This document discusses PayPal's online community of over 140 million users. It outlines the role of a community manager in cultivating the community through active moderation, communicating value to stakeholders, and building relationships with influential members. Barriers to community engagement are identified as well as motivations for users to participate. A cycle of community membership is presented, from evangelist to stranger. Finally, references for further information on online communities are provided.

1. Gonzalo de la Mata
PayPal July, 2009
Online Community

2. It is a Online Community?
Population
With over 140 million user accounts worldwide, PayPal is a popular payment method
amongst millions of online shoppers and one of the global leaders in online payments.
A growing community
of users
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3. PayPal Online Community Ecosystem
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4. Profile Online CM
Basic to create and encourage an online community
• The role is less about moderation and more about product
management.
With adequate and findable community guidelines to explain how works
PayPal, active moderation can (and should) be in the hands of the
members. strategy, features, UX, platform, budgets, marketing (and a
hundred other things). In short, very much like the role of a product
manager.
• An expectation of communicating value (ROI) rather than stats
Community managers are now expected to not just report stats (page
views, membership growth), but also to report on other points of value,
and to contextualize that value, at least in part, in terms of progress on
business goals.
• Community managers are expected to grow relationships with the
influencers in the community
Community managers are increasingly expected to know who their lead
members are (Sellers), and what effect their influence has on other
community members.
• Community managers should be thinking about "portability" of their
team
In some companies, sources of community funding, and even the reporting
structure of the community team is changing every few quarters. We live in
evolutionary times, so it is good for community managers to reach out to
senior staff on teams outside their immediate reporting structures
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5. Motivations & Barriers
• e up to date of new PayPal
B • ot be very active
N
functions community on open platforms
• ew Shared product
N
development
• ont seem to be a
D
• ech & Help support from
T moderator or energizer of
the community to sellers and discussions
buyers
• e in touch with others
B
• ery supportive information
V
users
• logs, Forum, chat, SM.
B
They are to help
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6. Clycle of a Community Member
1. Evangelist: A leader, sustains membership
participation and brokers interactions
2. Participant (Regular) – Full committed
Evangelist community participant
3. Peripheral (Lurker) – An outside, unstructured
participation
4. Stranger: Not Full committed and process of
Participant leaving the community
Lunker Each step the numbers of representatives is
reduced
Any of the steps could be a step out for the
member
Following the paleto´s law only a few are
Stranger or Passer by empowering the community
A users becomes evangelist when it starts to
promote via WOM
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7. How does the virtual circle Works? I
Sign up
Seller &
Buyer
Share PayPal Luck for
more / new
Experiences
Community information
Sart
Participation
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8. How does the virtual circle Works? II
e-Commerce
Blogs
eBay
Communities
Mass Social
Independent Media
Blogs
eBay (Facebook,
Blogs You Tube,
eBay
LinkedIn…)
Discussion
Groups
Community
Portal
Meetups
Local User
PayPal Idea Groups
Site Generation
Events
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9. References
http://www.onlinecommunityreport.com
http://www.slideshare.net/p_mato/online-communities-vuze-network-case
http://www.searchenginepeople.com/blog/key-elements-of-an-online-community-
strategy.html
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/officelive/FX102326321033.aspx
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