Communities that Connect & Thrive
Creating the Right Mix of Purpose, Passion, People, Platforms
Francois Gossieaux and Lois Kelly

AGENDA, maybe
1.
1 Meet the teams + agreements
2. Context: what community means
3. 2008 Tribalization of Business Study + best/worst
practices
4. Team community development: 3 options
5.
5 Burning down the obstacles
6. Wrap + 3 take aways
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Community/group you loved…
what made it great?
Write it down; share with your group
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2008 Tribalization of Business
Study + Best Practices
Review the highlights of the 2008 Tribalization Of Business Study with case
study-based best practice analysis
d b db l
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Agenda
Highlights: 2008 Tribalization of Business Study
Major takeaways
Case study-based analysis of best practices
How do you get going?
o go g
2008 Tribalization of Business Study was sponsored by Deloitte, Beeline Labs and the Society For New Communications Research
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What’s this tribal thing all about?
Tribalism is the very first social system that human beings ever lived in,
and it has lasted much longer than any other kind of society to date.
g y y
(Wikipedia)
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Motivations allowing this to work
People want to connect with people
People want to help and be helped
People operate either in a social framework
or a market framework
o a et a e o
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Understanding the driving forces of communities
THE MORE CONTENT YOU HAVE THE MORE MEMBERS YOU WILL GET.
THE MORE MEMBERS YOU HAVE THE MORE CONTENT YOU WILL GET.
THE BETTER YOU MATCH CONTENT AND MEMBERS TO MEMBER PROFILES THE MORE
MEMBERS AND CONTENT YOU WILL GET.
THE EASIER IT IS TO DO TRANSACTIONS THE MORE MEMBERS YOU WILL ATTRACT.
Those pillars create the dynamics of increasing returns which help
communities deliver GAME CHANGING results
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TOP USAGE SCENARIOS:
Customer service
Idea generation
Id ti Co‐innovation Amplifying Word of Mouth
New Product Development
Reputation management Product testing
CANARY IN THE COALMINE
Market research Developer relations
Public relations
LONG TAIL SALES
Employee communications
General Marketing
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9

Who’s in charge?
Sales
Employee communications
Product development
MARKETING IT
Public Relations R&D
Finance Customer service
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Major takeaway #1
Communities deliver game-changing results
Communities can increase revenue per
p
customer dramatically – i.e., 50%
Communities will increase product introduction
success ratios
Communities amplify everything you do –
increasing effectiveness and decreasing costs
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Major takeaway #2
The rise of the CMO 2.0
Communities should be an important part of
p p
the CMO’s toolset
(but for many large companies – there is an
under-investment and scale problem)
Communities should evolve the role of the
CMO into Chief Customer Officer
(but that will require drastic changes in
attitude and approach to marketing)
If done properly, communities will transform
the way marketing works
(reduced costs, improved effectiveness, new
opportunities)
pp )
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Major takeaway #3
The need for new management thinking
Mismatch between community g
y goals and
associated investments
Major gaps between community goals and what is
being measured
Communities have to combine with major talent
initiatives
Communities will transform most business
processes
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Major takeaway #3.5
The worst practices enjoy wide adoption
The build it and they will come ( g ) fallacy
y (again) y
The let’s keep it small so it doesn’t move the needle
phenomenon
The not invented here syndrome
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Case-study-based lessons learned
Creating a Great Marketing Program vs. a Movement
Wal-Mart vs. Fiskateers
Scalability issues with community-based programs
Bank of America
How many communities can you belong to?
A review of the Small Business focused communities
Thinking out of the box
The Tivo community
The Eli Lily oncology drug community
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Interesting case studies
Wal-Mart Stores 11 Moms
Community for sharing money saving
tips via video clips
Independent community – not
required to be Wal-Mart shoppers and
can write about other deals
10 best clips get $6,000 in groceries
11 Moms are being invited to
Bentonville for a company tour and
for a meeting with the CEO
Done in partnership:
Joint partnership with Flip
Joint partnership with YouTube
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Successful case studies
Fiskars – the fiskateers program
3 original ambassadors
Goal to recruit 250 additional
ambassadors in 6 months – achieved
that in 48 hours and reached 5000
Fiskateers in 18 months
months.
Goal to increase chatter by 10% –
instead increased by 600%
Goal to increase sales by 10% -
instead increased by 300%
Community provided a huge support
base when they ran into a PR nightmare
Program, which is now the main
marketing engine is now fully funded by
the big box stores
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What’s the big difference between those programs?
A Successful A Successful Scrapbooking
MARKETING PROGRAM MOVEMENT
(will need continuous attention) (Going by itself)
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Many communities have scalability issues
Bank of America
<20,000 members
,
BoA has more than 10M small
business users
Scaling business by 0.5% =
500,000 new accounts
New SB account is worth
$100 to BoA through referral
fees
500K accounts = $50M
This does not scale!
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How many communities can you belong to?
Dozens of Small Business Communities
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Thinking out of the box
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How do you get started?
S A M
Simple Aggressive Measured
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How do you really get started?
S A M
Strategize Activate Manage
-to-
scale
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Design a community
1. Software company: aerospace engineers
2. Regional theater: ticket buyers, donors
3. Toy company: consumers
What’s appeal? Value?
What goes on?
What keeps people coming back?
What’s the name?
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Burning down the obstacles

Where should we start?
Strategy: Opportunity Roadmap
External research/trends. Strategic intent & alignment. Ideation & hypothesis.
Activation
Purpose validation/research. People. Activities/content. Technology
platform/tools. Policies. Measures. Launch plan.
Managing to scale
Facilitation. Education/training. Sense & respond. Measure and fund success.
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Obstacle #1: What’s the business value?
More McKinsey, less McCann
y,
• Show the data & trends, examples
• Be frank about readiness, risks
• Frame the value to business function
goals, aspirations
l i ti
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Where can you inject social media principles into existing business functions?
Public Sales Customer
relations service
i
Talent
recruitment
Activate change: Market
Empower processes Research
Employee
communications Product
Training innovation
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Value: What’s the right monthly “report”?
Brevity!
“So what”
1.
1 What we ve learned relevant to business:
we’ve
Stories, anecdotes, ideas
2. Movement, adoption: #s
3. Stats used to measure function
• Customer satisfaction: Net Promoter change
• Sales: Increase # transactions, revenue
,
• Insights: new ideas
• Customer service: reduced call center calls
• Lead gen: downloads
• PR: sentiment changeg
• Employee Comm: informed/access/being heard
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Obstacle #2: Appealing to all of our customers, prospects
“The most potent tribes are built in the interstices, in the margins, on the fringes.”
Rob Kozinets, “E-Tribalized Marketing?” The Strategic Implications of Virtual Communities of Consumption”
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Questions to get at likely appeal
• How much do people care about this topic/issue? Why?
• On a scale of 1-10 how passionate are people about getting and
giving help?
•Why would people prefer to connecting with people like them vs.
“official channels”?
• Are there ”fringe” topics, groups that are underserved?
• What business value is there be for us to be associated with this
issue?
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Obstacle #3: Fear of failure, “newness”
Do right research
Fail fast and cheap(er)
cheap(er). Simple technology
Sense & respond
Stop a dud fast
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Obstacle #4: Whose job is it anyhow?
Part of the function, not separate silo
, p
Community manager skills
Functional expertise
Communications
Networking
Content
Analytical
Strategy
gy
Empathy
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Obstacle #5: What if we build it and no one comes?
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“The number of people who are
willing to start something is Advocates
smaller,
smaller much smaller, than
smaller Co te t
Content
the number of people who are UGC
willing to contribute once Facilitation
someone else starts
l Choices
something.”
Here Comes Everybody, Clay Shirky
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Obstacle #6: What’s the right technology platform?
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Questions to think about
• What experience are you trying to create?
What functionality do y absolutely have to
y you y
have to make it work?
• Are there two types of profiling capabilities?
• Declared/what I’m telling you about my self
• Dynamic profiling, recommendations based on
behavior
• Don’t’ buy it.
• Widgets or “platform.”
g p
• Put product develop “guy” on team -- not just
marketing professionals.
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Wrapping up morning
What we’ve learned…
Social movement & tribal behavior vs. “channel” or program
Part of business strategy, function
g
Content, activity matters more than technology
Research well, then go fast and simple
Your 3 takeaways
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