This document discusses online community management. It defines online communities and common types. Communities are important for both customers and businesses. For customers, communities provide research, promotions, customer support and a sense of community. For businesses, communities provide brand advocacy, market research, social media insights, cost savings and traffic. The document outlines best practices for planning, launching, encouraging engagement in and measuring the success of online communities. It provides examples from TripAdvisor, Giffgaff, Sony and Starbucks.

1. Online Community
Management

2. Objective
What
Why
How
Examples
 Community defined
 Types of community
 Communities Importance to Customers
 Communities Importance to Business
 Planning
 Launching
 Seeding
 Measurement
Who  Members behavior
 Members contribution
 Gifgaff
 Tripadvisor
 Sony
 Starbucks

3. Community Defined
Community brings individuals together around a
common purpose, interest, or goal
Online Community
Network of people who communicate with one
another through interactive tools such as e-mail,
discussion boards and chat systems
Types of community
B2B E2E B2C C2C

4. Members Defined
The Lurker
Visitor
The Regular
The Leader
The Elder
Key reasons to join community
1) Interest www.tripadvisor.in
/ForumHome
2) Action www.care2.com
3) Place nextdoor.com
4) Practice doc2doc.bmj.com
5) Circumstance community.breastc
ancer.org

5. Key Reasons Why Communities Important For Customers
24%
26%
33%
36%
38%
Lithium Customer Survey : Why users visit a community
Researching brands, products
or services before purchasing
To hear more about
promotions, sales and new
products
Seeking customer care support
or help
Came across while exploring
brand online
To buy other products and
services related to brand

6. Key Reasons Why Communities Important For Business
6
Company’s online community empowers
users making them as part of brands
team. Users proactively resolve queries of
others
Brand advocacy
24x7 Focus Group
Engaging
Social media
campaigns
Online community is full of people that
use product everyday, reviews and ratings
suggestions does the work of market
research /focus groups
As these are mostly user generated
content , this helps in identifying
keywords and topic trending to help
generate other social channel content
Foster a strong connection between brand
& consumer through gamification,
contests, rewarding participants, influence
positive behavior and drive adoption &
learning
Insights derived from community work as
great input while planning social media
campaigns ex- audience , demographic
Competitive
Differentiator
Social listening
Cost Saving
Social care
Website Traffic
Innovation
Opportunity to create and personalize
company brand experience and create
differentiation
To understand customer pain points,
sentiment analysis , trends, crisis
management, monitoring conversation
Company saves cost on deflecting
customer queries and responding in less
time
User generated content, constant update
of FAQ, reviews and ratings etc help in
search engine ranking leading to high
website traffic
Online community gives you an endless
supply of ideas on how to innovate and
reinvent your product.
Content Strategy

7. How to initiate & manage a community
Planning the community
Launching the community
Encouraging engagement
Measuring success
4 step process Planning the community
 Setting Objective
 Audience Analysis
 Sector Analysis
 Technology identified
 Rewarding Strategy
 Internal analysis
 Response Strategy

8. How to initiate & manage a community
Planning the community
Launching the community
Encouraging engagement
Measuring success
4 step process
 Seeding community
 Content calendar/
posting
Launching the community
 Guidelines Layout
 Building Knowledge
base

9. How to initiate & manage a community
Planning the community
Encouraging engagement
Measuring success
4 step process
 Compelling Content
 Easy to find
 Positioning Part of Customer ServiceLaunching the community
Encouraging engagement
 Hiring new members
 Offer exclusive content
 Reward Customers for Contributions
 Crowd Source Ideas

10. How to initiate & manage a community
Planning the community
Encouraging engagement
Measuring success
4 step process
 Engagement metrics
Launching the community
Measuring success
 Response metrics
 Cost saving metrics
 Other Derived Insights

11. Starbucks
Crowdsource
Ideas

12. Giffgaff

13. Sony
Content

14. TripAdvisor
Review Badges
Expert Badges

15. Thank you