[Digital marketing];[online community-best-practices-fina]

2Entire contents © 2008 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved.

Online Community Best PracticesJeremiah OwyangSenior AnalystForrester Research

March, 2008


Theme

Community Are Powerful Tools, As Long As You

Put Members’ Needs First.


Agenda

• Start with an Objective

• Developing a Plan

• Getting Your Company Ready

• Staff you will need

• How to pick a Vendor

• Kick-Starting

• Growing And Maintaining

• Widgets and OpenSocial


An Online Community

► An online community is an interactive group of people joined together by a common interest.


Examples

•A discussion forum where conversations develop•A custom application with profiles and connections•A group within an existing social networking site or email service.•A network of blogs.•Comments on a rating site.•Anywhere conversations and people connect and share.


Usage of Social Networks are High

• 2/3 of Teens use Social Networking sites at least monthly

• 1/5 of teens use social networks daily

• 1/3 of Adults use at least monthly

Source: North American Technographics Retail and Marketing Online Youth Survey, Q4 2007North American Social Technographics Online Survey, Q2, 2007


Communication and Self-Expression important

Activity Frequency

See what my friends are up to: 86%

Sent a message to someone: 79%

Posted/updated my profile: 70%

Looked at profiles of people I didn’t know: 65%

Searched for someone that I used to know: 59%

Send a friend/connection request: 53%

Listened to music: 47%

Read a blog or journal: 51%

Wrote on someone’s profile page (e.g., wrote on a wall, posted a testimonial):

55%

Watched a video: 40%

Sources: North American Technographics Retail And Marketing Online Youth Survey, Q4 2007


…but who’s in charge?

• Control is in the hands of the participants, often yielding seemingly unpredictable results.

• Marketers must relinquish control or risk ending up with an empty community or — worse yet — brand backlash.


Not sure where to start?


The four step approach to the groundswell

POST

People Assess your customers’ Social Technographics profile

Objectives Decide what you want to accomplish

Strategy Plan for how relationships with customers will change

Technology Decide which social technologies to use


Agenda






• Kick-Starting




Objectives: Define deployment

Goal Contribution Example

Listening

Direct customer insight

New product ideas

Beta testing

•Insight Communities

•Scan and monitor existing communities

Speaking

Create an emotional attachment.

Advertising based on network

•Marketing campaigns (interactive)

•Advertisements

EnergizingExcite your biggest fans.

Word of mouth

•Applications, Widgets

•Media

Supporting Peer-to-peer support •Customer-created groups

EmbracingMembers become contributors

•Ideastorm, SalesForce


Anatomy of an Effective Plan

• Flexibility

• One Objective

• Needs of Members are put first –not marketers

• Policy Creation

• Prepare for costs and benefits

• Select Success metrics


Flexibility

• Adidas created an online community on MySpace.com, the brand developed a six- to 12-month road map that included a design refresh for every three months.


Remember the needs of the community and prepare to participate

• Success depends on interests of members first

• Valuable Content is defined by what’s valuable to the community — which means most traditional advertising and marketing materials don’t count.

» Help docs

» Behind-the-scenes videos

» Sneak previews


Figure 2: A Taxonomy Of Detractors

Legitimate complainer Needs help withproducts orservices orwants to warnothers

Raises legitimate issue; may use strong language but seems open to reason

Solve problems or explain policies, publicly if possible

Competitor Want to promote competing products

Continues to mention other brands; parrots their marketing messages

Engage rationally and respectfully with your company’s perspective

Engaged critic Think they can make things better

Makes suggestions, not just complaints; responds intelligently to others’ criticisms

Create forum to encourage discussion; recognize good ideas publicly

Flamer Like to argue with other members

Tend to participate in “flame wars” and may have specific other members they target

Refocus discussion on higher goals of community

Troublemaker Have a grudge against company; hope to create problems

Complains continuously and cannot be satisfied; uses incendiary language

Address individually and privately, if complaints continue in face of attempts to resolve, remove from community

Type of detractorWhy they

make trouble How to recognizeWhat youshould do


Create a community policy, focusing on the desired behavior

• Set the tone by developing community guidelines that outline the expected behavior of the community.

• Prominently publish desired guidelines focusing on the positive, rather than create a long list of prohibited actions.

“Be Fun, Friendly, and Informational.”


Prepare for costs and benefits.

• Don’t run out of steam, prepare for all costs:

• Hidden costs

» Kick-Start Labor

» Internal Education

» Ongoing Management

• Develop a ROI and total cost model

• (see online community best practices report)


Agenda






• Kick-Starting




Build the internal teams first

• Part educator, part evangelist, and all customer advocate.

• Focus on tangible benefits to company.

• Create internal training sessions, call in experts.

• Start by connecting with important decision-makers one at a time.


Get an Executive Champion

• They often say the word “Customers.”

• Your advocate — and defender — as you initiate discussions with other internal stakeholders.


Establish clear lines of responsibility and ongoing processes

• Nearly every department is impacted:

» Marketing

» Product teams

» Account teams

» Support

» Client teams

• Setup mock simulations using internal versions of the tools

• Develop internal guidelines

• Create a rapid response team


Agenda






• Kick-Starting




Social Media Strategist: Internal Leader

• The community strategist who organizes internal resources and supports the program.

• This experienced business manager:

» Is able to maneuver within the organization

» Leans on relationships with many business teams

» Manages the business program

» Leads the internal charge

» Develops the objectives and obtain resources

» Creates policy, deals with internal stakeholders, and provides ongoing reports to management

Ed TerpeningVP, Social Media,

Wells Fargo


Community Manager: Member Champion

• The community manager or moderator who interacts with members.

• As a primary advocate of the community, the community manager:

» Balances the needs of the community with corporate objectives

» Is a customer advocate

» Is a brand evangelist

» May create editorial content

» Harvests customer needs for market intelligence

• Skills.

» possess strong online communication skills, is approachable and conversational, and has the ability to relate to members online and offline

Lionel Menchca

Digital Media Manager

Dell Computers


Agenda






• Kick-Starting




When selecting a vendor

• Lead With Needs, Not Technology.

• Based upon your objectives, determine the right technologies

• First, develop your feature requirements.

• There are many segments of social networks.

» Organic (like Facebook, MySpace.com)

» White Label

– Insight

– Collaboration

– Widget

– Media

– Vertical


Services

• Rely on services and support from experienced vendors.

» Consultation

» Moderation/Listening

» Moderating

» Setup

» Rebranding

» Launching

» Reporting

• Caution: Stay engaged, don’t outsource your business strategy.


Agenda






• Kick-Starting




How to Kick-Start

• First, find a creators and influencers

• Consider creating an “embassy.”

• Choose just a few features to launch with, and then add more as needed.

• Integrate with other marketing activities.

• Reward helpful members with recognition –not money


Growing and Maintaining: Microsoft MVP

• Microsoft rewarded members through public recognition.

• Ambassadors.


Agenda






• Kick-Starting




Growing and Maintaining

• Stay engaged with your community by monitoring and quickly responding.

• Integrate your community with real-world events.

• Extend the reach of your community by cross-pollinating on existing social networks.

» Obama for America while also maintaining a presence on Facebook. Videos on YouTube, Facebook, and Obama’s own network


Obama, primary blog


Obama on Facebook


Obama on MySpace


Obama on Twitter


Obama on MySpace


Agenda






• Kick-Starting

• Widgets and Open Social


Widgets and opportunity for marketers

• Growth.

» 13,083 applications on the platform

» Top 10 apps have over 10 million installs

• What works:

» Applications that have robust functionality

» Social features that connect users

» Yet many are never successful

User

Direct friends

Indirect friends

Interested parties

Source: Rodney Rumford, CEO Gravitational Media: FaceReviews.com Graphic Source: Rock You


Widgets and Applications

• Mini Applications.

• Successful Attributes.

» Interactive

» Offer value, not just “Disposable”

» Utilize social aspect


Widgets and Applications

• Recommended Deployment:

» Sponsor or rebrand existing widget

» Integrate brand as part of experience

» Create own


Case study: “Vampires” and movie “skins”

Sources: Facebook Screenshots


OpenSocial

• Google partnership.

• Allows widgets to write once, run many.

• Challenges.

» Demographics are different in each community

» Many APIs available

» Still in Beta

» Privacy issues with open data


Recommendations

• Act more like a host at a party, rather than a cop.

• The power is in the hands of the community.

• Traditional marketing tactics do not apply.

• Develop your POST methodology.

» People, Objectives, Strategy, Tools

• Understand Objectives.

» Listening

» Talking

» Energizing

» Supporting

» Embracing


Jeremiah Owyang

Blog: web-strategist.com

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: twitter.com/jowyang

www.forrester.com

Thank you


Related Research

» ACDSee

» AirTran Airways

» Ant’s Eye View

» Avenue A | Razorfish

» Carnival Cruise Lines

» Charles and Helen Schwab Foundation

» Cnet TechRepublic

» Constant Contact

» Dogster

» Intuit

» Leverage Software

» Microsoft

» MySpace.com

» Organic

» Reuters AdvicePoint

» SATMetrics

» Telligent Systems

•Based off the report: Online Community Best Practices•Companies Interviewed:

[Digital marketing];[online community-best-practices-fina]

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