Here at Headstream we see online communities in three different ways: de-centralised, centralised and transient. In this presentation we will outline transient communities.

1. Understanding Online
Communities
3. Transient

2. Introduction
This is the third of three presentations that
outline our thinking around online
communities.
We see online communities in three ways:
de-centralised, centralised and transient.
This presentation will focus on
transient communities.

3. In this presentation
• What is a transient community?
• What value do they add?
• How can you work alongside them?

4. What is a transient community?
TOPIC

5. What is a transient community?
• When a group of people come together around
one moment and disperse when the moment has
passed.
• This moment could be a marketing campaign, new
product launch, a fan run event, a news story etc.
• These kinds of communities can exist on Owned,
Borrowed, Earned and Networked media.

6. What value do they add?
• These communities can generate huge word of
mouth amplification of messaging in a small period
of time.
• Social media monitoring can track the most
influential people within these sporadic
communities.
• Even with bad news stories; good community
management, messaging and listening can ensure a
positive outcome for the brand.

7. What value do they add?
• They can often attract those who otherwise may
not have been part of the audience. For example
when a video goes viral it will attract new people
to a movement or campaign.
• Transient communities provide a snapshot of
opinion and valuable lessons can be learned in a
very short space of time.

8. How can you work alongside them?
• Brands can plan for a transient community to be
formed around key moments in their content
calendar.
• With organically formed transient communities,
being open and working with them quickly can
help with positive messaging around a product or
company news.
• Real-time marketing is key with these
communities. Ensuring that you are always listening
and able to add relevant and valuable content/
information to these communities is important.

9. How can you work alongside them?
• When formed organically it is important to listen
to the conversations.
• After listening and taking notes of the common
themes you can then begin to interact by giving the
communities relevant content and joining
conversations.
• For planned transient communities on Owned or
Borrowed media it is important to know in
advance what messaging and content you are
wanting to put out.

10. How can you work alongside them?
• Transient communities can’t really be managed as
they can evolve rapidly.
• However you can help steer the conversation by
adding quality content and reacting in positive ways
to the conversations.
• With Owned and Borrowed media you can control
when a transient community is created and
dispersed e.g. the build up to a product launch.
• This is not possible on Earned and Networked as
the community will decide themselves when to be
active.

11. Want to find out more?
If you are interested in finding out more
around our thinking, ideas and work, or just
want a chat please feel free to tweet:
@headstream
@samhilary

12. Thank You!