How ready is your organisation for an online brand community?Notes from the Verve Workshop – AURA Meeting, 25th November 2009

What do you see as the challenges to using a community in your organisation?

1. Who is going to own, manage and support this internally?

This is a great question and one that gets to the real heart of the debate – is this a single use tool or canThis is a great question and one that gets to the real heart of the debate is this a single use tool or canonline brand communities realise their full potential and become a strategic tool for the business? Theanswer depends on three things: where are you now, to what extent has the concept been accepted and,thirdly, how well does your organisation collaborate internally? Some organisations are ready to go in ‘allguns blazing’ while others will need to adopt an incremental approach – proving the case on a smaller-scaleand building-up from a position of strength. Mapping the resources required to develop and manage anonline brand community is relatively straightforward, the challenge is often more about how you shouldmanage this new relationship with your customers and how ready are you to respond to their feedback.g p y y y p

Market research functions are often the most natural place for an online brand community to start, and giventhat the thread of an online community is around conversation, researchers are ideally placed to bring thediscipline of analysing and interpreting. As the community becomes a resource that is used more widelyamong the organisation, the research team becomes a central co-ordination point for the resource as well asa user. They also become ambassadors for the resource, and should encourage contributions from acrossthe organisation – inviting specialists into the conversations makes it more engaging and rewarding for bothcommunity members and staff.

In terms of practical support, Verve’s role in the process is to design, build and recruit members into thecommunity, and then provide day-to-day community management (e.g dealing with member queries,forgotten passwords etc, contributing ideas for and posting agreed content, managing online surveys andforums). Verve would also ensure that community members remained engaged, carefully balancing theamount of contact and changing content in the community to build a strong and healthy relationship withmembers Verve would also administer any research projects (providing full service research support frommembers. Verve would also administer any research projects (providing full service research support fromquestionnaire design, online scripting, fieldwork or moderation, data processing, analysis and reporting).Verve essentially acts as the liaison point between you and the community, working with you to get the verybest out of it.

2. Will this add to my research costs?

Whilst building an online brand community is an investment in an asset it can quickly prove its value as aWhilst building an online brand community is an investment in an asset, it can quickly prove its value as aresource for fielding the customer elements of your research agenda (an online community can run for aslittle a cost as a couple of focus groups a month and can save upwards of 40% research costs). This isbefore the incremental benefits of having the voice of your customers on your desktop. If you don’t want tostart with a fully-fledged community, the alternative is to start by building a small community for a specificresearch project and extend it out from there. These begin at around £10k which is usually budgetsubstituted from undertaking a project or two from other approaches through the “project community”.

From our experience, we’ve found it useful to prove the case (and the business case can often be made for p , p (single projects) and then steadily extend the use of the community as a methodology (to replace others in your budget) in line with the organisation's appetite for change and appreciation of the benefits.

3. How should I handle confidential topics with the community?

Unknowing infiltration by competitors or unfriendly individuals is a concern for any type of research orcustomer dialogue. Our response is fairly pragmatic, take the same care you would to vet and monitorparticipants as you would do in conventional research. Its worth bearing in mind also that because onlinebrand communities allow you to have an ongoing relationship with your customers, there are additional toolsto help keep your secrets safe e.g. only inviting long-term members or setting up smaller sub-groups ofinterest. It is also worth bearing in mind that you choose the customers to invite into your community and youcan use profiling to learn more about them. Moderation allows you to remove comments, talk one on one orrestrict members’ access.

4 Ho do I access hard to reach gro ps?4. How do I access hard to reach groups?

An online approach to contacting your audience can be an enabler (e.g for B2B or physician communities,generation Y etc) or a barrier (e.g for those that are not online). As with all research design, it is important tounderstand your target audience and choose a methodology that is appropriate. Online communities are notthe only methodology out there. That said, there are some really interesting mobile-based research tools whichallow you to push out tasks to those who would not participate in other forms of research. The technicalplatform underpinning an online brand community should allow you to integrate data from other fieldworkplatform underpinning an online brand community should allow you to integrate data from other fieldworkcollection methods (e.g CATI or CAPI data), enabling you to plug these results into your analysis and reportingprocesses.

5. How can I maintain interest in the community?

Participation fuels a successful online brand community, and it is crucial to inspire community members to takepart in the community. From a community owner’s perspective, this means ensuring that there is sufficientpart in the community. From a community owner s perspective, this means ensuring that there is sufficientcontent (and feedback) within the community to stimulate interest, having the right balance (and volume) ofrelevant research studies for members to take part in, smart management of active versus passivecontributors, and prompt and efficient response to member queries. The role of the community manager iskey here, and Verve would provide this service as part of running an online brand community. It is Verve’sresponsibility, and area of expertise, to ensure the community is appropriately engaged.

From a member’s perspective, it is important to understand the motivations behind taking part in a brandedcommunity. For members, it’s all about working to generate empowered involvement. There are four aspectsto consider:

Meaning – how will participant’s engagement with your community add meaning to their lives (e.g.by giving a sense of belonging, feeling valued etc e.g members of Mumsnet or Nike + communitiesChoice – it has to be voluntary, driven by interest not coercionImpact – participants need to see the results of their contributionC t ti i t d t f l th t th h thi t ff th h th iCompetence – participants need to feel that they have some something to offer through theirinvolvement which will be valued*

One final point not everyone in a community will need the same level of involvement You may have peopleOne final point, not everyone in a community will need the same level of involvement. You may have peoplewanting to contribute daily or hourly and those happier to give their views a couple of times a month. The aimhere is to keep listening, see what’s working, look at what people are finding interesting and evolve yourapproach to meet this.

* Based on a presentation by Martin Oetting, author of ‘Ripple effect – how empowered involvement drives word of mouth’

6. How can I integrate the findings from the online brand community with other data sources?g g y

The technical platform underpinning an online brand community allows you to integrate data from other fieldworkprojects. This enables you to plug these results directly into your analysis and reporting processes and providesyou with a platform for a single point of data capture within your organisation.

7. When will I know if I am overusing the community?

As experts in panel management Verve can advise you on the sensible use of any community, defining theparameters for detecting “over-use” and ensuring that the community’s health is being regularly monitored andmaintained. Whilst it is good news if your organisation is using the community a lot, it is not so good if membersare being taken advantage of. Conversely, if you never speak to your members, you could equally lose them. Aswith any relationship, a successful community relies on the right balance of give and take between members.

8. How can I prepare the rest of our organisation (including senior stakeholders) to respond well toti /i d t f db k?open conversation/increased customer feedback?

The first part is to help wider members of your organisation to ‘get it’. People have always talked about you,what’s changed is that they now have the tools to spread this message amazingly quickly and fan the flames ofdebate. Just because you haven’t heard, doesn’t mean that people aren’t talking. This means that theeffectiveness of conventional marketing techniques has been reduced (your voice may no longer be the loudest).Customers want you to listen and, importantly, do something with what they say (its no longer effective just tolisten to the buzz the key is to do something with it) That means that organisations can gain competitivelisten to the buzz, the key is to do something with it). That means that organisations can gain competitiveadvantage from being open and responsive. If they ignore it, people will still keep talking. If the talk is allnegative, this could ultimately damage your brand if not handled in an effective way.

Online brand community tools provide you with the ability to engage customers in an ongoing conversation,building relationships with people who used to be lines in a CRM system. Participation is the new control, and acommunity provides you with the mechanism to deal with concerns in a structured and measurable way.

9. Do we need a ‘killer’ application to help smooth the procurement process?

Our clients often find it useful to concentrate on one project (e.g brand tracking, ad-effectiveness testing, stafffeedback) as this helps focus attention on immediate tangible benefits. An online brand community, if doneproperly, should save you money on research when compared to conventional methods. This can provide acompelling business case from which to grow the community.

How would a community help you and your organisation?

Online brand communities can:

Increase the amount of customer dialogue within the organisation

Provide the impetus for culture change – leading increased customer focus across the organisationProvide the impetus for culture change leading increased customer focus across the organisation

Provide the impetus and stimulus to encourage cross-functional working within an organisation

Make the organisation’s ability to listen more in line with the public’s ability to talk about them

Provide a quick response/answers tool

Encourage interactive feedback

Extend the speed and reach of conventional research methodsExtend the speed and reach of conventional research methods

Provide more pertinent/effective research as respondents are already familiar with the topic

Enable you to tap into affinity groups

Inform new product development and early concept testing

Help position and support the brand

Encourage and build positive word of mouth

Support PR and social media content generation efforts

Contribute towards meeting CSR goals by providing a mechanism for listening and responding to customers

Provide a channel to help explore service issues (e.g. Dell example)

Generate significant cost savings for research

About Verve

V i th i li t i b ildi i d i t i i t d iVerve is the specialist in building, managing and maintaining customer advisorypanels and online brand communities. Verve brings together a multi-disciplinary team ofprofessionals with a proven track record in the market research industry to put the voice of thecustomer at the heart of business. This delivers faster, better, more cost-effective and moreprofessional research through a unique combination of expertise in online panels, research, socialmedia, communities, technology, marketing and graphic design. Verve is powered by VerveEngine, the best-in-class technology and services platform for efficient, flexible, scalable customeradvisory panels and online brand communities.

For more information, contact Emma Morioka – e.morioka@addverve.com

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