Opower is beginning to invest more resources into building its Facebook-powered online community at social.opower.com. This deck outlines three community-building features I recommended to Opower as part of a social media internship interview.

1. BUILDING AN
ONLINE COMMUNITY
P R E PA R E D F O R O P O W E R B Y R O B I N K A B I R
kabir@jhu.edu
713-487-7007

2. KEY FACTORS TO BUILD AN
ONLINE-COMMUNITY
↑
Increase
A
Active Percentage
of Users
W
Contact Rate
(WOM)
C
Conversion
Rate
E
Length of
Engagement
Key: A W C E
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3. Rec #1 USER-CONTRIBUTED
ENERGY SAVING TIPS
A W C E
Strategy Case Example
Display a user-contributed tip on Quora.com allows members to
each page. Each tip will include post questions and invite others
a vote up/down button allowing to reply. Users can then follow
the best tips to be prominently posts and vote up answers they
displayed. deem is most helpful. The voting
system gives users more control
Additional over how content is structured.
• Add a new tab for a tip board
that consolidates all tips into Rationale
one page. Increased control increases
• Users’ tips can publish to engagement (Kim et al. 2010).
Facebook’s newsfeed. Increased content attracts users
(Hagel 1999).
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4. Rec #2 AWARD USERS
POINTS & BADGES
A W C E
Strategy Case Example
Award points for accomplishing Foursquare users earn badges for
tasks. Tasks can include: energy completing tasks. These badges
efficiency goals, user tip essentially help gamify a users’
contributions, and number of social media experience.
friend invitations.
Award badges based on
experience level: group leader,
competition winner, energy-
efficiency achievement, etc. Rationale
Badges help with goal setting,
Points can unlock rewards such instruction, reputation, status,
as rebates. Awards can be and group identification.
published to Facebook feed. (Antin & Churchill 2011).
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5. Rec #3 TEAM COMPETITIONS
WITHIN GROUPS
A E
Strategy Case Example
Allow users to form competitive World of Warcraft is a massively
teams within a group. Team multiplayer online game. Users
competitions create pressure on are compelled to collaborate
members to stay active. together to beat the tougher
levels. Collaboration promotes
trust among users. Over time,
users feel responsible for other
teammates and as a result
engage more often.
Rationale
Affective commitment facilitates
online community retention.
(Cheung et al. 2010)
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6. Bonus OTHER OPPORTUNITIES
Ø Display total dollars saved instead of kilowatt hours saved
on front page.
Ø Afford users an energy floor plan design and
visualization tool. Users can configure number of
rooms, appliances, light bulbs, etc. Data collected
can provide more detailed customer reports.
Ø Allow generic user-access to Opower’s mobile app.
Ø User-contributed product reviews.
Ø DIY home improvement wiki.
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7. REFERENCES
J. Antin and E. Churchill (2011). Badges in Social Media: A Social Psychological
Perspective. In CHI 2011 Gamification Workshop Proceedings, Vancouver, BC,
Canada, 2011.
Hagel, J. (1999). Net gain: Expanding markets through virtual communities.
Journal of Interactive Marketing, 13(1), 55-65. doi: 10.1002/
(SICI)1520-6653(199924)13:13.0.CO;2-C
Jin, B., Park, J. Y., & Kim, H. (2010). What makes online community members
commit? A social exchange perspective. Behaviour & Information Technology,
29(6), 587-599. doi: 10.1080/0144929X.2010.497563
Jin, X., Lee, M., & Cheung, C. (2010). Predicting continuance in online
communities: Model development and empirical test. Behaviour & Information
Technology, 29(4), 383-394. doi: 10.1080/01449290903398190
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8. MY FIRST DAY
AS AN OPOWER INTERN
(Objective: Build Opower’s Online Community)
1. Meet the team.
2. Learn Opower’s processes and best practices.
3. Conduct research to understand user and market behavior
(starting with the California and Minnesota clusters).
4. Assess social media strategies from similar competitors and
industry players.
5. Ideate potential strategies by setting objectives and
referencing behavioral science techniques.
6. Define goals and formulate an action plan for the summer.
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9. ABOUT ME
Interest Cloud
Robin Kabir
MBA Candidate ‘13
Johns Hopkins University
kabir@jhu.edu
713-487-7007
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