Building Online Communities

Building Online Communities

Lisa L. Trager
Pictures In Motion
October 2010

Overview
 History of Online Communities
 How It Applies to Work
How It Applies to Work
Environments
 Life Cycle of Online Communities
 Key Behaviors of Community
Members
 Measuring Success
 Summary

October 2010 © Pictures In Motion | Lisa L. Trager 2

What is an Online Community?
• Definition: An online community is “a
group of people who interact in a virtual
environment. They have a purpose, are
supported by technology, and are guided
by norms and policies.”*
• The characteristics of an online
community can change depending upon:

• Purpose (e.g., health support, • Size (e.g., 50 vs 50,000 members)
education, business, neighborhood • Culture (e.g., international,
activities national, local and influences that
• Technology (e.g., list server, bulletin may be related to politics, religion,
board, chat, instant messaging, or gender, professional norms, etc.)
combination) • Presence (e.g., physical as well as
virtual relationship)
virtual relationship)


The Evolution of Social Networking
 Since its inception, the Internet has fostered an environment
that encourages sociability and connection
 Although technology has developed, the influencing factors that shape
an online community remain the same:
 Sociability ‐ social interactions of the members guided by the policies that
govern and the software that is made available (e.g., chat vs. bulletin boards)
govern and the software that is made available (e g chat vs bulletin boards)
 Usability ‐ how well the user interface supports human‐computer interaction
 Information Sharing – the ability for everyone to be a participant and
provide information that will be relevant and enjoyed by members of the
provide information that will be relevant and enjoyed by members of the
community that are connected


Enterprise Web 2.0
 After approximately 15 years of using
Web 1.0 Web 2.0
the Internet, people have gotten
Static Websites Dynamic Websites
used to the endless ways it enables
Instant Messaging,
Messaging
Email
Texting
people to create, consume and share
l d h
Usenet RSS Feeds
information
Bulletin Boards Blogs  We have gone from Web 1.0 to the
Yahoo Google next evolution of the web known as
next evolution of the web known as
“Web 2.0”*
Geo Cities Facebook
 Web 1.0 – web as the source of
information
 Web 2.0 – web as a “participation
platform” which enables user
interactive activities, information
sharing, and collaboration
sharing and collaboration


The Constant Chatter
 50% of U.S. adults use If an essential part of Web 2.0 is
emerging technologies:
emerging technologies: harnessing collective intelligence,
g g ,
 Blogging turning the web into a kind of global
 Texting brain, the blogosphere is the equivalent
of constant mental chatter in the
 Social Networking
forebrain, the voice we hear in all of our
,
 Th bili
The ability to create content, heads.... the equivalent of conscious
question and participate in the thought.*
conversation is no longer
y
Tim O’Reilly*
reserved for the few – but is
reserved for the few but is
the expectation for all * The term Web 2.0” was first used in 2004
 The paradigm is changing from at a conference organized by O’Reilly Media
seeking relevant news and
seeking relevant news and in describing the emerging phase of the
in describing the emerging phase of the
information to having it find Internet and social media platform.
you


Social Media in Business
• The use of social media in
business is becoming the
norm
echnologies*

• Recent studies state that:
• The fastest growing companies
The fastest growing companies
ng Web 2.0 te

use social media
• 61% of businesses are using
social media to improve
p
p internal facin

communication and
collaboration
• By 2013 Enterprise 2.0
y p
Top

technology will become a $4.6
Billion industry


Benefits of Communities in the Workplace
 How?
 Social media tools like discussion
Social media tools like discussion
boards, blogs, social bookmarking
and wikis help share the stories
and experiences of many resulting
p y g
in
 Knowledge sharing
• Online communities have
 Collaboration been shown to improve the
been shown to improve the
 Providing repositories of way we
information for future use – Work
 Reducing duplication of research – Learn
and help in finding relevant – Innovate
information

The bonds we form in groups whether online or off‐line are important in forming
social bonds, responsibility, mentorship, and sense of community

Communities and Work Environments
 Online communities can help to:
 Increase knowledge sharing
 Harness collective intelligence
 Knock down barriers to help us reach‐out
to each other and subject matter experts
 Bring together persons, who might have
worked in isolation, under a common
purpose or objective
 I
Increase the feeling of being part of the
th f li fb i t f th • Aid i th
Aid in the process of brain
fb i
“inner core” of the operation, which
storming that can lead to
results in a sense of ownership, pride,
y p
and community spirit innovation
 Add socialization in a corporate • Make it more fun to come
environment to work!


Types of Communities
 Categories of online communities can
replicate the way people interact and Organizational
behave in the workplace.
b h i h k l
 Types of communities will include:
 Organization – Communities that help
Subject/Topic Role/Practice
connect me with people and things related to
connect me with people and things related to
the work I do
 Role/Process – Communities that help me to
interact with others who have a similar role or Social
use a similar process
i il
 Subject – Communities that connect me with
people who have a similar interest in a topic
or subject
 Social – Communities that connect me with
others within the organization based upon a
social or cultural identification


Models of Online Communities
• Communities of Purpose • Communities of Organizational Structure
• Business driven and generally time focused    • Using the structure of the organization to help
(e.g. Projects, Programs, etc.) Structured communities find common purpose
around common themes in the workplace such
around common themes in the workplace such
as: • Share departmental initiatives

• Improving a process • Documents that  drive process within  that
• Collaborating on a project department
• Supporting an event • Personnel updates
• E.g.  Project team comprised of people from • E.g. Discussion limited to issues relevant to the
IT, Marketing, and Product Management.   department – IT vs. HR vs. Marketing, etc…
Discussions address ways to improve
efficiencies  across departmental lines to • Communities of Interest
meet budget and timelines; approaching • Structured around a theme that is common to
benchmarks, sharing of resources, and new
b h k h i f d members beyond their role or position in the
ideas that will benefit the initiative
enterprise
• More social
• Communities of Practice • Way to connect with other employees who have
• Business driven and typically centered around
Business driven and typically centered around like interests
lik i
a function or role.
• E.g. Weight Loss.  Objective: to support staff
• E.G. Market Researchers or Oncologists, who seek to lose weight.  Discussions could
etc… include healthy food choices in the cafeteria to
ideas for ways to exercise in 20 minutes or less
at work


LIFE CYCLE OF BUILDING ONLINE
LIFE CYCLE OF BUILDING ONLINE
COMMUNITIES


Lifecycle of a Community
 Although each type of community is unique in its
purpose, the lifecycle for all will be much the same and
require:
 Planning
P
Propagation of content
ti f t t
 Marketing your site
(
(attracting members)
g )
 Maintenance and upkeep
 Knowing when it’s time to
retire
i


1. Planning Your Online Community
 Like any other initiative, launching a successful
online community requires planning
 What are the Objectives
What are the Objectives
 What is the theme and/or purpose
 How will this new community add value to
 The business
 Knowledge sharing amongst team members

Calling together a meeting of like‐  What are the near and long‐term goals?
minded individuals can do much to  Remember to keep goals realistic

help:  Allow time for this community to grow
y g
• Validate your concept of where a  Research
new community could fill a need  Think about the needs of your project, department,
• Determine the needs of the or colleagues that currently form “off‐line”
communities
communityi
 Identify pain‐points and areas where an online
• Figure out topics of interest community can provide benefits
• Elicit volunteers to help take on  Participation
roles and distribute the work of  What will help drive member participation in the
What will help drive member participation in the
maintaining the community community
October 2010 © Pictures In Motion | Lisa L. Trager (#)

2. Propagating Your Site With Content
• In recent surveys and usability studies,
employees cited that their decision to join a
community was influenced by its:
– Title or topic
– Objective or description
– Members
– Content‐ that it is relevant and up‐to‐date
p
– Value to their work
• Real thought needs to be given to the web
parts or content chosen to insure it is
– Helping meet the objectives of the community
H l i h bj i f h i 70% of NewsGator Survey participants
70% of NewsGator Survey participants
– Relevant to the users and purpose of the chose a community because the “topic
community sounded interesting”
• Your colleagues have indicated that the main
reasons they would choose to participate in an
online community at work was
– To save time
– Be more efficient
– Find things


Use Content Strategy
“I’m only interested in joining
 As you begin to add new content to your community, recommended communities,
that will help me be more
keep the following things in mind: efficient and provide value to
my work.”
 What is the objective of my community and is the content
I’m adding relevant?
’ dd l ?
 What am I calling things? Do the labels chosen have the
same meaning to others?
 Write for the web
Write for the web
 People don’t read information online the same way as they do
a book or manual
 Keep content short and concise. Chunk up information so that
it can be easily scanned with headers and short paragraphs
 Design and architecture
 Place the more important information at the top of the page
 Try to avoid long scrolling pages
dl ll
 Think through the directory structure where documents and
other files will be kept making sure that the structure and
labeling will be intuitive for all


3. Marketing Your Site
• Although we do not associate marketing
with an internal online community – in fact
the health and growth of your community
h h lh d h f i
will depend on how much awareness you
can cultivate for your community
• The behavioral progression from awareness
The behavioral progression from awareness
to participation can be seen as:
– Affinity (natural liking or attraction) to the
topic, members, discussions, etc
– Interest in the conversations or information
being generated
– Motivation to participate and engage
– Interaction and evangelizing – helping to grow
Interaction and evangelizing – helping to grow
community
Courtesy of David Armano


Ways to Attract New Members
• Some tactical approaches to help new members feel welcome
can include:
– Introductory paragraph to explain purpose of page
– Invite people with influence who will act as community
Invite people with influence who will act as community
advocates
– Offer members an incentive for inviting new members
– Provide a “Did You Know” opportunity to link to docs and
relevant discussions
– Schedule events and/or discussions where subject matter experts
participate
• Here’s what the System can do:
– Reward users who fill in their profile
Reward users who fill in their profile
– Provide the ability for members to customize their profile so that
they can choose what information to show to different people • Assign a greeter role to
– Show activity that existing members are engaged with help ease the on‐
– Provide an opportunity for existing members to see the new ones
Provide an opportunity for existing members to see the new ones boarding of new
boarding of new
– Help increase the probability of social interaction between members
members through the Social Network Graph, which displays a
person’s colleagues and depicts their social distance from each
colleague.


Ways to Encourage Member Participation
Social Technographic Profile of Online
• In general, participation can be directly Community Participants
attributed to the investment an
individual has in the online community
i di id l h i h li i
– Those with more influence on the
community tend to be more active
– However, those “lurkers” who choose a
However, those lurkers who choose a
more inactive role, when given the right
opportunity will take action and make
important contributions
• Member participation must be carefully
Member participation must be carefully Participants of online communities as defined in a recent
report by Forrester.*
cultivated and is based upon trust:
– In being able to speak openly “Users never do exactly what the designers
either want or expect. ..The key is to make an
– That there is respect between members
p incomplete contract that invites the user in and
i l t t t th t i it th i d
– That the content is reliable and updated lets them know that you understand that they
– That their contribution is recognized want to and you want to help them make those
surprises as creative as possible.”
and appreciated
Clay Shirky Gov 2 0 Summit ‘09
Shirky, Gov 2.0 Summit 09


Maintaining Community Interest
• Continue to create compelling content on a recurring basis
• Develop an editorial  calendar that outlines dates for new
content to be published as well as assign authors who will be
responsible for creating the new content
responsible for creating the new content
• Push new content out to members to make them aware of
updates
• Deliver in format  preferred by user – email, RSS, news
bulletin, etc. Integrate real events into
• Motivate users to contribute the virtual community.
• Feed conversations to encourage interaction This will enable people to:
• to the community
to the community Find each other before the
event, converse about it
• Ask questions, talk about controversial topics, or host a
during, share high points or
contest that encourages participation.
pictures afterwards
• Show community activity in the form of recent posts, uploads,
etc...
• Invite subject matter experts into your community to answer
a question or provide insight based upon experience
• Create polls
Create polls
• Enable users to comment or “like” something
20

Adding Competition to the Mix
• Offer a variety of participation options that
will motivate different audience segments
– Incentivize activity by offering carrots based
upon types of activity
upon types of activity
– Offer rewards based upon higher participation
levels
• Groups
• Individuals
Individuals
– Use push technology to stir up a little friendly
competition between members
• Provide public recognition to those who
participate the most or are most helpful
ti i t th t th l f l
– Send a personal thank you note
– Do something that shows the person is
appreciated by the community

Remember it’s about the team, so be sure to post the benefits and value that has
evolved from the community and how it has helped the Project, Program,
Organization or Community of Practice


4. Maintenance and Upkeep
• As Community Leader, it is essential that you put in
place a process to ensure that the community is
, , g y pp y
nurtured, maintained, and given every opportunity to
grow to its full potential
• How?
1. Be sure to post news, the latest versions of important
documents, links to relevant sites or feeds, and other
information that is important to your members
2. Periodically conduct an audit of your community and
either save old, unused items in a separate directory or
, p y
delete information no longer deemed relevant
3. Look at weblogs to see which pages have gotten the most
activity and try to analyze
– Why?
Why?
– Where users have entered and left your community
– How much time they have spent on different pages
– Activities members have engaged in on your site


5. Retiring Your Community
• All good things must come to an end – even at
some point your community
• Knowing when to take your community down is
very important as we need to ensure that the
communities that are available to users remain
vital, relevant, and seen as an asset to their
vital relevant and seen as an asset to their
work and social life.
• Setting up Governance Guidelines of the
y p
Community will provide rules for when the
community is deemed obsolete. A good rule of
thumb is that if the site has not been updated
or there has been no activity for over 3 months
it’s probably time for it to disband.
it’s probably time for it to disband


KEY BEHAVIORS OF MEMBERS
KEY BEHAVIORS OF MEMBERS

24

Culture of Community
Key Objectives
• The culture of community – whether large or
1. Shared purpose
small has key objectives that will encourage 2. Trust
participation and contribute to its success: 3. Motivation to explore
4. Generosity to give as
– A sense of shared purpose much as get from the
community
– Trust in the community and each other
Trust in the community and each other 5. Generate leadership
5 G t l d hi
– Motivation to explore and create new ways to
collaborate and benefit from the social
networking space
networking space
– Generosity and desire for members to share
and give as much as they get from the
community y
– Generate leadership


Sense of Shared Purpose
Key Behaviors Key Inhibitors Ways to Address
• Camaraderie • Competitiveness • Make the objective of the
Make the objective of the
community clear and
• Everyone is encouraged to • There are several strong
available from the home
speak and that everyone’s voices who drown out others
page
p
voice is important
• F
Favoritism
iti
• Assign a greeter who will
• A sense of common
• Cliques – an organizational email new members with a
purpose
or social hierarchy where welcome message and
• Team spirit ‐ that together
Team spirit ‐ that together some people appear in the
some people appear “in the provide them with an
provide them with an
we can do more to problem know” and others are made overview of the community
solve and reach collective to feel excluded, not and where their
goals welcome, or out of touch participation could be
beneficial


Trust
• Social agreement where • Flaming • Have a monitor assigned
members know what is who looks at every post and
• Censorship
expected of them if necessary will contact a
• Unacceptable behavior is user if their conduct is
• Encouragement of openness
not addressed or rules not outside the boundaries of
and honesty
dh t
enforced acceptable behavior
• Establishment and
• Gossip • Refer employees who are
enforcement of
• Sharing confidential or
Sharing confidential or not in compliance with your
rules/policies regarding
rules/policies regarding
proprietary information internal Policy to reacquaint
community behavior
that is not intended for them with what is expected
• Trust, respect and support
public discussion • Provide appropriate channel
g
amongst community y
• Disagreements and or contact info to those with
members
arguments online questions, concerns, or
• Knowing where to turn to complaints
voice complaints or concerns • Dated or invaluable
information


Motivation to Explore and Collaboration

• Members invent new ways • Negativity • Positive reinforcement by
to use the online community publicly acknowledging the
• Criticism
that adds to collaboration member’s contribution
and ideation
and ideation • No response
p
l h k
• Personal thank you note
• Members contribute “ideas” • Lack of appreciation and
• Test and improve usability
to further the goals of the acknowledgement of
issues
community member’s work
• Offline party bringing
• People volunteer to help
members together to
maintain and grow the
celebrate contributions of all
community


Generosity ‐ to share and give as much as you get

• Members share good and • Information and • Positive reinforcement by
valuable information and documents are difficult to publicly acknowledging the
documents find value of shared information
and documentation
and documentation
• Content is fresh and
f h d • Only 1 or 2 people have
l l h
regularly updated access to valuable • Test site to ensure that
documents technical or usability issues
• Activity is spread amongst
are not inhibiting the ease of
members and not
members and not • Credit for collaborative
Credit for collaborative
members to upload,
dependent upon a few projects/documents is not
download, and revise
shared with the group
documents


Generate Leadership

• Free expression of new • Fear • Encourage everyone to
ideas take a leadership role in
• Top down management
the community
• Heretical thinking –
g of ideas
challenging the status • Ideas are welcomed and
• Hierarchal thinking
quo encouraged
• Punitive measurements
• Daring for going against the
f i i t th
• Enthusiasm status quo


Measuring the Success of Your Community


Metrics
• Measuring the success of an online
community and ROI can be a challenge
• Web 2.0 social software encompasses a
range of activities vs. a single process
• Activities of users are often:
Activities of users are often:
– Unpredictable
– Un‐measurable


Ways to Evaluate Success
y
• Determine business objectives, that can be used to measure the impact
and value that the online community has brought to the enterprise and if
possible the bottom line
possible the bottom line
• Tie metrics to measurable and actionable insights. These could include an
overall increase in employee:
– Collaboration
– Decision‐making due to improved access to relevant knowledge, people and content
– Performance due to improved connections and ambient awareness

• Other ways to measure the success of Web 2.0 applications and your
y pp y
community:
– Activity Metrics
– Survey Metrics
– Personal Interviews and/or Usability Studies
– Individual Score Card
– KPI's


Metrics Relevant to Web 2.0 Content
Activity Metrics • Contributors
• Active contributors
Captures both: • Word count
– More typical measurements
• Time spent on site
used to evaluate websites
– New activity that is reflective of • M b
Members
Web 2.0 content on page • Posts (ideas/threads)
• Number of groups (networks/forums)
Typical Web Analytics • Comments & Trackbacks
• Page views
• Connections (between members)
• Unique visitors
• Ratios: Member to contributor; Posts to
• Referrals (where user came from) comments; Completed profiles to posts
• Completed profiles • Periods: By day, week, month, year
• Tags/Ratings/Rankings • Frequency: of visits, posts, comments
• Downloads/uploads • Sentiment / Favorability

• Entry/Exit Pages • Topics of Conversation
• Ratings
• Path of user on site
• Favoriting
*Note: Internal search engine must be setup to
Note: • Friends and Followers
capture activity beyond typical web analytics.
• Pass alongs – or recommendations through
sharing 34

Survey Metrics
y
• Throughout the lifecycle of an online Topics to Measure
community it is imperative to have a
community it is imperative to have a • Satisfaction
S ti f ti
process in place to measure the pulse of • Affinity
the community • Quality and speed of issue resolution
– Prior to launch
• Referrals
– In regular intervals post launch
• Relevance of content, connections
• Audits are essential for identifying
priorities, measuring previous efforts,
and planning future initiatives
and planning future initiatives
• Include stakeholders, managers, and
employees representing different roles
and area of the company
and area of the company
• Surveys can be executed either
– Online (Polls/Surveys)
– Offline (Email, phone, informal
conversations)

In Person Interviews and Usability Studies
 Consider offering members an incentive
like of a free lunch to provide you with
feedback on the community:
 Interview participants to
 Find out how well the community is meeting
their needs
h i d
 How the site is benefiting them
 Where are the gaps?
 Conduct a “usability test” by inviting 3‐6
Conduct a usability test by inviting 3‐6
people to test the community. It’s a good
way to measure usability issues and provide
you with feedback on:
 Nomenclature
 Content
 Placement and positioning of content
 Other choices you have made
Oth h i h d


Personal Score Card
• Specific views of individuals in the community can also give insight into
the acceptance and use of the online community:

Individual Score Card
• New Colleagues after 30/60/90 days
• Number of Colleagues met online that users
have met offline
• Number of Colleagues met online that member
has subsequently collaborated with
q y
• Number of ideas that the community has
generated and then used in their work or
projects


Key Performance Indicators
y
• Use business objectives to measure the effect of collaboration, social
networking, and information sharing

Key Behaviors Metrics
• Sense of Shared Purpose • Increased membership and participation
• Increased posts and activity
• Trust • Time on site
• Ratios: Member to contributor; Posts to
comments; Completed profiles to posts
• Motivation to Explore and Create New
p • Relevance of content, connections
Ways for Collaboration • Contributions to Ideas, Discussions, and Wikis

• Generosity - to share and give as much • Uploads vs downloads
as you get • Growth in discussions and topics of conversation

• Generate Leadership • Volunteers who maintain blogs and take on other
responsibilities within the community
• Ideation – on within and outside of the community


Summary
y
• Preparation and planning is pivotal for the success of any online community
– Clear Objectives
– Realistic Goals
– Research
• Talk with different user types
• Determine most relevant tasks that can be tied to actionable metrics
– Have the right team in place
• Growing the Online Community
g y
– New members are made to feel welcomed
– Members feel appreciated and are rewarded for outstanding participation
– Tools are engaging, offer time‐savings to employees and aid in collaboration
– Monitors help to encourage discussions and participation of the community.
p g p p y
• Inappropriate activity is responded to swiftly
• However, trust and openness is a tenet
• Metrics
– Use web analytics in conjunction with more imaginative ways of measuring Web
y j g y g
2.0 activity
– Offer ways for employees to provide feedback (In person, online in polls/surveys)
– Continual auditing and gauging needs of the community in order to address gaps
and to make continual improvements
p


References
 Page 3.  Preece, J., Maloney‐Krichmar, D. and Abras, C. (2003) History of Online
Communities In Karen Christensen & David Levinson (Eds.), Encyclopedia of
Community: From Village to Virtual World. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications,
C i ill i l ld h dO k S bli i
1023‐1027.
 Page 6. What is Web 2.0. Tim O'Reilly.  9/30/2005
 Page 7. Awareness Social Media Marketing, Enterprise Social Media: Trends and
g g, p
Best Practices in Adopting Web 2.0 in 2008
 Page 17.  Marketing Spiral on a Community Centric Webite. Courtesy of David
Armano
 Page 19.  Forrester Research. Social Technographic Profile of Online Community
Page 19 Forrester Research Social Technographic Profile of Online Comm nit
Participants
 Page 19. Clay Shirky, Gov 2.0 Summit ’09
 Pages 26‐30. Social Marketing Playbook – 360i


Building Online Communities

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