Online
Communities:
The Social Web
dave vogler, sparkhouse

3 Questions:
What? Why?
...is social media? ...is this important?
...is a social network? ...bother?
How?
...do you build a community?
...do you keep it alive?

What is Social Media?
• a platform for
interaction and
relationships
• conversation
empowered by
technology

What is a social
network?
• A group of
interdependent people
• United by a common
interest or cause

What is a social
network service?
• an online space where a group convenes
• a conversation enabled by internet
technologies

a little history...
Four Major Landmarks in Human Communication:
Printing Telegraph/
Press Telephone
Pictures/ Radio/
Movies Television

The Internet
• Delivers all media types
• text
• images
• audio
• video
• Native support for conversation
• it took 35 years to figure this out

Media Model
one to
Then
many

Media Model
one to
Then many
and back

Media Model
everyone
Now
talks

Why does this
matter?
• 75% of North Americans use the internet
• 96% of Gen Y reports joining a social
network
• Age 35+ is fastest growing demographic on
facebook.com

Why does this
matter?
50 million users:
Radio TV
38 years 13 years
Internet Facebook
4 years 3 years

Why does this
matter?
• Facebook now has 300 million users
• the last 50 million since July
• that’s almost as big as the United States

Why does this
matter?
• YouTube: 1,000,000 viewers each month
• 15 hours of video uploaded per minute
• Wikipedia: 14 million articles
• 200 million blogs online

Why does this
matter?
• Pieces of content shared on Facebook
in a single week:
2 Billion

Why does this
matter?
• By the end of 2008, social networks
have surpassed email in popularity
• Social media is now mainstream
• Technological value becomes social
value

Types of social
networks
• Extension of existing community
• Entirely new community
• Geographically independent
• Local to certain area

Building a
Community
Research
• What do prospective members need?
• What are perceived communication gaps?
• Survey, poll, interview, gauge enthusiasm
• Benchmark similar sites
• Look for niche if needed

Building a
Community
Action Plans
• Content strategy
• Engagement strategy
• Governance
• Feature list
• User experience
• Technology

Content Strategy
Where will content come from?
• Authors, guest authors
• User-generated content (UGC)
• Aggregators
• Licensed content

Engagement
Strategy
UGC Drives Growth
• perceived value to new user
• flywheel:
• zero inertia at start
• participation attracts more participation
• incentivise participation
• avoid ‘ghost town’... keep size ‘just right’

Engagement
Strategy
• Face to face events
• Email newsletters
• Traditional promotion, word of mouth
• Your users become your evangelists

Governance
• Convene your community, not control it.
• Community guidelines are key
• Moderation tools
• Community manager
• Listen well (both on and off site)
• Easily accessible feedback process

Features
• Member database • Ranking/voting/polling
• Blogs / Articles • Moderation control
• Article comments • Photo galleries
• Discussion Forums • Video galleries
• Event Calendar • File sharing
• News ticker • “Mysite” customization
• Links to other • Newsletters

User Experience
• Good user experience= good impression
• Well designed interface delights users
• Verify workflows are reasonable
• Usability testing is cheap with big payback

Technology
• Content Management System (CMS)
• Domain registrar
• Reliable hosting & database support
• Scalable hosting as traffic grows
• Service provider or custom- built

Services
• groupsite.com
• socialgo.com
• ning.com
• blogger.com
• facebook
• twitter

Custom Built
• Drupal
• Joomla
• ExpressionEngine
• MODx
• Elgg
• Proprietary

thank you
sparkhouse.com