gave this short presentation at the Austin Marketing Executive Network covering pitfals, lessons learned and best practices in building online customer communities

1. Building a Community Gerardo A Dada Austin Marketing Executives Network – Oct 14, 2011

2. Let’s build a community! Social media experts told us we should build a community Blogs! Profiles! Forums! Ideas! Wikis! It will be so engaging! We will be the Facebook of our Industry! Our competition will be jealous!

3. But then reality strikes

4. Most Community Sites Fail Why Most Online Communities Fail “60% of the online communities failed to gain traction as measured by the number of members” – Wall Street Journal Lure of “Bells and Whistles” results in over-spending on technology Inexperienced or no community moderationteam Challenge of measuring success of an online community 4

5. Gartner’s Opinion “About 70 percent of the community typically fails to coalesce.” “Furthermore, of the 30 percent of the communities that do emerge, many revolve around interactions that planners didn't envision, that don't provide business value and that may even be counterproductive” http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=758914

6. Community Graveyard We have seen lots of community launch announcements in the press No one has paid attention at the graveyard of communities…

7. 1/9/90 Only 0.33% of Allstate visitors ever visit the community

8. Launch and Crash

9. Launch and Crash

12. Why is it difficult? Build a community platform Develop critical mass of engaged users Develop critical mass of useful content Sustainability Getting users to come back, increase engagement, keep it going Make it valuable How to keep the conversation relevant How do you make UGC valuable for all your users How does your main site benefit your community Determine ROI Awareness, activity, fans and followers don’t pay the bills 12 “Chicken and Egg“ problem

13. Best Practices for Community Building

14. 1. Don’t Build a Social Strategy Customer support Social media should support a strategy Marketing Strategy Product Development

16. GiffGaff support community 95% of all questions are answered within an hour. NPS = 75

17. 3. Understand Participation and Value 90% Majority of Customers don’t know community exists, how it works, can’t find it, or don’t have time. 9% Enthusiasts will find a forum, read answers and vote 1% Experts will blog, answer forum questions, drive community

18. 3. Understand Participation and Value Community Success: Empowering, encouraging and recognizing experts and enthusiasts to share passion, knowledge and experiences with all other customers (or prospects) 90% Majority of Customers don’t know community exists, how it works, can’t find it, or don’t have time. 9% Enthusiasts will find a forum, read answers and vote 1% Experts will blog, answer forum questions, drive community

19. 4. You Can’t Create a Community Instead of “fishing where the fish are”, standalone communities try to be a destination site Brands want to own the conversation. How many brands can realistically have communities around each topic? How many cooking communities do we need? How many profiles online do real users maintain? On how many sites are they active? 19

20. It’s not the job of the Social Media Manager All marketers should learn to leverage social media You don’t call your CFO your Excel Manager Social Media is a tool everyone should use– make it part of their job i.e. Product Marketing responsible for writing 1 blog a month, participating in Quora and LinkedIn discussions Support helps customers over phone, email forums & twitter Empower the entire organization to engage customers using social tools and to participate in communities Community Strategist is a coordination function 5. Social Media is part of a Customer Engagement Strategy

21. 6. Integrate Social with Customer Engagement & Online Strategy Blogs, forums and other social media elements are part of the product page, not (only) in a separate “community” microsite

22. PR and Support are now real-time Organizations cannot opt-out of engaging in social channels, the conversation will happen anyway Tomorrow is too late – responses required in hours Must have a crisis management plan ready Decide what and who to ignore Participation guidelines – social media policy Legal protection – disclaimers & rules Personal vs. business – the line is blurred Culture shift is still difficult for many companies 6. Listen and Respond

23. “Markets are conversations. Their members communicate in language that is natural, open, honest, direct, funny and often shocking…the human voice is unmistakably genuine... Corporate firewalls have kept smart employees in and smart markets out. It's going to cause real pain to tear those walls down. But the result will be a new kind of conversation. And it will be the most exciting conversation business has ever engaged in.” Cluetrain Manifesto, 1999

24. Questions? Gerardo A. Dada www.TheAdaptiveMarketer.com http://www.linkedin.com/in/gdada @gerardodada www.gdada.com