February 1st through 5th is Social Media Week. Social Media Week features a week of social media events, including, conferences, discussions, and meet-ups that take place simultaneously in multiple cities around the world. The aim of each event is to advance the use and understanding of social media in the corporate, public and non-profit sectors. Check out the event schedule to see a listing of all of the social media events in San Francisco this week.

We’re very excited to co-host a panel discussion with Autodesk on Social Media for Social Impact on February 4th. The panel will explore the use of social media in making progress on social causes, and panelists will review case studies, criteria for success and lessons learned from each of the panelists.

Our panelists include:

Connie Chan, Yahoo! / Yahoo! for Good
Connie Chan is manager of Yahoo! for Good, the company’s Social Responsibility department. Connie is responsible for leading Yahoo!’s online cause marketing initiatives and managing social media for Yahoo! Green.

Amy Skoczlas Cole, eBay
Amy is the Director of the eBay Green Team, Amy leads eBay’s efforts to engage their 89 million active users in a movement to use products that exist in world, saving consumers money as well as helping protect the planet.

Peggy Duvette, WiserEarth
Peggy Duvette, Executive Director of WiserEarth, advocates for building online community capacity in the nonprofit sector. Since 2005, she has managed WiserEarth, an online community space that allows organizations and individuals to connect and collaborate around social and environmental issues.

Susan Tenby, TechSoup
Susan Tenby is the Online Community Director at San Francisco-based nonprofit TechSoup Global and leads an active community of nonprofit staff and volunteers in Second Life.

All proceeds from the event will be donated to the American Red Cross Haiti Relief Fund.

hashtag: #sm4si

The Social Media Club is featuring a panel discussion on Innovation Through Real-Time Feedback Loops on February 4th, 6:30pm – 9:00pm.
Go here to register: http://smwloops.eventbrite.com/

In this interactive panel event, we will discuss and demonstrate:

• What new prescriptions for human interaction should media practitioners embrace to leverage through real-time feedback loops
• How Social Media tools can be used to facilitate idea generation
• How to employ a the Real-Time Feedback Loop methodology for competitive advantage

The panelists are:

• Ravit Lichtenberg, CEO Ustrategy
• Sylvia L. Marino, Executive Director – Community Operations & Social Media, Edmunds.com
• Liza Sperling, Real-Time Sentiment & Trends Analyst, Scout Labs
• Tom Foremski, Founder & Editor, Silicon Valley Watcher
• Van Riper, Founder & Leader, Silicon Valley Google Technology User Group
• Bill Johnston, Director, Online Community Research Network, ForumOne
• David Libby, SVP, MS&L Worldwide
• Evan Solomon, VP of Marketing, JustinTV
• Marc Smolowitz, Executive Producer – Media & Technology Consultant

A few weeks ago, we announced our partnership with WOMMA. As part of our partnership, the Online Community Research Network (OCRN) and the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) are co-producing our first research study on Social Marketing professionals (marketers who focus on social media) compensation, job satisfaction, and team structure.

For the past two years, the OCRN has studied online community and social media professionals compensation. As social media continues to intersect with marketing tools, we’d like to study how social marketers are being compensated and how actively they are involved with online marketing.

If you’re a marketing professional involved with social media, we’d like to invite you to participate in the Social Marketing Compensation survey.

The survey can be found here: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/NYYK8BB

Things for participants to note:

-All participants will receive a participant version of the report, which includes aggregate data.
-All data will be processed and compiled in aggregate. Data will not be reviewed or presented in a personally (or company) identifiable way.

Please complete the survey before the end of the day on December 18th.

Feel free to email me with any questions: hvirga@forumone.com

The Online Community Research Network is conducting our second study that examines how community and social media professionals engage in the social media ecosystem. Last April, we conducted the Social Media Ecosystem study to gain a better understanding of how organizations were managing their hosted and external online community touch points.

Our goal with the current Participating in the Social Media Ecosystem study is to gain more information on how companies participate, how frequently they engage in activities in the social media ecosystem, who manages the participation, and what value participants’ companies have gained from their activities.

The research targets online community and social media executives, strategists, and managers, working both in the commercial and non-profit space.

The survey can be found here: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/W3MT3ZL

If you decide to participate, there are few things to note:

-All participants will receive a participant version of the report, which includes aggregate data.
-All data will be processed and compiled in aggregate. Data will not be reviewed or presented in a personally (or company) identifiable way.

We would like to receive your responses by the end of the day Friday, December 11th, please.

Feel free to ping me if you have any questions: hvirga@forumone.com

The Online Community Platform and Services Satisfaction research project was initiated in January of 2009 and published in March. The research project was conducted by the Online Community Research Network, and was created to provide insight about customer attitudes towards online community platform and service vendors, particularly around satisfaction. Further, we wanted to explore the unmet needs in the online community platform and services market.

We received approximately 208 completed surveys. Participants represent many sectors and markets include: large software companies, large community and social media destination sites, niche community sites, manufacturers, government and
non-profits.

Two items worth noting about the research protocol:

• Platforms with less than 5 respondents were not reported on in depth, and
• Online Community Vendors were not allowed to respond to the survey instrument, as the project was intended to study customer attitudes and issues.

Most Important Attributes for Purchase
From Question 9: Which of the following community platform vendor and system attributes are the most important to you when making a purchase decision about your community platform?

Most important vendor and system attributes ranked in descending order.

A majority (48%) of respondents consider scalability and feature set equally as important. Customization almost as important at 46%. It was interesting to note that pricing was less important that scalability, feature sets and the ability to customize. It was also interesting to see that respondents reported the that the technology of the platform was a lower priority attribute. SaaS functionality was least important at 5%.

Evaluatiton Criteria
We asked respondents to rate their primary community platform (and if applicable, supporting vednor) based on the following criteria:

• Overall quality / reliability
• Meets overall expectations
• Vendor delivered on deadline
• Post-purchase support by vendor
• Ability to Customize
• User experience / usability
• Ability to scale to meet demand
• Ongoing technical operations
• Ease of community management
• Metrics & reporting
• Members like platform

High Level Results
Platforms with five or more respondents are featured with full details of the customer experience of implementing and using the platform. A high level summary of findings include:

• Drupal (17 Respondents) – Scored high in the “Ability to Customize” category.
• iCohere (7 Respondents) – Received solid ratings across the board.
• Jive Clearspace (8 Respondents) – Received good ratings, with a lower marks in the reporting area.
• Jive Forums (11 Respondents) – Reviews were mixed, especially around support. This is likely due to vendor no longer supporting or upgrading this product.
• Joomla (6 Respondents) – Most Joomla attributes were rated fair or better
• Leverage Software (5 Respondents) – Leverage scored well on delivery and scalability.
• Lithium (6 Respondents) – Received solid ratings across the board, with no poor or unacceptable ratings.
• Ning (5 Respondents) – Received solid ratings, with low marks regarding metrics.
• Telligent (10 Respondents) – Received mostly solid ratings, with 2 respondents giving unacceptable marks regarding user affinity.
• Web Crossing (6 Respondents) – Received positive feedback on many attributes, with deadlines, support and metrics being weak areas.

A sample of Quality and Reliability scores from key platforms and vendors includes:

Drupal: Overall Quality & Reliability

Total responses presented in ascending order.

Jive Clearpsace: Overall Quality & Reliability

Total responses presented in ascending order.

Leverage Software: Overall Quality & Reliability

Total responses presented in ascending order.

Lithium: Overall Quality & Reliability

Total responses presented in ascending order.

Community Server by Telligent: Overall Quality & Reliability

Total responses presented in ascending order.

We also collected detailed data on custom platforms developed “in house”.

Additional Findings in the Report
The full 68 page “Online Communities: Platform and Services Satisfaction Report” includes in depth information on:

• Write in comments on vendors and community platforms
• Products and services that community teams are using in conjunction with their community platform
• Length of time communities have existed
• Online community budgets, broken out by company size
• Desired online community products and services that are currently unavailable
• Advice on online community platform and vendor selection and management

Access to the Full Report
For members of the Online Community Research Network, the report is included as a benefit of your annual subscription. If you are interested in joining the OCRN, or learning more about the Network’s activities, please go here.

The Online Community Platform and Services Satisfaction report is also available for purchase for $349.

We initiated the The Online Communities: Surviving & Thriving in the Downturn Economy survey in late November and early December of 2008, as part of our ongoing research series with the Online Community Research Network. The intention of the study was to get a broad look at how online community programs are fairing within organizations in light of the recent economic changes.

We received approximately 90 responses. Participants represent a healthy swath of the types of organizations participating in online community activities, including: software, hardware, entertainment, media, independent consultants and a handful of non-profits.

We saw plenty to be concerned about. Several respondents were facing layoffs, or were having there community projects suspended. Budgets are hiring were frozen for some. But, we also saw a lot of data to be optimistic about including the fact that the majority of respondents reported continued support of their community activities, and in some cases, increased support.

Highlights from the report include:

Overall Affect of the Economy on Online Communities
We asked: “Please rate how the economy has affected your overall online community strategy and operations to date, with 1 = Unaffected and 5 = Most Negatively Affected”

The average rating that respondents gave in response to the overall affect that the economy has on their online community to date was 2.43.

Most of the respondents 81% (66) indicated that their online community strategy and operations to date was either unaffected or somewhat affected, whereas only 19% (15) respondents rated their online community had been more negatively affected, to date.

The most affected areas to date were:

• Respondents rated Contractor Staffing (average rating of 2.7),
• Platform Budget (average rating of 2.4) and
• Full Time Staffing (average rating of 2.3).

Changes in Staffing
We asked “Do you plan on making any immediate (next 30 days) changes to your online community staffing, for example changes in head count, consolidated positions, layoffs?”

Most of the respondents 71% (60) said that they would NOT be making any immediate changes to their online community staffing, the remaining 29% (25) said they would make specific changes. BUT… The most common change in community staffing that the 25 participants said they were going to enforce during the next 30 days was *increasing* their number of Full Time Employees. This included new staff, as well as converting contractors to full time.

Obviously, there was bad news here as well. Several folks mentioned decreasing FTE’s and contractors, and 3 respondents said there community project had been, or was being shut down all together.

Community Value
We asked: Have your internal stakeholders (execs, management) attitudes toward the value of the online community changed because of current economic pressure?

Slightly more than half of the respondents (55%) said that their company internal stakeholder’s attitudes have changed towards the value of the online community because of the current economic pressure. For those whose stakeholder’s attitudes that had changed, over half of the respondents (55%) indicated that their internal stakeholder’s considered their online community more valuable because of the current economic pressures.

About a quarter (26%) respondents whose stakeholder’s attitudes that had changed indicated that their internal stakeholder’s considered their online community LESS VALUABLE because of the current economic downturn. The reasons given for this were because more focus was being placed on other advertising or on core products, less funding was available or in some cases the community had been relinquished altogether.

Slightly less than a quarter (19%) respondents said that their internal stakeholders are closely monitoring the Return On Investment (ROI) of their online community to consider its value.

Of the folks who commented on increased support:

Communities now getting more executive support and more commitment for 2009.

More important now than ever. We are a membership organization, and we see this is an important way to deliver value for membership, particularly in a time when our customers are unable to travel.

There is a more intense focus on community and social media as a more cost-effective way to promote and sell products.

Increased urgency or emphasis on using new technology and the world of online communities to cut operating costs and expand business opportunities.

The final report will be published to our Online Community Research Network members and research participants later this week.

The full report (~45 pages) will include all collected data, charts from the date, and all write in responses. The full report expands on the content above, as well covering specific budget items that will likely be affected in 2009, tactics that community executives are employing in the downturn, and peer advice on thriving in the downturn.

The full report will also be available for purchase.

We initiated the Online Community Culture study in October of 2008, as part of the ongoing research agenda of the Online Community Research Network. The intention of the study was to get a broad look at the factors that influence online community culture, and the steps community managers and strategists take in cultivating, and in some cases influencing, a community’s culture. We had over 75 participants in the research, representing many sectors, including software, tech, traditional media, social media and online community, and non-profits. Respondents seniority skewed towards Manager (44%), Directors & VP’s (12%).

Key Factors Establishing an Online Community’s Culture
One key area we wanted to understand was the short list of factors that community managers thought were most important in establishing a communities culture. We asked: “What are the three most important factors in establishing and maintaining a community’s culture?”

The top three responses (in order) were:

• Quality, up-to-date content

• Have a clear objective / value statement 11% (12)
• strong moderation / facilitation 12% (13) of the community site was a critical factor.

Key quotes from the respondents:

“Listen, and treat others as you’d expect to be treated. Be there – 24/7 coverage. Show gratitude to earn respect”
Director / Community Manager, Media Company

“Active moderation with a well informed host, participation at all levels of the organization and support by the executive level”
Director Internet Marketing, Tools/Service Provider

“Platform, (if you want the conversation to occur on a 1st party site, if not it may very well occur on a third party site), Recognition (supporting the achievements of the community members, and enabling through various interactions including events, content, and feedback interaction opportunities. Listening Mechanism (ensure that community members voices are heard)”
Community Program Manager, Software Company

“The community is open to all (even competitors. Speak your mind but respect everyone. Clear policies and guidelines dictate the rules/expectations of the community”
Social Media / Community Manager, Hardware / Software Company

“1 – Focus: Managing expectations from the outset as to what users can and cannot experience in the community 2 – Prompt response & closing the loop
3 – Rich & engaging content”
CEO, Online Community / Social Media Company

“œ1 – establish ground rules at the get go and enforce them even handedly 2 – respond to the evolution demands of a growing community by evolving your offering 3 – remember that you are not one of them, you are their advocate to the company and the company’s advocate to them”
Senior Community Development Manager, Hardware/Software Company

“1- Always ensuring that the community comes before the brand behind it. 2 – Let the community create the culture and make tools and communications to enhance that, instead of trying to impose a culture. 3 – Prevent the community from going stale”
Online Community Coordinator, Non Profit Organization

“1) Providing differentiated and relevant tools, features, & content (why engage with ‘product X’ here, vs. anywhere else?) 2) Lower the barrier to participation / access as much as you reasonably can 3) Provide self-moderation tools”
Director, Online Marketing, Entertainment (Video Games)

Steps to Establish an Online Community’s Culture
Another area we wanted to explore with this project was the set of key actions taken by community hosts to support the establishment of a community’s culture.

We asked: “: What steps have you taken to establish a new community’s culture?”

Respondents highlighted the following key actions:

• Recognizing positive participation

• Soliciting and Responding to member feedback
• Communicating with Members

Key quotes from the respondents:

“Active participation of internal staff – Reward programs for active participants – ongoing moderation – News and announcement on landing pages.”
Community Manager, Software Company

“For our upcoming community redesign, we are limiting the amount and importance of “standard” community features (friends, forums, “favorite books”, etc.) and focusing more on making the resources, our organization’s knowledge and user’s generated knowledge, as a visible and social part of the site. All articles and content can be rated and comment upon. Users will have access to a Yahoo Answers style tool. Users can contribute stories and best practices in a community blog. The “standard” functions are there to help make relationships made on these new functions easier to keep, but the knowledge and resources people create will be the most important part of the community.”
Online Community Coordinator, Non-Profit Organization

“Instituted simple but comprehensive rules and codes of practice. Engaged community members directly rather than leaving them to flail without response. Demonstrated that by following, new policies results happened.”
Community Development Manager, Hardware / Software Company

“Actively soliciting feedback from members. Publicly acknowledging and acting upon the feedback received. Clearly identifying desirable behavior as a model for others to embrace. Setting a positive example when posting as a member (not as a moderator).”
Analytics Country Manager, Agency

“1. Designed our primary social media platform to emphasize and reinforce our targeted audience — business professionals interested in an exchange of information on business oriented topics. This includes, look and feel; community standards, user added content, involvement with other business oriented social networks. 2. Individual responses to feedback submitters, within one business day, from me or my team, providing information as well as our real names, e-mail addresses and office phone numbers.”
Director, User Participation, Media Company

“Listen, learn and adapt. It’s important to remember that company’s can participate in the community discussion, and provide a “the company’s” perspective or view”
Community Program Manager, Software Company

Netting It Out
Based on synthesis of the respondents’ answers, key activities and factors for establishing a desirable culture for an online community are generally:

Value Statement
Create a clear value statement for the community that includes all stakeholders (host and members). The host must offer a unique set of content, features, and access to personalities as part of the value statement. The value statement should be clearly communicated within the community overtly (via the code of conduct) and subtly through branding, user experience and moderation / management cues.

Clear Code of Conduct
A clear and concise code of conduct should be available on the community site, and should clearly describe the expected behavior of community members, and the consequences for behavior that is out of bounds.

Open Lines of Communication
The community host must be easily accessible, and responsive. As noted in the comments above, some organizations have an internal SLA (Service Level Agreement) for response times.

Host plays a visible (but different) role
Members of the host organization should play a visible role in the community. Being present, interacting with members and often times leading community initiatives or activities. It is important to note that the role of host is one of attending, not just participation. Just like the host of a good party doesn’t just mingle, and good community host participates with intention, and keeps an eye on the overall mood of the community.

User Experience / Feature Set Should Be Tailored To Audience

If you subscribe to the design principals of the Bauhaus, then “form follows function”. This means that, from the baseline information architecture of the community presence, all the way to feature selection and visual design, the community’s online experience is shaped to be appropriate for the desired audience. A community designed for 3D artists working in the film industry (more visual, to share images) has a much different form factor than a site designed for application developers (more text-based, to share code samples).

Content
Quality, relevant and up to date content is key to many online communities. Unique content from the host organization is often one of the key “Why are we here” factors to attract community members. Ensuring that quality member content is highlighted on the community site (and elsewhere, if possible), helps with participation incentive and helps foster a sense of engagement.

Acknowledge Positive Contributions
Highlighting positive contributions and contributors helps encourage content contributions, as well as reinforce positive member behavior.

Create a “Welcoming” Culture
When new members are welcomed in to a community by the host or other community members, that member is more likely to come back, and to contribute.

For More Information

The full report “Online Community Culture: Establishing, Maintaining and Changing” (Published 11/08, 40pgs) is available to Online Community Research Network members, and includes additional information on:

• Factors that have a negative impact on culture

• Processes for collecting ideas, memes, and “stories” from members
• Managing external factors effecting culture
• Managing a negative culture

Update 8/11/09:
You can participate in the 2009 compensation study here: bit.ly/DqWi4
—

The Online Community Compensation study was initiated in July of 2008 as part of our ongoing research efforts with the Online Community Research Network. The intention of the study was to get a broad look at online community compensation, factors that effect compensation, and the current environment of the community team and community staff roles.

We received approximately 225 responses. Participants represent a healthy swath of the types of organizations participating in online community building activities, including: large software companies, large community destination sites, niche community sites, platform providers, interactive marketing firms and independent consultants.

Key findings from the report:

• The majority of the respondents are: Female (55%) vs. Male (45%),
• The majority (61%) of respondents ranged in age from 31-50 years of age.
• Most of the respondents have more than 5 years of experience, completed a Bachelors Degree, and work 41-50 hours per week.
• The average Salary of the respondents was $81k with a median of $72.5k. There were peaks on both the low ($0-$25k) and high ends (more than $150k), and then also at $60-$65k.
• Women are earning only 91% of what men are earning; women averaged $77k, and the men averaged $85k. The average annual salary for all participants was almost $81k.
• Most participants are satisfied with their jobs with an average satisfaction score of 4.2 and a median score of 4 (on a scale of 1-5).

Gender
This is the first time we have asked a gender question in our research, but this answer, combined with anecdotal data from our events supports a slight tendency towards females being in community roles vs. males.

Age
Most of the particpants skewed towards the 31-40 y/o segment.

Department
The responses indicate Marketing “owning” Community teams, or organizations creating a dedicated team. “No formal structure” and “Throughout the company” were also popular responses. The placement of the community team seems to be very much in flux, with a bias towards the marketing department.

Experience
The respondents generally represented a senior and seasoned body of practitioners. The dip in responses in the 3yr to 5 yr range likely represents the general waning of interest in online community during the 3 years after the Internet bubble, and the relatively recent resurgence in interest and investment.

Salary
The average Salary the research participants was $81k with a median of $72.5k. There were peaks on both the low ($0-$25k) and high ends (more than $150k), and then also at $60-$65k. The salaries reported represent a disparate, but generally healthy, range. Spikes in the “$0 to $25k” can be accounted for by volunteers, part time staff and C-level staff not currently taking compensation in startup environments.

Salary by Gender
Women are earning 91% of what men are earning; women averaged $77k, and the men averaged $85k. The average annual salary for all participants was almost $81k.

Satisfaction
It is encouraging to find that overall satisfaction with Online Community positions is well above average. This indicates the combination of salary, benefits, work environment and subject matter is working for most of the respondents.

Full Report
The full Online Community Compensation report contains a good deal more information on the topic, including:

• Community team size
• Respondent education
• Hours Worked
• Benefits
• Salary by Country (US, UK, Canada)
• Salary by Title
• Salary by Experience
• Salary increases in last 12 months
• Full write in comments from Survey

The report available for free to members of the Online Community Research Network, or available to purchase for non-members here:
Online Community Compensation 2008

Over the last 3 years we’ve conducted research with over a 1000 organizations actively engaged with online communties, including Fortune 500 companies, cutting edge community-based startups and some of the world’s leading non-profit organizations.

We are currently conducting 6 studies annually, and we typically release the research reports (for a limited time).

Currently available (free) research reports include:
Identity, Reputation & Ranking:
The Identity, Reputation & Ranking research project studied current practice with online identity, member reputation (including reputation systems and programs) and content ranking techniques.
Key findings from the study include:
- Members typically don’t fill out non-required profile fields;
- Slightly less than 1/3 of the respondents (32%) have, or plan on making member’s profiles portable in the next 6 months;
- Slightly less than 1/3 of the respondents (32%) have, or plan on implementing a universal ID solution in the next 6 months;
- The majority of respondents have, or are developing a reputation system for their communities.
Download this report (free).

Online Community Revenue and ROI Techniques:
The Online Community Revenue and ROI Techniques research project studied revenue streams of online communities as well as monetary and non-monetary measurements of value.
Key findings from the study include:
- Respondents generally valued non-fiduciary dimensions of value, like loyalty, over direct revenue.
- The most effective revenue generating techniques were advertising and charging for community subscription.
- A member-first attitude is needed when considering the addition of fee-based or revenue-generating services. The best way to find out what your members do or don’t want? Ask them.
Download this report (free).

Marketing & Online Communities:
The Marketing & Online Communities research project was intended to study the intersection of current marketing practices and online community building.
Key takeaways from the study include:
- A list of community marketing tactics that community hosts engage in;
- Feedback on the most effective marketing tactics;
- Host policies that marketers must adhere to;
Download this report (free).

Research Reports Available to OCRN Members:
Online Community: Marketing, Growth and Engagement Report / July 2008 (also available for purchase)
Online Community ROI: Models and Reports / February 2008
Online Community ROI Research Report / April 2007
Online Community Metrics: February, 2007
Online Community Metrics: Best Practices Survey / March 2006
Blogs, Wikis and Workspaces: June 2006

Our Research Calendar for this quarter includes:
Online Community Compensation (team structure, titles and compensation packages from over 250 community professionals): to be published August 2008
Community Vendor Satisfaction (Platform & Services): to be published September 2008

In addition to all the research reports, OCRN members get an active say in steering the research agenda, and also help shape the research instruments.

To find out more about the OCRN, please feel free to ping me.

We conducted the Online Community Marketing, Growth and Engagement research study in May of this year, as part of the continuing efforts of the Online Community Research Network. Our goal was to gain insight into how people are measuring engagement in their online communities and to understand how many organizations were using an elite / influencer program, and how those programs were structured.

One of the most interesting findings was around the concept of member engagement. Both the definition as well as the process of measuring engagement varied across the respondent organizations.

Highlights From the Report:

Most people determine the level of engagement based on the amount of activity and the amount of content created (forum posts, reviews, discussions, diggs, links added, comments and content, etc.). They also look at the amount of time spent on the site as one of the main measurements of engagement. Another important dimension, which only a few respondents mentioned is the number and quality of connections that a member has with the host organization (in some cases brand) and other community members.

Leading Indicators
A few respondents were using a set of “Leading indicators” to benchmark and track engagement:

• “1) Logged in/accessed the site; 2) Posted comments to the site; 3) Posted substantive content (e.g. conversation-starting forum topic) to the site; 4) Completed profile/member survey”
• “Engagement encompasses not only logins to the site, but activity: Digging/burying stories, submitting content and engaging in discussions on specific stories.”

An ideal Engagement Metric
Based on aggregate responses, the following metrics would be ideal for rolling up into an engagement metric.

• Amount of activity on site: page views, logins, searches, feature usage
• Number and type of content items created: discussion posts, tags, shared content, etc.
• Number of connections / relationships created: friends added to network, or inferred via frequent discussion exchanges
• Time on site: Total time per month
• Frequency of visits: / per month
• Recommendations: Members referring new community members, passing along community content outside of community, blogging about / promoting community

A perspective on member engagement:
One Fortune 100 Financial Services firm that responded to the survey uses the following definition / measurements of “Engagement”:

We define engagement in a few different ways.

1) Very tactically in the community. Tactically: How many have registered? What are their posting rates? How often are they are engaging in the community?

2) Strategically with higher-level brand metrics: looking at how this pays off for our overall brand goal. [Company] uses a Net Promoter Score to measure the health of the brand.

We ask “Would you recommend [Company] to your friends?” on a scale of 1-10.

Then we subtract the people who answer low (either 1-3 or 1-5), from the people who answer high (9-10) that yes, they definitely would recommend [Company] to their friends.

That gives us a percentage and we measure it for the [Company] brand and at each of the product levels.

The community is about overall brand engagement and how the community drives loyalty and membership within the [Company] brand.

Fostering Engagement
All of the responses to the question about fostering engagement raise the point that as community host, you have responsibility for half of the conversation with community members. Themes of regular communication, active listening, strong moderation, fostering discussion and recognition emerged in the responses.

The most popular ways to improve member engagement include:
Regular and easy communications:

Skilled moderation:

• Keep the forums on topic and firm but fair moderation.
• Keep content fresh.

Fostering discussion:
“Encouraging conversation. Sometimes, this means highlighting a potentially divisive, opinionated comment and inviting response. Sometimes, this means asking questions that everyone has an answer to, and nobody minds sharing.”

Listening to participants:
“Seek member feedback and perspective, build meaningful connections”

Recognizing members who participate:
“Create a sense of value to their participation.”

The full report is available to Online Community Research Network members. If you are interested in this report (and others), please consider joining the Network. Details are available here: http://www.onlinecommunityresearch.com

We just released (for a limited time) the Online Community Revenue and ROI Techniques research report.

The study was conducted last fall as part of the Online Community Research Network, and explored issues around driving revenue via online communities.

I’ve included highlights below. I would encourage you to download the report for the full result set.

Question: Based on your experience, what are the most effective strategies and tactics for generating revenue from an online community?

Summary:
Respondents highlighted several common themes, including:

The need for Advertising:
“Provide a platform for peer-to-peer interaction that advertisers can participate in. By ensuring that advertising content is relevant to the content the community is generating (through tools like contextual matching), we’ve seen high ROI for advertising partners for
branding and lead generation campaigns.”

The need for Subscriptions:
“In our context (most-valued content available only to paying subscribers), we provide high-quality community features ‘including access to experts’ as a privilege of subscribership.”

The fact that Advertising and Subscription are the leading strategies isn’t surprising, given that the model was pioneered with content-based sites. Several respondents mentioned that revenue generation from communities was indirect, particularly with regard to brand affinity and advertising.

Categorized write in answers follow -

Advertising:

• “Ad impressions – both visit duration and repeat visitors.”
• “Ad placement has resulted in game downloads from our casual games forums.”
• “Advertising on member content.”
• “Advertising sponsorships.”
• “Identifying quality community connections to leverage for advertising targeting insights.”
• “Provide a platform for peer-to-peer interaction that advertisers can participate in. By ensuring that advertising content is relevant to the content the community is generating (through tools like contextual matching), we’ve seen high ROI for advertising partners for branding and lead generation campaigns.”
• “Thought leadership, lead generation, customer retention are top indirect revenue sources. Customer councils, ad revenue and member dues are the most frequent direct sources.”

Advertising, Brand Loyalty, and Upgrade Program:

• “Unfortunately, a lot of revenue generated through business communities is indirect. Brand loyalty, hyper-affiliation, user acquisition are all difficult to translate into real dollars – although some companies try. Advertising is probably still the most effective way to monetize a community though – and the more targeted the ads, the better. For instance, having an “upgrade now” button on the forums for an outdated device, etc. A while ago, we piloted an upgrade program through the dell community that was quite successful.”
• “From our viewpoint, it’s really a matter of having a more engaged readership. We’re strictly an ad business at this point, and getting more people to come back to the site more often and see more pages is only good for us.”

Brand Loyalty:

• “Clients need to appreciate indirect value of promotion, brand awareness, and loyalty. We work with many of our clients to develop their platforms in a way that the software itself could be resold/white labeled for resale.”

Subscriptions & Brand Loyalty:

• “Allow a big upsell jump. A super-premium level allows people to express their loyalty even if the benefits are almost the same as at the next level.”

Subscriptions:

Sponsors:

“Incite users to create valuable content that can be sponsored by interested parties.”

“We have not succeeded in having individuals pay directly; we have had more success in getting supporting institutions to pay for their employees’ access.”

Create a Strong Community:

• “I do not believe you should be doing community to generate revenue. Our objective is to provide customers/users a way to Learn, Share, and Explore Technology.”
• “The communities don’t generate revenue. They provide us a ‘lock-in’ to using our service by showing the value of the “network effect” on our platform. They provide a richer user experience for clients’ members and therefore providing greater support during contract renewal negotiations.’
• “Create a strong community, then monetize the activity, versus monetizing the capabilities early on.”
• “Our focus is not on generating revenue directly. We focus on enabling community participants to develop solutions, find answers, and gain knowledge.”

Question: What advice would you have for a colleague that needs to introduce revenue generating activities to their online community?

Summary:
Recommendations varied from the respondents, but several themes emerged from the content:

• Understand Your Community: Know what your community values, and what they expect from you. Let your community guide you on what they value, what they will pay for, and what types of advertising they will tolerate.
• Add More Features/Value: Don’t put roadblocks in front of features that are necessary for a healthy community. Think of value-added services that compliment the core community feature set.
• Be Careful: Your community is a delicate ecosystem. Make sure you don’t abuse it.
• Combine Revenue Sources: which techniques like “Target Advertising” and “Premium Upselling.”
• Quality over Quality: Focus on a few effective revenue streams rather than several moderately effective ones. 1 well placed ad vs. 7 throughout the interface.

Again, if you would like to see the full report, I would encourage you to download it here.