Gez Daring - Building Online Communities

Community Memory 1973
Community Memory ’73 1st Public BBS – Berkeley San Francisco experiment to understand how people would react to exchanging information via computer

History of Communities online
Usenet ‘79 – organised into topical categories called newsgroups
Usenet resembled Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) which were precursors of today’s internet forums
MUD (Multi-User Dungeons)
multi-user real-time virtual world represented in text
IRC (Internet Relay Chat)
a form of real-time Internet text messaging (chat) or synchronous conferencing

History of Communities online
Chat Rooms
BBS
SysOP home-hosted systems
Today’s Threaded Internet Forums
www.biofind.com
Community 2.0
Social web technologies plus a community

Definition
When people carry on public discussions long enough, with sufficient human feeling, to form webs of personal relationships
Howard Rheingold
Author- Virtual Communities (1993)

Other Leading Lights
Mark Granovetter
American sociologist at Stanford University
Theories on the spread of information in social networks known as "The Strength of Weak Ties" (1973).
Malcolm Gladwell
“The Tipping Point” where he talks of “the moment of critical mass, the threshold, the boiling point.”

What makes up Online Community
An enabling technology
Ning, wordpress, BB forum, Facebook
A core topic (or other connecting factor)
Passionate contributors
Background crowd
An unwritten social contract of trust
Moderators (sometimes)

Examples of the purpose of online communities
Activism
Clan (gaming)
Research test bed
Technology Strategy Board 30,000 representative UK onliners www.innovateuk.org
Support Groups

Examples of the purpose of online communities
Ethnography
Hobbies
www.flickr.com - photography
www.redbubble.com - poetry
Answers
www.blurt-it.com, Yahoo answers ,
A highly networked individual’s social graph

Biofind

Mercedes forum

Second Life

Make up of a community
Peripheral (i.e. Lurker)
– An outside, unstructured participation
Inbound (i.e. Novice)
Newcomer is invested in the community and heading towards full participation
Insider (i.e. Regular)
Full committed community participant
Leader (i.e. Champion)
A leader, sustains membership participation and brokers interactions

Make up of a community
Peripheral =1000
Inbound =100
Insider =10
Leader =1

Community participation
Lurkers don’t readily participate because they don’t believe they need to and in not doing so they are being helpful
Leaders participate because they believe that their actions will have positive outcomes
Member participation is not based on hierarchical needs or goals-driven theories but desire planning and they environment
Increasing participation in online communities: A framework for
human–computer interaction:Jonathan Bishop

Dynamics of Communities
Lurker
Inbound
Insider
Leader 1
Lurker
Lurker
Inbound
Lurker
Host
Lurker
Leader 2
Insider
Lurker
Lurker
Inbound
Leader 3
Lurker
Insider
Inbound

Value of Community
User 1
£
£ ?
Host
£
User 2
£ ?
£
£ ?
User 3

Monetisation summary
Good Old fashioned cpc mechanisms
Subscription or freemium models
Relationship commissions

Other value in community
Conversation/dialogue
Sentiment
Influence
Co-learning
Collaboration

Qualitative Signs of success
Signs of ownership within the community
Self-policing
Rituals
Off-line actions begin

Quantitative success metrics
Number of new members
Number leaving members
Member satisfaction
Number and type of content items created
Number of connections / relationships created
Time on site
Frequency of visits
Recommendations & Referrals

Building a community
Don’t let technology drive the community
Seed content with known champions in the topic
Inaugural members act as roll models
Define code of conduct
Moderate
Keep participation simple
Initially all content open unless as part of a reward

Building a community
Politely provoke and reward participation
Track strangers/lurkers and try to promote them through desire
Be active and part of the community yourself
Set an example
It takes time!

External Communities
Social Networks
Multi Platform communities
Whereever there is online dialogue

What do we do about all these people talking about us?

DO
Listen

Monitor Your brand
Everyone should do this
Investigate Trending Topics
Learn the rules
Feedback
What are you doing right?
Or wrong?
DO
Listen

Listening tools
Market Sentinel
BuzzMonitor
Also...
Twitter Search
Technorati Search
Google Blog search
Board Reader
DO
Listen

Respond and React
Online
Engage (Good or Bad)
Campaign (New Goals?)
Beware the lonely troll
Steer traditional digital activity
Offline
Act on feedback
Tackle problems from the source
Use the buzz!
DO

just
DON’T
Broadcast

just
DON’T
Broadcast
Engage
Encourage
Excite

Wipe your damn feet!
DO

Wipe your damn feet!
DO
Be aware you are entering a community
Learn the etiquette
Learn the lingo
Be respectful

DON’T
Expect a red carpet

DON’T
Expect a red carpet
“Build it and they will come” does not apply
A presence is not enough
No one likes a pushy salesman
People will tell you what they think...
...whether you like it or not

Add Value
DO

Add Value
DO
Think of way to improve your members’ lives.
... even the smallest ways
Advocates are valuable – let them know
Make things easy - integrate
Facebook Connect

Sega twitter giveaways

@manairport live flight info
We plugged the twitter API into the Manchester Airport live flight update service.
User DMs flight number to manairport
User receives updates by DM

Be Dodgy
DON’T

Be Dodgy
DON’T
Spam
Hijack
Game the system
Plagiarise
Fake comments / Diggs

Habitat
Hijacked twitter #hashtags to promote itself
#iphone #mousavi #apple #trueblood
Backlash on twitter
Picked up by mainstream news
BBC, Guardian, Sky News
Habitat forced to apologize
Should have done it MUCH sooner

Habitat

Whole Foods
“rahodeb” was an active user for 7 years on Yahoo finance forums (2000 – 2007)
Revealed good knowledge of wholefoods and the CEO (in third person)
Criticized Whole Foods rival Wild Oats Market
During a £600mill buyout of OATS a complaint was lodged
Whole foods CEO, John Mackey IS rahoeb
Accused of attempting to influence share price.

Whole foods
Whole Foods’ CEO John Mackey

Set your brand free
Encourage and support amateur brand champions.
If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em
Develop ideas with crowds
Trust the users to be your ceontent providers.
DO

DON’T
Be a Bully

DON’T
Be a Bully
If you find users doing something you find objectionable
DON’T threaten with legal action
DON’T Make demands
Use legal action as a LAST resort

Guinness VS FailBlog

Guinness VS Failblog

Dear Sir/Madam,
Thanks for writing us an email regarding the “Record Breaking Fail”. Unfortunately, douchebaggy cyber-bullying emails will only bring upon you more shame on your house. I am also resisting the urge to write this email in ALL CAPS.
I believe it is the duty of FAIL Blog(TM) to call out organizations when they encourage the public to do such things as “Break the record” for the “Most Individuals Killed In A Terrorist Act”. We firmly believe that our publication of your fail is protected under the concepts of fair use, commentary and non-trademark use. Please RTFM and we welcome you to tehinterwebs.
Since we at FAIL Blog(TM) don’t have a legal defense department, we have complied with your request to remove the trademarked term and logo from the original image. We have used the “naughty bits filter” on the image to secure your naughty, naughty, trademark assertions. However, we have posted your email so that our audience can see why we had to remove the name of the failer from the image. I hope that this is the outcome you have expected as now NO ONE WILL EVER KNOW THAT GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS LIMITED HAS FAILED.
The full legal response can be read here: icanhaz.com/legalresponse
Cheers,FAIL Blog

External Communities
DO
Listen
Respond/React
Wipe your feet
Add Value
Set your Brand free
DON’T
Just Broadcast
Expect a red carpet
Be Dodgy
Be a Bully

Summary
Online communities have social structure just like the real world because they comprise real people!
Online communities have a voice and an opinion
Online communities can be valued in many ways

Thank you, any questions?

Gez Daring - Building Online Communities

by InBlackandWhite on Jul 07, 2010

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Gez Daring - Building Online Communities — Presentation Transcript