Secrets to Online Community
& Social Media Success
Steve Murthey
Director, Social Media Strategic Consulting Group
Mzinga
smurthey@mzinga.com

Agenda
Introductions & Overview
7 Components for Successful Community
Featured Case Studies
Q & A Discussion

About Me
Steve Murthey
Director, Social Media Strategic Consulting Group at Mzinga
Over 20 years of strategic planning, organizational
development, management, and consulting experience with
Fortune 500 corporations
• Previous Experience:
• Director of Solutions Engineering at O’Reilly Media
• Managed multiple consulting & sales solutions organizations
• Six Sigma green belt
• Certified Professional of Human Resources (PHR)
• BS in Communications from Northern Illinois University

What Does Not Make a Successful Community?
• “Build it, and they will come” approach
• Tools‐focused approach
• Solid strategy, but limited plan for execution
• Failing to nurture on an ongoing basis
• Not listening to your membership
• Focusing on quantitative ROI over “customer franchise value”

7 Components of a Successful Community
Community
Membership Strategy & Defined
Acquisition & Business Objectives
Retention Plan
Ongoing Community Membership Content &
Moderation
Management Communication Programming
Tools & Rollout

Membership Acquisition & Retention
Criteria to consider:
Clearly define your • Who is your community targeting?
Component
target audience and • Why should they care about it?
how you plan to
reach it • What is your desired target
interaction with your audience?
• What’s in it for them?
• How can you compete with other
similar communities?
• How will you retain them after they
have become members?

Membership Acquisition & Retention
Featured Success:
Think Big, Start Small
• Clear membership acquisition plan
• Began with employees, then created an
advisory panel of experts
• Invited a small group of their most vocal
customers
• Expanded outreach to their entire
domestic list
• Active member recognition
• Recently expanded to international
audience

Defined Strategy & Business Objectives
Criteria to consider:
Define how your • What are your trying to accomplish
Component
community aligns with your community?
to your corporate • How will you measure success?
strategy & goals
• Who is the primary community
“owner”?
• What policies and processes do you
need to put in place?
• What are the roles and
responsibilities associated with your
community?

Defined Strategy & Business Objectives
Best Practices Community Featured Lesson Learned:
for Financial Firm Lack of Alignment Inhibits
Goal: Enable target audience
Community Success
(CFOs) to share best practices • Community strategy was inconsistent
with each other, and learn with company business environment
from cross‐sharing expertise.
• Target audience (CFOs) generally aren’t
tech‐savvy, aren’t interested in sharing,
and couldn’t see the value.
• The company culture didn’t foster
sharing, so getting internal buy‐in and
participation was difficult
• Result: Stale content, poor
communication and low traffic

Ongoing Community Management
Criteria to consider:
Create a thorough Who will manage day‐to‐day
Component
•
plan for keeping
community interactions?
your community
fresh, relevant and • What are the standards for doing so?
vibrant
• Who is the voice of the community to
your company?
• Who will engage and develop your
community?
• Who will coordinate with community
moderators?

Membership Acquisition & Retention
Featured Success:
Amass Critical Knowledge
• Recognized that seeding, facilitating,
answering questions was important for
their \"Workspaces\" product community
• Initial launch in English enabled a
referenceable knowledgebase for future
International sites
• Established significant escalation paths so
additional questions could be forwarded
to the right people in a timely fashion

Community Moderation
Criteria to consider:
Establish guidelines • What are acceptable practices for
Component
for moderating and user‐generated content within your
monitoring user‐ community?
generated content • How will you define your standards
for member behavior?
• How will you monitor user comments
and posts on a daily basis?
• Will you use a proactive or reactive
approach?
• Will you allow members to report
violations, and if so, how?

Moderation
Featured Success:
API Developer Network Open Conversation Has
for Software Company
Value
Goal: Allow internal and • Originally, the company did not intend to
allow any negative comments to posted to
external developers to share the live site
information and collaborate
online • They later realized that it hindered the
benefits of the community:
• Immediate identification of bugs,
• Vision into the conversations
• Ability to more immediately address
concerns and issues
• Result: They changed their policy, and
allowed open discussion.

Member Communications
Criteria to consider:
Establish a strategy • How will you initially communicate
Component
and plan for clear, with members?
consistent • What are you communicating?
communication
• How will that communication differ in
later stages?
• How will communication differ
depending on the type of member?
• Who else needs to be involved in
creating / approving member
communications?

Member Communication
Featured Success:
Clear Communication
• Consistent, proactive outreach
• Weekly newsletter communication
• Weight loss challenges
• Focused on relevant, pertinent
information— not selling
• Consistent, but not overwhelming,
communication

Community Content & Programming
Criteria to consider:
Define how you will • What types of content does the
Component
source and use membership want?
content for
• Who will be responsible for providing
community
the content for your community?
programming
• Will you create new content, or use
existing material—or both?
• What portion will be expert‐driven
and what portion will be user‐
generated?
• What is the schedule for refreshing
content?
• What mix of static and event‐based
content will you use?

Community Content & Programming
Featured Lesson Learned:
Best Practices Community
for Financial Services Firm Solid Strategy, Weak
Goal: Enable target audience
Execution
• Community strategy called for 50% of
(CFOs) to share best practices
a full‐time employee to manage
with each other, and learn
community and aggregate content
from cross‐sharing expertise.
• Company allowed one person to
spend less than 1 hour per week on
the initiative
• Result: Community adoption
floundered and never met intended
potential

Community Tools & Rollout
Criteria to consider:
Select and
• What infrastructure and integration
Component
implement the
technology and needs do you have?
infrastructure • Which social applications are best
required to support suited to support your community
your community goals?
• Would a phased implementation
approach allow for a better
community experience for you and
your members?
• Who will manage your community
technology?
• What future needs will you have, and
will your selected solution support
them?

Community Tools & Rollout
Featured Success:
Online International Deploy Tools For the
News Site
Sake of Community
• Originally, organization intended to roll
Goal: Increase online
out blogs and discussions to every
readership and vertical.
engagement
• Instead, they chose to deploy features
first to the areas where they have the
most content, and areas where they
felt it garner the most interest.
• This approach will allow them to more
effectively manage content and
conversations.

Final Thoughts
Being a social media or community user doesn’t
make you an expert in social media initiatives
Don’t overestimate your depth of knowledge
Bells and whistles are cool, but expertise will
make you successful

Questions & Answers

Additional Resources
• Blogs
– ww.mzinga.com/blogs
w
– Steve Murthey, Isaac Hazard,
Heather Strout
• White Papers
‐ www.mzinga.com
(Resource Center)
• Articles
www.mzinga.com ‐ www.mzinga.com
Amazon.com (News & Press)
Additional questions? Contact Steve Murthey
smurthey@mzinga.com l (781) 328‐2840 l www.mzinga.com/blogs
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