable (both to the org and to the member / customer) and sustainable.
First, a little context. I worked at Autodesk for 6 years as the Online Experience Manager (basically a chief IA). The internal web team was structured as an agency within the company, and each division was a "client". This approach has pros and cons that I won't go in to now, but for the purposes of the conversation today, the effect was that we had oversight over most online activities, including any hosted community activity. One of the tools we used to ensure a quality online experience was to have our clients fill out a simple project brief describing their vision for the community.
Specifically, the brief covered:
Client Team and Stakeholders
A Summary of the initial community vision and purpose / rationale
Executive sponsorship
Community Manager and extended staff
Desired features and content
Goals "what does success look like?"
Budget
Launch date
I'm attaching a heavily modified version of the brief I used, updated with the benefit of a bit of hindsight.
I'd really love feedback on this, and would love to hear if you actually find it of use in your day to day practice.
The article offer a pretty good overview of the current state of online advertising with the backdrop of Microsoft's hostile takeover bid of Yahoo.
As Microsoft Corp. makes a $44.6 billion bet on Internet advertising with its unsolicited offer for Yahoo Inc., there are signs that some of the biggest new places where consumers are flocking on the Web -- social networking and video-sharing sites -- are yielding advertising revenue slower than some Internet companies had hoped.
Here is the thing: ADVERTISERS ARE STILL TRYING TO USE THE SAME WEB 1.0 ADS FOR THESE SITES. I doesn't surprise me at all that social networks are slow to take on advertising, and that those that do are finding "crude" tools like adwords more effective than simply shoving the same dated banner ads down community member's throats.
The secret sauce for success (I believe) lies in adhering to general good community building techniques.
- Know your member (consumer)
- Offer them something of value
- Craft the offer in a human voice
- Be transparent about your intentions
- Be respectful of the member (privacy, needs, wishes, intelligence)
- Accept feedback
- Have thick skin
- Continue to innovate (i.e. try, try again)
We have some early examples of attempts at innovation, including Facebook's beacon, but there are still miles to go in this race.
INTRODUCTION:
This post is targeted at folks just getting started with online community activities at their organization. It is written with the brand or product-specific corporate communities in mind, but is somewhat applicable to independent communities and non profit organizations.
A few key points to begin with:
First, the working assumption here is that most of you reading are engaged in some sort of initial community building activity, but do not have a comprehensive community strategy guiding your efforts.
Second, keep in mind one of the key decisions you will need to make is the mix of attention, energy and dollars you spend hosting a community, vs participating in external community sites like Facebook and MySpace.
Third, (particularly for marketers) engaging and building relationships with your community is a bit of a mind-shift from thinking "quarterly-driven campaigns". We have heard this as a recurring theme in our research and the conference we host on Marketing & Online communities. You won't have the same criteria for success with community building efforts as you do with a print campaign. You won't retain control of messaging. You have to be willing to invest the time to build relationships with members (yes, even one on one). This isn't a quick in and out.
So, how does one start to evaluate the opportunity with online communities? Research! The following 4 step framework describes my typical community strategy development exercise we use for our clients:
Step 1. Define Business Goals and Objectives
This first step establishes a baseline definition of the organization's goals and potential objectives for engaging in community building activities. These goals and objectives will serve as guidance throughout the project to ensure that the final strategy reflects a direction that creates value back to the organization. This process varies by organization type, the number and role of stakeholders, and the maturity (or existence) of the community team. The research in this step includes identification of the stakeholders for community within an organization, interviews with the stakeholders, and an initial brainstorm with members of the stakeholder's team to discuss objectives for community. Themes and business goals for a community strategy will emerge.
Step 2. Community Ecosystem Review
During this second phase the goal is to do an audit of the current community ecosystem, including customer, prospect, partner and competitor touch points. This information will help establish a baseline of market-oriented sites and activity, which will be important to understand the opportunities for new community activity by your (or your client's) brand.
Using tools like BlogPulse, Technorati, Delicious, and Google Blog search, conduct searches for brand mentions in the blogosphere and on smaller niche communities. You will quickly come up a list of the communities hosting conversations about your organization, products or brand, and the members (often time bloggers) engaging in those conversations.
It's also important to research activity on the "walled garden" communities, and larger social media sites that some times don't surface in search results. Sites like Facebook, MySpace, YouTube,Ning, Flickr, Satisfaction, etc. In particular, look for ad-hoc groups that have sprung up around your brand, or content tagged with your brand and/or products.
Step 3. Member Needs Analysis
This phase will establish a baseline for potential community member’s needs, as well as their expectations of your organization. This critical phase will also guide decision-making on the types of activities to engage in, and the approach (offline / online, hosted / independent).
This research is ideally done in person, or on the phone, but in a pinch you can also use a web-based survey tool like surveymonkey. Recruit research candidates from the list that you made during the Ecosystem Review. Develop an interview script that really probes their needs and expectations of your brand. Ask what types of marketing and advertising the members would find acceptable, and which types they won't. Ask if they would be willing to help shape programs and advertisements (if you choose to go that route), Themes of member need, expectation of conduct from your organization, and tolerance of advertising / marketing messages should emerge from this research.
Step 4. Community Strategy Development
This final phase will combine the inputs of business goals, user needs and the existing community audit to form a community strategy. Evaluating member need and business goals side by side should provide you with direction on the types of community opportunities to engage in. The ecosystem audit will provide direction on where to participate, and if there is an opportunity for your organization to host part of that conversation by building a destination site, hosting discussion groups, etc. Based on the content of the previous phases, the team should be able to pull together the following key areas of strategy:
Business goals: 3-5 points of value or reasons the organization is engaging in community-building activities
Member needs summary: 3-5 key needs community members have of your organization that can be fulfilled or supported via online community
Community ecosystem map: A list (or diagram) of the key communities and community members that are currently discussing your organization and/ or brand
Recommended community tactics: A list of key tactics that meet the business goals as well as member needs
Metrics / ROI strategy: Specific metrics to evaluate community-building efforts by, and an ROI model that articulates dimensions of value (loyalty, affinity, time engaged, etc)
Engagement plan / calendar: Key tactics mapped to specific dates
In the spirit of the new year, I wanted to encourage community managers, strategists and teams to do a bit of self-reflection on the old (2007) and planning for the new (2008).
The following are five key questions you and your team might explore in the coming weeks.
1. How are your members feeling?
This is a great time of year to put out a quick satisfaction survey. Conduct a web-based survey to ask members about the quality of the user experience, how they feel about the community, and if they would they recommend your community to their peers? Finally, ask about additional features or community touch-points members would like to see from you. 50 to 100 responses to this survey would be a great baseline. As I've mentioned before, tying this survey into any sort of customer satisfaction, loyalty or brand-tracking research you are doing will be quite insightful.
Web-based surveys are a great tool, but if you can get community members together in-person for a roundtable session, even better. If a Survey or in person Roundtable are too much overhead, pick up the phone and call 5-10 active members.
2. How is your staff?
The first of the year is also a great time to gather staff (or, if you are just one, to do some self-reflection) to think about what went well, and what didn't in 2007. What were the key learnings? Were your policies and guidelines clear, and did they address most issues. Were members generally happy and active? Did your key metrics grow / improve? Most importantly, how are your front line community managers feeling? Are they enthusiastic about another year participating in your community, or dreading it? If it is the latter, you have some work to do. This is also a good time to start looking around for talent on other teams. The demand for community managers, strategists and executives is only going to get worse in 2008, as more companies engage in online community building and social media activities. Hiring is one option, but growing / grooming internal candidates is another option, especially if your current community staff feels squeezed.
3. Who is sponsoring / how do budgets look?
Does you have a sponsoring executive that has a seat at the C table (or your orgs equivalent)? If not, find one! Or better, convert everyone! Seriously, this is also a great time of year for a community roadshow, to "tell the story of 2007". All the great conversations that happened, all the key wins, key points of friction. Community and social media has a lot of visibility with most organizations senior management right now, so take advantage. Also, most of you have your 08 community budgets planned, start thinking about 09. Seriously.
4. Got Goals?
Community metrics, and in particular, ROI are going to come under scrutiny this year. 06-07 were about convincing the unconverted that it was OK to say "community" again. A lot of efforts were funded on good faith. This year, many senior managers will want to see return. One of the biggest challenges community managers and executives will face is weaving together a "tapestry of value" that contains both quantitative and qualitative information. It is key to have a set of your community goals aligned with some of your overall organizational goals. On the other hand, it is also critical to convince executives that community features, like discussion groups and blogs, are now expected by the market.
5. Where else can you participate?
One of the things that really surprised me when working on community strategy project in 2007 was the tendency for community managers and strategists to just focus on properties they "owned", as opposed to reaching out to other adjacent community sites, social networks and bloggers. The metaphor I encourage folks to use is that of an ecosystem. There are many places your community members like to play, and your organization can potentially add value in many (but certainly not all) of those places.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on the set of questions I asked. Did i miss something? Please drop me an email or leave a comment.
Additionally, I wanted to post my notes from the event, which more or less sum up what I said (or meant to say: ) ).
Question 1: How do I create a value-driven community strategy?
It is important to remember that value is relative to your organization and also to your community. As an organization, you need to do some research (and soul searching) on why you want to host a community, what value you need to get out of the activity, and most importantly, what value YOU can bring to the table.
Hint: making your customers happy is generally a path to growth.
Question 2: Which metrics should I be measuring? (Measuring value in traditional and non-traditional ways)
The short answer? It depends on your community goals. It should be a mix of quantitative and qualitative.
Traditional Web Metrics ( a few examples)
Page views, time on site, referring sites, referring search engines, referring search terms
New Community / Social Media Metrics ( a few examples)
Member engagement: activity and "investment" in community
Member Loyalty & Satisfaction
Membership Growth and Attrition
Member referrals (also a sign of engagement),
Quality of content and exchange: For instance, resolution time, days thread was active, ratio of validated responses. Support communities are leading the way on best practices and reporting.
Tracking the brand through the “Community ecosystem”: Tracking brands and community members as they travel through the larger community ecosystem that spans sites, technologies and devices.
Impact of the community on revenue: Particular attention is being paid to the value of members, both to the host communities’ revenue, and the organization’s sales or fundraising.
Mobile interactions with the community: including views and posts from mobiles.
Question 3: How do I manage my community, and how can I enlist my community to help?
First, you don't "manage" a community. You host. If your intention in engaging in community building activities is to manipulate the community in some way, don't bother. Members will run away in droves.
With that said, there is a role in every community for a manager or moderator that ensures that the community is a "clean, well lit place", or at least keeps to the culture and values expressed in the community policies. Policies and norms of expected behavior should be clearly articulated and easily accessible. This leaves the community moderator / manager to more interesting activities than deleting all the posts with "f@ck" in them, like actually participating in the community.
Give your community the tools to help manage the community , including the ability to rate and flag content, escalate issues to the moderator, and provide feedback on the user experience.
Find your influences and evangelists (typically, the most active (and positive) members), and put them on a pedestal. Sean O'Driscoll of MS has a lot of great things to say about the topic of engaging influencers.
Question 4: How do I grow my community without losing intimacy?
I'll be honest, I didn't exactly get this question. If you design a community UX poorly, event one with 100 members will feel anonymous.
My feedback was to basically grow from your base, and stick to your values and culture. Give members the ability to create subgroups, and allow members to create rich profiles.
Question 5: Within our company, who should blog and who shouldn’t?
Those with a point of view, subject matter expertise and a PERSONALITY should be blogging. I made the point that good blogging candidates in a company are likely already blogging outside of the company. Good corporate blogging often times feels like corporate "reality TV", providing access inside the corporate membrane in an informal, interesting and (hopefully) lighthearted way.
There were great questions via the phone, and a great back channel chat happening during the call. Again, the transcript can be found here.
Many organizations are involved with online community building activities, but few consider implications of their online communities on making their business more "green", or even better, more sustainable.
If you are interested in discussing this topic in person, as well as other issues related to sustainability and environmental concerns in the enterprise, please consider joining us for the Green Enterprise Unconference on December 3rd in Mountain View, CA.
oncomm_project_brief_v1
