Online Community Report

The State of Online Community 2008

nospam@example.com (Bill Johnston) — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 18:38:25 -0500

Jim Cashel and I hosted the "State of Online Community" webinar this morning.

The webinar is based on the research we've conducted as part of the Online Community Research Network, and highlights 10 key trends from 2008, as well as taking a peak into emerging trends for 2009. This webcast and slide deck represent a large body of work from the Forum One Networks team, as reflects input from over 2000 online community professionals from all over the world.

You can see an archive of the webcast (with audio and slides, requires short registration) here:
The State of Online Community: 2008 Archive

The slides from the webcast are here:

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: strategy staff)

A .pdf of the slides can be found here.

What did I miss? What should we focus on next year? Just want to argue about something? Leave a comment or email me

Your Input Needed: Helping Communities Survive & Thrive in a Downturn

nospam@example.com (Bill Johnston) — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 11:48:24 -0500

I’ve been working with my research team at Forum One to put together a short survey about the effects of the economic downturn on online community budgets and strategy in the near term, as well as the effects on 2009 planning. If you currently run an online community for your organization, I would **love** to have your input.

The survey can be found here:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=aIL0VzBCp03sc6az_2bu8t1A_3d_3d

If you decide to participate, there are few things to note:
• All participants will receive a copy of the final (aggregate) report.
• All data will be processed and compiled in aggregate. Data will not be reviewed or presented in a personally (or company) identifiable way.
• All participants are entered in to a drawing for 1 of 10 $25 Starbucks coffee cards.

If you have any questions about the study, please feel free to contact me (bjohnston@forumone.com). We hope to close the survey portion of the study by December 12th.

Online Communities: Establishing a Community's Culture

nospam@example.com (Bill Johnston) — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 18:48:54 -0500

We initiated the Online Community Culture study in October of 2008, as part of the ongoing research agenda of the Online Community Research Network. The intention of the study was to get a broad look at the factors that influence online community culture, and the steps community managers and strategists take in cultivating, and in some cases influencing, a community’s culture. We had over 75 participants in the research, representing many sectors, including software, tech, traditional media, social media and online community, and non-profits. Respondents seniority skewed towards Manager (44%), Directors & VP's (12%).

Key Factors Establishing an Online Community's Culture
One key area we wanted to understand was the short list of factors that community managers thought were most important in establishing a communities culture. We asked: "What are the three most important factors in establishing and maintaining a community's culture?"

The top three responses (in order) were:

Quality, up-to-date content
Have a clear objective / value statement 11% (12)
strong moderation / facilitation 12% (13) of the community site was a critical factor.

Key quotes from the respondents:

“Listen, and treat others as you'd expect to be treated. Be there - 24/7 coverage. Show gratitude to earn respect”
Director / Community Manager, Media Company

“Active moderation with a well informed host, participation at all levels of the organization and support by the executive level”
Director Internet Marketing, Tools/Service Provider

“Platform, (if you want the conversation to occur on a 1st party site, if not it may very well occur on a third party site), Recognition (supporting the achievements of the community members, and enabling through various interactions including events, content, and feedback interaction opportunities. Listening Mechanism (ensure that community members voices are heard)”
Community Program Manager, Software Company

“The community is open to all (even competitors. Speak your mind but respect everyone. Clear policies and guidelines dictate the rules/expectations of the community”
Social Media / Community Manager, Hardware / Software Company

“1 - Focus: Managing expectations from the outset as to what users can and cannot experience in the community 2 - Prompt response & closing the loop
3 - Rich & engaging content”
CEO, Online Community / Social Media Company

“1 - establish ground rules at the get go and enforce them even handedly 2 - respond to the evolution demands of a growing community by evolving your offering 3 - remember that you are not one of them, you are their advocate to the company and the company's advocate to them”
Senior Community Development Manager, Hardware/Software Company

“1- Always ensuring that the community comes before the brand behind it. 2 - Let the community create the culture and make tools and communications to enhance that, instead of trying to impose a culture. 3 - Prevent the community from going stale”
Online Community Coordinator, Non Profit Organization

“1) Providing differentiated and relevant tools, features, & content (why engage with 'product X' here, vs. anywhere else?) 2) Lower the barrier to participation / access as much as you reasonably can 3) Provide self-moderation tools”
Director, Online Marketing, Entertainment (Video Games)

Steps to Establish an Online Community's Culture
Another area we wanted to explore with this project was the set of key actions taken by community hosts to support the establishment of a community's culture.

We asked: ": What steps have you taken to establish a new community's culture?"

Respondents highlighted the following key actions:

Recognizing positive participation
Soliciting and Responding to member feedback
Communicating with Members

Key quotes from the respondents:

“Active participation of internal staff - Reward programs for active participants - ongoing moderation - News and announcement on landing pages.”
Community Manager, Software Company

“For our upcoming community redesign, we are limiting the amount and importance of "standard" community features (friends, forums, "favorite books", etc.) and focusing more on making the resources, our organization’s knowledge and user's generated knowledge, as a visible and social part of the site. All articles and content can be rated and comment upon. Users will have access to a Yahoo Answers style tool. Users can contribute stories and best practices in a community blog. The "standard" functions are there to help make relationships made on these new functions easier to keep, but the knowledge and resources people create will be the most important part of the community.”
Online Community Coordinator, Non-Profit Organization

“Instituted simple but comprehensive rules and codes of practice. Engaged community members directly rather than leaving them to flail without response. Demonstrated that by following, new policies results happened.”
Community Development Manager, Hardware / Software Company

“Actively soliciting feedback from members. Publicly acknowledging and acting upon the feedback received. Clearly identifying desirable behavior as a model for others to embrace. Setting a positive example when posting as a member (not as a moderator).”
Analytics Country Manager, Agency

“1. Designed our primary social media platform to emphasize and reinforce our targeted audience -- business professionals interested in an exchange of information on business oriented topics. This includes, look and feel; community standards, user added content, involvement with other business oriented social networks. 2. Individual responses to feedback submitters, within one business day, from me or my team, providing information as well as our real names, e-mail addresses and office phone numbers.”
Director, User Participation, Media Company

“Listen, learn and adapt. It's important to remember that company's can participate in the community discussion, and provide a "the company's" perspective or view”
Community Program Manager, Software Company

Netting It Out
Based on synthesis of the respondents' answers, key activities and factors for establishing a desirable culture for an online community are generally:

Value Statement
Create a clear value statement for the community that includes all stakeholders (host and members). The host must offer a unique set of content, features, and access to personalities as part of the value statement. The value statement should be clearly communicated within the community overtly (via the code of conduct) and subtly through branding, user experience and moderation / management cues.

Clear Code of Conduct
A clear and concise code of conduct should be available on the community site, and should clearly describe the expected behavior of community members, and the consequences for behavior that is out of bounds.

Open Lines of Communication
The community host must be easily accessible, and responsive. As noted in the comments above, some organizations have an internal SLA (Service Level Agreement) for response times.

Host plays a visible (but different) role
Members of the host organization should play a visible role in the community. Being present, interacting with members and often times leading community initiatives or activities. It is important to note that the role of host is one of attending, not just participation. Just like the host of a good party doesn't just mingle, and good community host participates with intention, and keeps an eye on the overall mood of the community.

User Experience / Feature Set Should Be Tailored To Audience

If you subscribe to the design principals of the Bauhaus, then "form follows function". This means that, from the baseline information architecture of the community presence, all the way to feature selection and visual design, the community's online experience is shaped to be appropriate for the desired audience. A community designed for 3D artists working in the film industry (more visual, to share images) has a much different form factor than a site designed for application developers (more text-based, to share code samples).

Content
Quality, relevant and up to date content is key to many online communities. Unique content from the host organization is often one of the key "Why are we here" factors to attract community members. Ensuring that quality member content is highlighted on the community site (and elsewhere, if possible), helps with participation incentive and helps foster a sense of engagement.

Acknowledge Positive Contributions
Highlighting positive contributions and contributors helps encourage content contributions, as well as reinforce positive member behavior.

Create a "Welcoming" Culture
When new members are welcomed in to a community by the host or other community members, that member is more likely to come back, and to contribute.

For More Information

The full report "Online Community Culture: Establishing, Maintaining and Changing" (Published 11/08, 40pgs) is available to Online Community Research Network members, and includes additional information on:

Factors that have a negative impact on culture
Processes for collecting ideas, memes, and "stories" from members
Managing external factors effecting culture
Managing a negative culture

Online Communities and Sustainable Development: Supporting "Green" and Beyond

nospam@example.com (Bill Johnston) — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 14:51:42 -0500

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:

From the Wikipedia definition 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:

1. Environmental

As my colleague Jim Cashel pointed out in a post last year,

Online communities are green.

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:

See The Designers Accord -- just written up in FastCompany
(http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/129/100000-and-counting.html).
They just launched a community to start the conversation and to
promote sustainable design within the design community worldwide
(e.g., IDEO and others). Their website: http://designersaccord.org
and their brand new community: http://community.designersaccord.org

Another example:

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.

Marketing & Online Communities 2008: A Report Back

nospam@example.com (Bill Johnston) — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 23:22:00 -0500

The Marketing & Online Communities conference was held last Wednesday at the Tribeca Grand in New York. We had a fantastic lineup of folks representing top agencies, brand marketers and online communities. A few of the organizations that were in attendance:

Fleishman-Hillard, Digitas, Swirl, The Knot, Google, Business Week, BlogHer, iVillage, Trip Adivsor, and American Express.

The venue was fantastic. We were in the Grand Screening room at the Tribeca Grand for most of the day, which is a very posh 100+ person theater. The room was small enough to be comfortable and intimate, and supported the in-depth conversations among participants that strive for at our conferences.

Some of the key takeaways:

The Power of Conversation
Heather Gold kicked off the conference with her session "Designing for Conversation". Heather started the session by holding an informal conversation with a few folks in the front of the room, and scaling the dialog to the whole room in the course of the next 50 minutes. Her intention was to show that conversation leads to connection. Marc Sirkin thoughts about Heather's session:

Heather Gold was terrific (a bit like Sarah Silverman if you ask me). She's funny as hell and led a kickoff discussion. "Presentation as conversation" is what I wrote down.
During that same session, this quote popped for me as well: "Vulnerability leads to connection." How true! My experiences managing online communities prove this over and over again. I can be scary to allow yourself to be vulnerable in an online community, but it goes a long way to proving that you are an actual human being.

Definition of Community
The term "community" was obviously mentioned throughout the day, but depending on the speaker's context "community" was used to describe mass social media, private feedback panels, a customer base, and social site used to support a campaign (I'm sure there were other mentions as well). In his blog recap of the conference, Kevin Briody asks if we should get more sophisticated about community nomenclature

Should there be a more concrete distinction between “real” communities - long lasting with invested hosts and participants - vs “branded communities” - short term, advertising driven and product- or brand-centric communities? Also, what is the minimum amount of time that a “branded community” should exist for? CPG’s can run campaigns as short as 6 weeks, but the consensus seemed that 6 months was a standard minimum to push for.

Evolution of the Agency
Another thread that ran throughout the day was that agencies are feeling the push to develop their social media and community-building chops. Brad McCormick of Porter-Novelli went so far as to say that boundaries between advertising, PR and marketing are softening, and that there is an invetable convergence towards "digital". Bryan Person of Liveworld conducted several interviews for the conference, including the one with Brad McCormick below:

Additional Sources:

Mirc Sirkin's - Microsoft
http://www.mindnumbingthoughts.com/2008/11/marketing-and-communities-conference.html

Bryan Person - LiveWorld
http://socialvoice.liveworld.com/blog/Bryan-Persons-Blog/2000001553

Kevin Briody - Webjunction / OCLC
http://kevinbriody.net/2008/11/06/recollections-from-marketing-online-communities-2008/

Twitter stream from the event:
http://twemes.com/moc2008

We are pulling together the speaker's presentations, and we captured additional notes and video from the conference, which we are currently processing. Stay tuned for more great content!

Marketing & Online Communities: Podcast Previews

nospam@example.com (Bill Johnston) — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 17:26:54 -0400

Dear Online Community Report readers: a special Halloween treat! Bryan Person of LiveWorld conducted podcasts with two of our session leads for the upcoming Marketing & Online Communities conference.

In the podcasts below, Bryan interviews comic Heather Gold and co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Knot, Carley Roney. Though Heather and Carley appraoch marketing from differing perspectives, the concepts of authenticity, trust, and relationships are common threads throughout there interviews.

Heather Gold subvert.com gives her take on "conversation", and what it means for marketing to speak with a human voice.

[Right-click to download]

Carley Roney talks about The Knot's community, how advertising fits in the community, and the importance of word of mouth.

[Right-click to download]

We are now on a waiting list for the conference. If you would like to get on the list (the first 3-5 usually get in), please register here: http://moc08.eventbrite.com .

Marketing & Online Communities: One more thing...

nospam@example.com (Bill Johnston) — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 15:19:41 -0400

There is some last minute awesomeness coming together for next week's Marketing & Online Communities conference that I wanted to pass along.

In addition to the fantastic final(mostly) agenda I posted last Friday, we have added 3 new speakers to the M&OC lineup:
Joining Peter Friedman, CEO of LiveWorld, for the final panel "Integrating Customer Communities in to the Marketing Mix", will be:
Carley Roney – The Knot
Rich Lafauci, U.S. Managing Director of Technology, at Digitas
Margaret Clerkin, COO Mindshare Interaction

We also have many great organizations attending, including: Answers Corp, Business Week, Digitas, ExpoTV, Fleishman-Hillard, Google, IBM, Mashable, Media Bistro, Meetup, Microsoft, Networked Insights, Patricia Seybold Group, SolutionSet, TripAdvisor, WEGO Health, to name a few.

We still have a few seats left, so if you would like to participate in the event, please register here: http://moc08.eventbrite.com .

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me.

The tag for the event is #moc2008

Marketing & Online Communities 2008: Final Lineup

nospam@example.com (Bill Johnston) — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 13:32:32 -0400

We are just over a week away from the Marketing & Online Communities conference, which will be held November 5th at the Tribeca Grand in New York City. The event promises to be an informative and interactive discussion of the intersection of marketing and online communities. We still have a few seats left, so if you would like to participate in the event, please register here: http://moc08.eventbrite.com .

Our intention with holding the Marketing & Online Communities conference is to explore of the intersection of marketing and online communities. Marketing agencies and teams are playing a key role in the development of online communities, and more generally, in the use of social media. But, there are several key issues, including:

Many marketing teams are still focused on quarterly-driven results and think in a campaign mentality, versus building long term relationships.

Many community hosts are struggling with appropriate forms of marketing, and in developing appropriate engagement programs.

Community members don't want to feel manipulated or interrupted in their community experiences, and they want to have conversations, as opposed to being "talked at" by brands.

We chose our topic and speaker lineup to highlight healthy attitudes and best practices in building relationships with online communities.

Our session and breakout topics, and session leads will include:

Designing for Conversation
Heather Gold, Subvert.com

The Social Web: How Consumers and Brands are Connecting Online
Elisa Camahort Page – BlogHer
Kendra Bracken – Fleishman-Hillard

Secrets of Successful Community Campaigns
Heather Lutrell – 3jane / indieclick
Belinda Lang – American Express

Community Generated Media: Giving Customers a Voice and Companies Insight
David Rubinstein - ExpoTV
Michael Liefer - Swirl

The Role of PR: "Public Relationships "
Brad B McCormick – Porter Novelli

Moderating Your Brand
Mike Passcucci - Mzinga

Brand Monitoring in A Web 2.0 World
Steve Broback – Parnassus Group

Integrating Customer Communities in to the Marketing Mix
Peter Friedman, Moderator – LiveWorld

http://moc08.eventbrite.com

contact me.

Online Community Summit 2008 - A Report Back

nospam@example.com (Bill Johnston) — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 12:45:17 -0400

The seventh annual Online Community Summit was held October 9-10 in Sonoma, CA, at Ramekins culinary school. The beautiful Sonoma setting was the perfect backdrop for two days of in depth discussion about engaging and growing online communities.

Participants were senior practitioners and from a diverse set of industries. Companies represented included: AARP, BusinessWeek, Cisco, Consumers Union (Consumer Reports), Current TV, Ebay, iVillage, Logictech, Loopt, Salon.com, Sony, Yahoo and many more.

We cover a lot of ground in the two days of discussion, but to my mind, three key points stick out:

Value & Metrics
The conversation around dimensions of value of online communities seems to be getting more sophisticated. In general, it seems most organizations are comfortable with accepting that there is intrinsic value in community-building activities. Reporting on that value requires a mix of quantitative and qualitative data. The most successful community strategies include clear goals for the organizations community activities that tie back to larger organizational goals. Most teams aren't getting pressure to "justify the existence" of the online community, but rather, are getting pressure to provide more in depth analysis of the type of value that is being created with the community.

Metaphor: Beyond Destination to Ecosystem
Most community strategies that were discussed involved a more sophisticated engagement plan that went beyond a destination site, and included not only the destination site, but other independent community sites, key bloggers, mass social media (Facebook, LinkedIn, Etc.) and even offline groups and events.

Mobile is Coming
If for no other reason than the shear adoption of mobile devices, mobile social networking will play a clear role in the industry soon. Not only are mobile devices deployed at scale, but the sophistication of the devices, and the networks that they run on, are getting faster and more sophisticated. A theme with many in the room at the Summit was about augmented their existing communities with a mobile version.

Blog & Podcast coverage:
We were blessed with several talented bloggers, podcasters and twitterers for this year's Summit, and as such, I have a lot of follow up content to point you to.

Aaron Strout and Jim Storer of Mzinga did several key interviews. Jim shares his thoughts, and has teh embedded interviews on his blog:
http://www.mzinga.com/en/Community/Blogs/Jim-Storer/Conversations-w-Mzinga-at-OCS08/

Bryan Person of LiveWorld has a nice summary post of the Summit, as well:
http://socialvoice.liveworld.com/blog-entry/Bryan-Persons-Blog/Recapping-2008-Online/1100000180

Brian also conducted a series of interviews:
• Chrystie Hill, director of community services for WebJunction.org.
• Kathy O'Sullivan, product manager of online community for the education team at Autodesk.
• Ron Casalotti, director of user participation at BusinessWeek.
• Christine Perey, market-research and business-development consultant for technology providers.

Chrystie Hill's of Web Junction shares her thoughts:
http://blog.webjunctionworks.org/index.php/2008/10/18/online-community-summit-2008/

Pictures of the Summit:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/forumone/tags/ocs08

Twitter Stream:
http://search.twitter.com/search?q=ocs08

Current Research: Online Community Culture

nospam@example.com (Bill Johnston) — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 17:25:18 -0400

The Online Community Research Network is kicking off our next research project to study how online community cultures form, what factors effect change, and how hosts maintain a desired culture.

We have found that the best source of information about community best practice and strategy comes from the collective experience of real-world practitioners.

If you would like to participate in the study, you can find the research survey here:
http://moourl.com/occulture

Again, the survey is intended for experienced community managers and strategists only, please.

Online Communities: Surviving and Thriving in a Downturn (Part 1)

nospam@example.com (Bill Johnston) — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 12:16:23 -0400

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?

9/30 - Webcast: Best Practices for Moderating Your Online Community

nospam@example.com (Bill Johnston) — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 23:25:57 -0400

Please join me and Mike Pascucci of Mzinga for a webcast about best practices in community moderation.

Best Practices for Moderating Your Online Community
A Webcast Co-sponsored by Mzinga and Forum One Networks

Date & Time: September 30th at 2 pm ET

Join online community expert, Bill Johnston of Forum One, and Mzinga moderation guru Mike Pascucci for in-depth examination and discussion on all aspects of community moderation, including key best practices. Session highlights will include:

- Developing effective community member guidelines and policies for appropriate content
- Ensuring a welcoming and risk-free online community environment, without hindering member activity and discussions
- Multiple moderation techniques, from proactive monitoring to content seeding and post-moderation—and practical advice on which approach to take
- Featured business cases that explore how leading brands are using moderation to support and grow their community initiative and membership.

Register now

Online Community Expert Interview: Tom Diederich, Cadence Design Systems

nospam@example.com (Bill Johnston) — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 09:30:38 -0400

This month's Expert Interview is with Tom Diederich, social media/Web community manager at Cadence Design Systems in San Jose, Calif. Tom recently relaunched the Cadence online community with great success, and he shares insights from the launch in this interview.

Tom was drawn to online communities during the Internet's early days. He began "blogging" in 1996 (though he called it his "online journal") when working in Tokyo as a journalist to keep friends and family informed of his adventures there. Since then, Tom has worked to build online community at various companies including Intuit, Symantec and Cadence Design Systems. He holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the Ohio State University.

Q: You recently re-launched the Cadence community, and have had a great success in attracting members. Can you talk about the techniques you used for launch and growth?
I spent a lot of time working with power users – educating them about the new community (which unlike the old site incorporates Web 2.0 technologies). Many of the enhancements came from the community, so they were eager to see their ideas brought to life. Once they had a sneak peek, they became evangelists and really did most of the promoting.

But I also spent a great deal of time talking to bloggers in Cadence’s market, the so-called “electronic design automation” space, often referred to simply as “EDA.”

We also introduced blogs – Cadence employees, mainly engineers, architects and product managers. I have spent (and it’s an on-going process) a lot of time recruiting bloggers and also reminding them to post regularly. The content they produce resonates with the community, so in this case it really was a matter of: “If you build it, they will come.”

Our new Website also puts “community” front and center – right on the landing page of cadence.com. I don’t think there is another company in our industry (or many others) that does that. It’s the first thing visitors see and it pulls them in.

Q: What plans do you have in place for fostering ongoing member engagement?
A few things. Right now I’m working on a program for super-users. I’m also planning to roll out a ranking system that will correlate with the point system currently in place (that is also new to the community). For community members, striving for that next bump in rank can be addictive!

Q: Can you talk a little bit about the Cadence strategy for integrating community into the corporate site?
Sure. We wanted to get more out of our corporate site than the usual one-way delivery of information. We wanted to leverage the site to connect Cadence with our customers and get successful customers connected with other, creating a vibrant community. Visitors can now interact with each other and with Cadence in a more conversational way, sharing and learning from the collective participation. This will help us better understand our customers' needs more quickly and develop solutions that will more closely meet their needs.

We feel confident that our incorporation of ‘New Social Media’ into the corporate site is accomplishing our business objectives both in terms of metrics and community interaction. Better for our visitors, and better for Cadence, so a win-win result.

Q: What general online community trends are you paying attention to? What is on the horizon for the industry 24-36 months out?
It’s a brand-new community (launched in mid July) so it will take a little more time to really dig into trends. But on a high level, I’m looking at new registrations, page views, RSS subscriptions, incoming links, thread volumes, post/thread tone, blog comment traffic compared to posts …

I’m also working on sharing some key conversations (customer-driven innovation) from the community (lessons learned, product enhancement ideas, new product and services ideas, etc.) with product management and customer support.

I’m not sure what’s in store for the EDA industry, but 24-36 months from now I’d like the Cadence community to be seen as “the” go-to place for Cadence customers – and non-customers alike. I’m going to propose some pretty cool features and functionality in the meantime to help make that happen. ☺

Marketing & Online Communities 2008: Initial Speakers & Topics Announced

nospam@example.com (Bill Johnston) — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 12:13:51 -0400

The agenda for the Marketing & Online Communities conference is coming together nicely. The conference will be held November 5th at the Tribeca Grand in New York City. The event is intended to be an informative and interactive discussion of the intersection of marketing and online communities. If you are an agency seeking to better understand the possibilities of online communities, a brand manager looking to engage in community-building activities, or a community expert seeking to expand marketing relationships, this conference will be of value.

Session and Breakout Topics will include:
• Designing for Conversation
• The Social Web: How Consumers and Brands are Connecting Online
• Secrets of Successful Community Campaigns
• Community Generated Media: Giving Customers a Voice and Companies Insight
• Integrating Customer Communities in to the Marketing Mix
• Measuring Social Marketing Programs
• Best Practices for Adding Advertising to Your Community
• Engaging with Mass Social Media
• Worst Case Survival: What To Do When Things Go Horribly Wrong

Confirmed session leads include:
• Heather Gold – subvert.com
• Elisa Camahort Page – BlogHer
• Deb Shulz - Independent
• Heather Lutrell – 3jane / indieclick
• Belinda Lang – American Express
• David Rubinstein - ExpoTV
• Peter Friedman, Moderator – CEO - LiveWorld

To learn more about the conference, including a summary of topics, presenters and attendees from last year, check out the official events page on the Forum One Networks site:
Marketing & Online Communities 2008

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me.

The tag for the event is #moc2008

Online Community Compensation: Salaries By Region

nospam@example.com (Bill Johnston) — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 10:10:52 -0400

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.

I posted key highlights from the report a few weeks ago.

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.