An online community brings you closer to your customers, improves your SEO, improves customers service, and shows your company is a thought leader who cares about your customers. This deck will get you started.

1. Building an Online
Community
CREATE – INTERACT – GROW
TOBY METCALF

2. What is Involved
 Why have a community
 Where will it live
 Content is key
 Moderation
 Measure
 Finally

3. Why
Customers have choices where to spend their money. The company who
makes them feel heard and appreciated is the one who keeps their
business. These engaged customers become your brand advocates and
happily promote your product or service.
 Provide an inroad for support and customer service.
 Engage the community and welcome, don’t fear, questions.
 Host focus groups to gather product feedback, suggestions for new
products, or beta testers.
 Build a network of power users and industry thought leaders who will
discuss your product or industry – create an online trade journal.
 A community gives your customers insight into your company and
makes is seem real. Your Community Manager may become the face
of your brand.

4. Where will it Live?
There are many platforms for your community. Make sure yours has the features
that help you (moderate, measure, and grow), as well as provides your members
with a great user experience.
 Free options
 Google+
 LinkedIn
 Facebook
 Paid options
 Jive
 Bloomfire
 Non-Verbal
 Pinterest
 Flipboard

5. Content
Content is the key to a community’s success: members will not
continue to participate if they do not find the content valuable.
Community members will also share outside the community generating
SEO, market reach, and new members (customers).
 Articles
 Pictures
 Interviews
 White Papers
 How To or Tutorial product videos
 Event Schedules for meet-ups, tweet-chats, or webinars.
 Create a content calendar to keep content organized and fresh.

6. Moderation
Second to content is environment and one that is hostile or
unprofessional will cost you membership. Post rules and expectations
for the community and develop an engagement plan to handle issues.
 Will you need a Community Manager?
 Is this an open or private community?
 Will posts be approved prior to posting?
 Are you comfortable editing or deleting comments?
Be Fair – Be Firm – Be Honest

7. Measure
You cannot improve what you cannot measure. It is important that you
develop KPIs that show you are moving in the right direction.
 Likes and shares
 Total members vs. Active members
 Weekly posts: content created by community members
 Weekly comments: community engagement on each post
 Traffic Data
 OS
 Mobile
 Browser
 Keywords

8. Finally
 This will NOT happen overnight; develop a 30 – 60 – 90 day plan.
 It is not what people say about you or your brand, it is how you
respond.
 For every troll, there are objective third party readers who know the
difference between a rant and a legitimate complaint.
 It is important to identify and listen to third party communities who
discuss your product or service. You cannot control the message,
but you can hear what users are saying about your brand.
 Without conversations, you do not have a community, rather a list of
members.