Online communities: why they matter and what to do about it

Independent forum around a place or common interest
Platform set up by an organisation, to which it invites customers, stakeholders, staff etc for marketing, customer support or research purposes
Discussion by people on the web, generally
Online community, eh?

The variety of formats makes it hard to estimate the scale of usage of online communities. In terms of general take-up of social networking:
40% of UK adults now use social networking sites at home. Nearly 25m access Facebook, up 31% in a year
Source: Ofcom Communications Market Report 2010

The views of peers online – even those not personally known – consistently emerge as amongst the most highly trusted

Why do communities form?
Interest: Communities of people who share the same interest or passion.
Action: Communities of people trying to bring about change.
Place: Communities of people brought together by geographic boundaries.
Practice: Communities of people in the same profession or undertake the same activities.
Circumstance: Communities of people brought together by external events/situations.
Source: http://www.feverbee.com/2010/11/different-types-of-communities.html

Community of interest Source: http://mygarden.rhs.org.uk/forums/

Community of action Source: http://fairtradetowns.ning.com/

Community of place Source: http://www.sheffieldforum.co.uk/

Community of practice Source: http://www.communities.idea.gov.uk

Community of circumstance Source: http://www.tripadvisor.com/

and also: Community of innovation? Source: http://mystarbucksidea.force.com/

Types of online community Led by individuals Led by organisations Content oriented Conversation oriented Magazine off-shoots Fan forums Hyperlocal sites Customer forums Community blogs Campaign communities Big group forums

Types of online community Led by individuals Led by organisations Content oriented Conversation oriented http://www.kumb.com/forum/ http://www.nme.com/boards/ http://conservativehome.blogs.com/thetorydiary/ http://en.community.dell.com/

Goals for community engagement Listening Audience insight, understanding views Buzz generation Stimulating discussion, encouraging sharing Discussion & Response Driving take-up, asking for feedback Co-production Working with a community to produce a resource

Identifying relevant communities
Define a list of keywords and potential synonyms, including slang or casual terms
Use Google search adding ‘+chat’ or ‘+forum’ to find communities on that topic:

Identifying relevant communities
Try dedicated forum or social media search tools
Omgili: http://omgili.com
SocialMention: http://socialmention.com
Alexa toolbar (sense of site traffic/popularity): http://alexa.com

Five things to look for:
Number of topics and posts
not just the number of views
Date of last post in the main threads
is the forum dormant? are only some threads active?
Structure & management
introductory threads for new members, FAQ etc?
Contact details for owner/moderator
Member list
can give a sense of scale, but many might be inactive/spam

2.8m uniques/month 27,000 forum posts/day 50 volunteer moderators 82,000 pageviews 150+ case studies 900 posts/month

What’s been your experience of finding and working with online communities?
What are the pros and cons of partnering with vs building communities?
Who is (or should be) doing the liaison with external online communities?

http://buzz.ukgovcamp.com	44
http://ingridkoehler.com	33
http://clearmessage.wordpress.com	2
http://twitter.com	1

Online communities: why they matter and what to do about it

by Steph Gray on Jan 21, 2011

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Online communities: why they matter and what to do about it — Presentation Transcript