A Rough Guide to Online Research Communities and Community Management.

A Rough Guide to Online Research Communities and Community Management

WHAT IS AN ONLINE COMMUNITY?

Anonline community is a website in which a group of people with a common interest or goal come together tosocialize, interact, voice their opinions&complete tasks in orderto gain rewards – both physical and virtual.

Ok, that’s all well and good but, what is an online research community and what does it do?

An online research community uses the social elements, and web 2.0 tools, of an organic online community and focuses them on a research brief.

Research communities are private.
Participants are selected via their demographics, interests and relevant criteria for individual projects.
All research communities have a goal that users will work on their own, and with other users, to achieve.
To achieve the goal tasks will be set for users to complete.
Tasks take on different formats and will ask users different questions relating to the overall objective.
When the project is finished users are rewarded for participating.

What is a Task?
A task is a question/project/challenge you set your community members to complete.
Making tasks interesting, engaging and practical is vital to making sure your community is successful.
What is a Task Plan?
A task plan consists of a set of tasks that you are going to ask your community members to complete of the course of the project.
A task plan makes it clear to users what they’re being asked to do & gives community managers guidelines dictating what they need to gain from the research..

How Do Online Research Communities Work?

There are 6 different roles in an Online Research Community:
1) Clients
2) The Research Team
3) The Community Managers
4) The Technical Team
5) The Recruitment Team
6) Users

Client Has Brief
Client Speaks to Agency About Brief
Agency Recommends Research
Communities to Fulfill Brief
Client Agrees
Agency Briefs Research Team
Research Team Take Control of the Project and Brief Technical Team, Recruitment Team, and Community Managers
Recruitment Team screen and recruit suitable users
Technical Team make sure websites are fully functional & bug free
Research Team write community task plan
Community Managers assist all teams and understand all aspects
When all these tasks are complete everything gets handed over to the community managers and the community can begin

The Research Team liaise with clients and feedback to CM, they also change the task plan with CMs input.
The CM reports all bugs and issues to the Technical Team who solve issues and report back to CM.
The Community Manager looks after the community helping users with problems and liaising with all other teams. CMs also look for general insights and themes.
The CM reports all inactive users to the Recruitment Team who chases them up, recruitment can also help with user issues.
The Client Team view the community and feedback to the Research Team & the CM with suggestions and changes

The Recruitment Team check users participation and with the input of the community managers decide who will & who won’t receive rewards
The Technical Team receive users feedback on the technology and with the community managers decide changes to the platform
The Community Managers feedback the insights and themes they found within the community to the research team
After the community finishes The Research Team analyze the results and pull together their thoughts and ideas
The Research Team and Community Managers report findings back to the client
The client is happy
The project finishes

How To Manage an
Online
Research
Community
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Managing an Online Research Community is all about balance.
You are the voice of the community when speaking to the Research Team and the clients.
But you are also the voice of the clients and the Research Team when interacting with users.
It’s up to you to make sure that the brief is fulfilled and, at the same time, users remain informed and happy.

Top 5 Tips for Managing an Online Research Community
1) Listen
2) Know Your Audience
3) Be Human
4) Stick To Your Guns
5) Reward Responsibly

Allowing users to be creative delivers better results.
If you want users to be creative you have to be creative as well.
If you ask a simple question, you will get a simple answer, but that will only get you so far.
If you are clever with your task plan then you will reap the rewards.
Allowing users to express themselves visually produces exciting output.
Encouraging
Creative
Thought

Visual Content Has A Massive Impact, It Brings Users, Opinions & Ideas To Life.

The Future of Online Research Communities

from insight to concept...

Thank You All
For Listening
&
Taking Part In Project Vernors

please fire any questions to me:
matthew@facegroup.co.uk@mattsimpson1985
www.facegroup.co.uk

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A Rough Guide to Online Research Communities and Community Management.

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