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From Comments to Content: Building Real Value from Community Participation
Ben Rubenstein
A case study romantic comedy
The plot
A B2B tech media company has been unlucky with commenting integration in the past
A new way of thinking could create a real relationship, but…
Can resource and workflow challenges be overcome so everyone can find community love, actually?
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The cast
Community Team
C-SuiteDevelopment
Editorial
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Once upon a time…there was lonely content
Pre-2011: No comment function on editorial content.
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Once upon a time…there was lonely content
“Our users don’t care about that.”
OR
“They can go over to the
community for that.”
(<10% crossover b/w editorial and community sites)
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The Dating Circuit
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The dating circuit
Anonymous comments Difficult to
interact Minimal
moderation Limited value
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The dating circuit
Disqus Improved
ease of use No integration No
registration value
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The dating circuit
Fly-in polls Closed questions
only Responses
combined with general comments
Quantity>quality
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The dating circuit
Trying to track down a comment or moderate a thread? Good luck…
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The challenge: A real relationship
Create a positive experience for users
Make it easy for all involved to manage and interact
Make comments useful and valuable for the entire business
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What is love? Better understanding
of target audience Audience engagement
with brand/employees Traffic increase Content production
increase Membership increase
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The meet-cute: Stumbling into a solution
Comment ‘repository’ driven by existing community site
Interaction points support content through links
Editors and contributors incentivized to participate
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Getting to know you… Users create a community profile/username to
interact
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Getting to know you… All content gets automatically generated
discussion page w/ synced comments
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Getting to know you… Editorially created discussion questions create
second entrance point, interaction opportunity
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Getting to know you… Automated comment notifications to authors,
editors + commenters Tag-based activity emails to subscribers
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Getting to know you… Moderation via community back-end
(WordPress)
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Getting to know you… Content/discussions/users showcased on
community site
@Speaker Hashtag @LavaCon
Friends with benefits Expected increases in:
Inbound links/search visibility
Site registrations Return traffic Visibility for
contributors/editors Interaction among
community and site members
Data for editorial content, marketing campaigns, sales conversations @ben_rubenstein #LavaCon
Will it work out? How will we mesh
separate systems and teams?
Who handles tagging and content updates?
Where does this fit in the editorial workflow?
Will users get it?
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Circle of friends (and frenemies)Internal user feedback identifies: Early adopters,
supporters, skeptics
Potential workflow issues
Topic-based challenges
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Meet the parentsMaking the case for development resources: What’s the goal? What’s the
business benefit?
What’s the alternative?
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Relationships = work Data cleanup Profile setup Taxonomy updates Design mockups Daily scrum Daily scrum Daily scrum…
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Consummation
All my hard work has paid
off…we’re getting a new commenting
system!!
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It gets complicated Success means everyone participates
Create discussion questions Monitor and respond to comments Make user interaction a priority
Wait, this isn’t
just going to be easy?
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It gets complicated
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Unexpected uses:
It gets complicated
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Low participation:
The grand overture3 rules for successful communication: Speak the language Keep it simple (and positive) Know what you’re asking for
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The grand overture
“Beautiful Aurelia, I’ve come here with a view of asking you to marriage me. I know I seems an insane person, because I hardly knows you, but sometimes things are so transparency, they don’t need evidential proof. And I will inhabit here, or you can inhabit with me in England. Of course I don’t expecting you to be as foolish as me, and of course I prediction you say ‘no’… but it’s Christmas and I just wanted to check.”
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Our strategy Meet face-to-face
with everyone impacted
Broadcast success stories and highlight early adopters
Stay visible with regular communication
Do the gruntwork to prove out value
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Communication efforts
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Communication efforts
Infographic, emails, meetingsExamples of success storiesCommunicate to contributorsCommunicate to sales (vendor relationships)
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Communication efforts
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Making it official Discussion questions
part of the editorial workflow (300+ created each month)
All editors (and many contributors) have profiles
Community registrations tracked
Daily notifications sent
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Reviews
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The numbers are in…
6000 comments/responses over first 10 months (12K over previous 3 years)
4000+ new-to-network registrations (major source)
20% CTR on comment notifications Community participants view 3 times as many
pages, stay 5 times as long on sites as average visitor
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‘Til death do us part…‘Honey do’ list: Testing/feature
optimization Full integration of
community into network
Continued workflow discussions
Increased community content/moderation
Full integration, tracking and communication of data
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Lasting impact Changed the
internal perception about community and content lifecycle
Entered new editorial, sales + marketing conversations
Set the stage for increased resources, new roles @ben_rubenstein #LavaCon
Credits benrubenstein.net linkedin.com/
benrubenstein @ben_rubenstein
@ben_rubenstein #LavaCon
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