B2B Community Building - a discussion and roadmap - mesh conference 2010

mesh workshop:
BUILDING A
B2B COMMUNITY
May 19, 2010
Eden Spodek, High Road Communications

Copyright 2010 High Road Communications - www.highroad.com

“Social media and B2B were made for each
other even though most examples are B2C.

Listening & engaging in social media can
help you focus quickly on the right people at
the right time.”

David Alston, VP Marketing and Community, Radian6

Why is community important for B2B companies?

“According to a recent Forrester Research
study* of business buyers, 91% use
social technologies and 69% use them
for professional purposes.
Today, more B2B companies than ever
are discovering the potential of branded
online communities – but be careful –
branding should always take a backseat.”

*Deepen B2B Tech Customer Engagement With
Community Marketing
Forrester - December 9, 2009

Agenda

• What is a B2B community?
• Developing a B2B community strategy
• Measuring success
• Insights and practices from Canadian B2B communities
• Questions


What is a B2B community?

• “…Community marketing is about using
marketing to engage prospects, current
customers, industry insiders, and partners in
dialog that transparently and collectively improves
the probability of creating effective solutions to the
most pressing business problems...

• ... supports better business outcomes...

•.. new ways, to innovate collaborate, and partner
that create more productive business
operations.“

Bill Lee, President
Customer Strategy Group,
Jan. 12, 2010

Photo credit: andycaster on flickr from PAB 2008

Delivering value

“No brainer: offer value. ...listen actively and
intently to what your nascent community
actually wants and needs.
Sometimes, that's not obvious: people won't
(often can't) necessarily tell you flat out what
they want. It requires a lot of insight,
interpretation and questioning.”

Michael O‟Connor Clarke, VP Marketing Communications, FreshBooks

What are the rewards?

• Cultivate brand ambassadors

• Generate sales

• Gain customer insights

• Early awareness of issues
• Collaborate with customers, partners
and suppliers.
• Director customer contact

• New customer service channel

Objectives

“Different communities will have different
goals. If the goal is sales of a product or
customer acquisition then there is the
metric to measure. If your goal is PR or
conversations then measure that.
Basically, know your goals at the
beginning and work towards
accomplishing them.”

Saul Colt, Lead Evangelist, Rogers Ventures

How does community building fit into your
organization's objectives?
 Develop a strategy with a clear vision of your goals and target audience
 How does community building fit into your organization's objectives?
 Understanding the objective(s) of community members
 Choosing an appropriate platform
 Cultivating and creating content
 Role of the community manager and brand ambassadors
 Governance
 Measuring success
 Marketing, visibility, brand awareness, customer loyalty, relationship-building

Understanding the objective of the community
• Who is your community for?
• Remember, its for them, not for you
• Content and relationships build your brand, not creative

• How will you provide value?
• Where are the current gaps and how can the community fill them?
• What tools can you provide to make their jobs easier?
• The “gift system”*

• How will you define it‟s members?

* Seth Godin, Lynchpin, 2010

Understanding the objective of the community (con‟t)

• Relationships first, business second
• Find your audience – online audits, participating in other communities, events
• Give 25 times more than you expect to receive*

• Model for community management (individual or a team)

• Who will you allow to join - open or closed community?
• Clients/prospects, partners, suppliers and/or industry thought leaders/players
• Open - increases web traffic via SEO, word of mouth
• Closed - gain intimacy and control (preferable for co-creation and market research)

*Chris Brogan
http://www.chrisbrogan.com/

User Profiles

Connie Mark Jen

Motivation: Motivation: Motivation:
E.g. Sharing knowledge and E.g. Working smarter by saving E.g. Collaborate with other
information time and cutting costs. entrepreneurs.

Quote: Quote: Quote:
E.g. “I hope my experiences E.g. “My workforce has been cut E.g. “I’ve gone out on my own
can help my readers.” by 20% while my workload and I’d like to network with
increased..” other small biz owners.”

Choosing an appropriate platform

“Don’t just go to (insert favourite
large social site). Let your target
audience, content and conversational
nurture flow guide your tech choices.”

Peter Hartl, Community Manager, www.telustalksbusiness.com


“Remember that everyone is busy and only
has so much time to spend... Make it as easy
as possible for people to interact with you
from other places they hang out (Twitter,
Ping.fm, etc) - that's something we're
working on.”

Erin Bury, Community Manager, Sprouter


• Do you go to them, let them come
to you or both?

• Importance of user experience – if
you're building a community site,
make it easy for members
to participate

• Needs to be simple, scalable,
flexible, functional and usable

Cultivating and creating content

“I think the best way to keep people
engaged is to continually provide value.

We try to do that through our Sprouter
Weekly startup newsletter, our offline
events, and our blog.”

Erin Bury, Community Manager, Sprouter


“For us, it's all about making our
community look great (example - we have
photo contests on Twitter where we give
prizes to ppl who take shots of themselves
using our gear. This is a great community
bldg exercise and it also highlights what we
do in a fun and non sales-y way.”

Mark Graham, President, RIGHTSLEEVE


• How will you engage members with
your community?
• How will you keep them coming back?
• Develop unique content members can't
receive elsewhere
• Be approachable and appeal to a
wide audience
• Keep an eye on engagement –
it ebbs and flows (it‟s not constant)

Role of the community manager

“Engaging in the community is
important but more then that you
need to empower the people in your
community to speak for you and find
new participants for your group to
grown and survive.”

Saul Colt, Lead Evangelist, Rogers Ventures

Role of the community manager

• Defining roles

• Single or multiple community managers?

• Personality and passion

• What‟s in it for them?

• Internal support and autonomy

• Succession planning

Governance

 Define strategic direction and review periodically

 Develop content and publishing guidelines

 Commenting policies

 User guidelines and code of conduct

 Monitoring and measurement

 Support community manager(s) – internal integration

 Succession planning

Measuring success

“There are a lot of methods and tools to
measure community success, but first you
need to decide what success means for you
and set benchmarks.
However, too much focus on a number can
make you lose sight of the effect you’re
having on your community.”

Rayanne Langdon, Queen of Hearts, Everywhere

Measuring success

“...Communities are like wine, after
uncorking they need time to breathe
before being assessed.”

Peter Hartl, Community Manager, www.telustalksbusiness.com

What are the Challenges?

• Loss of information control

• Challenge in balancing transparency with knowledge sharing

• Lack of integration with other business units

• Low engagement, sustaining content

• Staffing changes

• Inability to scale

• Trolls, negative comments

Challenge: Managing with limited resources

• How to do you balance the business' evolving needs with the community
manager‟s role when the business is a start-up?

• How do you add new functions to a community manger‟s role, when there‟s
only one and you have limited resources?

• How does a community manger stay creative and engaged when you
feel like you‟re a one-person team, having to support your own work, ideas
and creativity independently?


PostRank‟s Solution

„It's ongoing as the company grows. Communication with management

and development's important – helps answer “what are we going to do next,

and what does the team need from me to make it happen?””

Melanie Baker
Community Manager, PostRank Inc.


FreshBooks Solution

Find ways to incorporate what you do with other departments in the
organization and play off the strengths you lack that others have. Also, realize
why and that you‟re wanted.

My Advice: Be real. Pretending to connect with people won‟t be bought. You will
only be successful gathering people about your business by loving what you do
and the people you do this for. Recognize and thank the people who really
believe in your business, product, etc. Make them feel special.

Rayanne Langdon
Account Executive, High Road Communications
former Queen of Hearts at FreshBooks

Challenge 2: Succession planning

• What happens when a community manager or evangelist leaves
the company?

• How to you recover when the departing community manager has a
strong personal brand interwoven with the company‟s brand?


Wisdom from the Head of Magic
Just as you should treat your community with respect and class you
should do the same for your employer. This is all common sense but
once you have decided that you want to leave you should be training
someone to do what you do...and this can be done without them even
realizing you are training/teaching them. I was fortunate at FreshBooks
because I had an amazing person who I was able to do this so the
company was not left in a lurch but this is only half of the solution.

.../2

Saul Colt
Lead Evangelist at Rogers Ventures

Wisdom from the Head of Magic (con‟t)
The best way to move between a community is to not actually move at all but rather join
another community and never leave the old one. If you are in a community because you
enjoy being there and participating then why would you leave? I am still very active in the
creative communities that I participated in while at FreshBooks because I was there out of
actual interest and not just to sell people FreshBooks. Just because I am not at
FreshBooks is no reason to abandon the friends and people I met along my journey into
their communities and in a lot of ways my commitment to these people smoothed the
transition for FreshBooks as I acted as an unpaid ambassador for them and still do. This
speaks more to the personality of the individual person but this way of transitioning worked
for me and didn't harm anyone in the process.

Saul Colt
Lead Evangelist at Rogers Ventures

Advice from the Queen of Hearts
There‟s a fine line between being your company‟s brand and being your own
brand when nurturing communities. The part of yourself you bring in is a huge
reason people will connect with your organization. But don’t forget what your
role is and who you’re building a community for. At the same time, there
wouldn‟t be a community if the brand, product, etc. wasn‟t loved – a community
manager simply enhances this. If a community builder moves on and is replaced,
just replace him or her with someone equally excited about the company.
The community will see this, get excited about it and continue to be really
into your company.

Rayanne Langdon
Account Executive, High Road Communications
former Queen of Hearts at FreshBooks

Challenge 3: Balancing the needs of the
community with business requirements

• As a community manager, how do you balance the “wants” of the
community members with the business requirements?


RIM‟s Resolution

The BlackBerry Support Community Forums (supportforums.blackberry.com) are a peer-to-
peer community for BlackBerry users. Our members include customers (example IT
administrators of a BlackBerry Enterprise Server), Support customers, and partners (carriers
for example, or developers) and end users (use BlackBerry for business or pleasure).

We have open conversations both on and offline with our members. We have found that
acknowledging their needs, and at the same time explaining to them any challenges or
difficulty we have in accomplishing it – goes a long way to build strong relationships in
the community.

Michelle Kostya
Community Manager
Blackberry

Challenge 4: Dealing with negative comments

• RIGHTSLEEVE, a long-term sponsor of mesh, included magnets
as part of the swag bags. Attendees (comprised of existing and
prospective customers for RIGHTSLEEVE) were concerned the
magnets would wipe out the data on their Blackberries and
other devices.


RIGHTSLEEVE‟s resolution

Turning a PR disaster around in a big way
(you'll remember from mesh last year with
the magnet debacle. People were out for
blood and were not so kind online about it. I
ventured online immediately and
apologized, took responsibility, offered to
collect magnets from concerned attendees
and then shot a YouTube video proving the
magnets were harmless. People loved it
and I was able to turn around a terrible
situation (this also led to a story in
the Post.)

Mark Graham, President
RIGHTSLEEVE

“We are connecting to hearts and
minds, not just eyeballs and ears.”

David Alston, VP Marketing and Community, Radian6

QUESTIONS &
FURTHER
DISCUSSION


MESH WORKSHOP:
BUILDING A B2B COMMUNITY

Eden Spodek
Account Director
High Road Communications
http://www.highroad.com

Email: eden.spodek@highroad.com
Main: 416.598.8061
Direct: 416.644.2265
Mobile: 416.318.0456
Blog: http://bargainista.ca
Twitter: @EdenSpodek
LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/en/EdenSpodek


Props to the community pros

Thanks to this lovely group of community pros who generously shared their knowledge and insights:

• Amanda Laird, Communications Specialist, CNW Group

• Amber Naslund, Director of Community, Radian6

• David Alston | VP Marketing & Community, Radian6

• Erin Bury, Community Manager, Sprouter

• Mark Graham, President, RIGHTSLEEVE

• Melanie Baker, Community Manager, PostRank Inc.

• Michelle Kostya, Community Manager, RIM BB

• Michael O’Connor Clarke, VP Marketing Communications, FreshBooks

• Peter Hartl, Community Manager, www.telustalksbusiness.com

• Rayanne Langdon, Account Supervisor, High Road Communications, former Queen of Hearts at FreshBooks

• Ryan Holmes, CEO, HootSuite - Social Media Dashboard
• Saul Colt, Lead Evangelist at Rogers Ventures and former Head of Magic, FreshBooks, He also wanted you to know his preferred title is
``Hugable and Kissable``
• Simon Chen, Senior Consultant, Ramius Corporation

References

Planning an Online B2B Community by Nancy Strauss, Marketing Profs

http://www.marketingprofs.com/articles/2009/3279/planning-an-online-b2b-community

Chris Brogan , http://www.chrisbrogan.com/

Seth Godin, Lynchpin

4 C's of B2B Marketing , Buzz Marketing for Technology by Paul Dunay

http://pauldunay.com/4-cs-of-b2-marketing/

Customer Engagement: Deepen Relationships with Community Marketing , Laura Ramos' Blog , Jan. 12, 2010 - Forrester,

http://blogs.forrester.com/laura_ramos/10-01-12-customer_engagement_deepen_relationships_community_marketing

Forrester - December 9, 2009

Deepen B2B Tech Customer Engagement With Community Marketing, by Laura Ramos

with Peter Burris, Zachary Reiss-Davis

Promoting your community from the outside

• E-mail signatures
• E-newsletters (helps build customer database)
• Attend tradeshows and conferences
• Look for public speaking opportunities
• Present community events such as webinars and twebinars,
• Don‟t ignore print touchpoints including ads and invoice inserts

B2B Community Building - a discussion and roadmap - mesh conference 2010

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