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

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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

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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

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The full Online Communities: Platform and Services Satisfaction Report can be purchased here:
http://store.onlinecommunityresearch.com/oncoplandses.html

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We received approximately 175 responses. Participants represent a healthy swath of the types of organizations participating in online community culture. Participating industry categories include: software companies, hardware companies, consumer goods non-profit organizations, independent consultants and media companies, amongst others.

Report Highlights
Several key issues pertaining to online community and social media metrics surfaced during this report, including:

• In general, organizations need to do a more thorough job of defining their business objectives for online community engagement, assessing ways to measure progress towards these objectives, reaching beyond their native platform metrics capabilities, and finding ways to measure the more qualitative components of community member engagement.
• The Role of the Community Manager is increasingly important to developing and refining business process, and measuring performance in these new “social spaces.”
• There is a growing need for community metric standards that are platform and vendor-independent.

Determining What to Measure
From Question 14: How does your organization determine what is important to measure and report?

SUMMARY:

• 20% (34) We stick with what the platform can provide
• 61% (100) We work from a strategy based on business goals and find solution to help us measure what we need
• 19% (31) We try to measure everything, will develop more of a strategy later

TAKEAWAY:
Respondents are primarily shaping metrics strategies based on business goals (61%), even if their platform doesn’t support gathering or tracking desired metrics. Platform metrics are generally speaking, not comprehensive or extensible enough to create a meaningful dashboard to see overall community health, get an accurate visualization of the community’s social graph, and to understand the ongoing insight created by and the sentiments of the community population. The risk in relying only on data that a platform can provide (20% of the respondents) is that the data sets aren’t comprehensive or contextual to organization’s needs. “Measuring everything” (19% of respondents) can overwhelm the community team and stakeholders, and is unlikely to yield meaningful performance data or insight without some rigor in the analysis.

Metrics Currently Being Tracked
From Question 16: What do you currently measure?

SUMMARY:
The top 5 items that online communities measure for tracking and reporting are as follows:

• 152 Responses – Unique Visitors
• 150 Responses – New Member Registrations
• 143 Responses – Page Views
• 126 Responses – Visitors
• 116 Responses – Message Posts

The top 5 items that online communities don’t measure, but want to are as follows:

• 90 Responses – Member Satisfaction
• 90 Responses – Influencer / Evangelism
• 84 Responses – Member Life Cycle
• 83 Responses – Member Loyalty
• 73 Responses – Referrals to Community

TAKEAWAY:
The top 5 items that online communities currently measure for tracking and reporting are the same for both profit and non-profit organizations and include Unique Visitors, New Member Registrations, Page Views, Visitors and Message Posts.

Non-profit organizations concentrate on measuring Podcasts & Video Links and Member Satisfaction, more often than other organizations, whereas commercial organizations place more attention on measuring Retention / Attrition, Member Loyalty, Member Blog Posts and Conversion than non-profit organizations.

As organization’s community strategies mature, the trend to primarily report on basic web metrics (page views, registrations) will be replaced by metrics that speak to the health of the community, the strength of members’ networks, the quality and type of member participation, and more robust measurements of member engagement. The data suggest that we are on the cusp of the evolution from “basic” community metrics to more robust and contextual reporting.

Currently Measuring – Profit and Non Profit


A larger version of the graph can be downloaded here:
http://www.onlinecommunityreport.com/images/metrics_tracked_2009_graph.png

Top 3 Key Performance Indicators

From Question 19: What are the 3 most important community key performance indicators in the reports you send to management?

SUMMARY:

• 32% (74) User Activity / Engagement
• 21% (49) Membership Count [New Registrations, Active]
• 18% (42) Number of Posts / Comments
• 5% (12) Member Satisfaction / Loyalty
• 4% (10) Number of Questions Answered
• 4% (10) Sales Revenue – Up Sell, Cross Sell, Renewals
• 4% (8) Leeds / Referrals Generated
• 3% (6) Number of Downloads
• 3% (6) Number of Influencers / Evangelists
• 2% (5) Visitor Retention
• 2% (5) Number of Conversions
• 1% (2) Donations Received
• 1% (2) Visitor Geographic Dispersal

TAKEAWAY:
Almost a third of respondents indicated that User Activity / Engagement (32%) is one of the most important key performance indicators in the reports that they sent to management. Within the User Activity / Engagement category, the following 3 key performance indicators were the most commonly reported:
• 33 Number of Page Views / Clicks
• 22 Number of Site Visits
• 19 Number of Unique Visits

The other two key performance indicators that many respondents input into management reports are Membership Count (21%) (including new membership and total membership count) and the Number of Posts / Comments (18%) received on their site.

User Activity / Engagement is the number one item to track for both profit and non-profit organizations. Within this category the specific key performance indicators were dispersed similarly, with the profit based organizations having a slightly higher percentage ratio on key performances such as the Number of Threads reported and General Participation. Non-profit organizations, on the other hand, have a slightly higher percentage ratio on reporting metrics such as Number of Returning Visitors and the Number of Site Visits.

Another common response from profit based organizations was related to reporting key performances such as Sales Revenue and the Number of Conversions whereas non-profit organizations had a higher percentage response rate for reporting the amount of Donations Received.



USER ACTIVITY / ENGAGEMENT 34% (BROKEN OUT):


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 Communities: Metrics and Reporting 2009 report is also available for purchase for $295.

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]]> http://www.onlinecommunityreport.com/2009/09/online-communities-metrics-and-reporting-2009/feed/ 0 http://www.onlinecommunityreport.com/2009/08/social-media-ecosystems/ http://www.onlinecommunityreport.com/2009/08/social-media-ecosystems/#comments Tue, 18 Aug 2009 12:38:25 +0000 Bill Johnston http://ocrdev.forumone.com/?p=449 The Social Media Ecosystems research study was conducted by the Online Community Research Network in April of 2009. The study was created to provide insight about how organizations leverage external online community and social media sites to support their organizational goals.

We received approximately 60 completed surveys. Participants represent many sectors and markets including: large software companies, large community and social media destination sites, niche community sites, manufacturers, government and non-profits.

Report Highlights
We asked a range of questions about the use of external community and social media sites to support an organization’s online presence. Among the findings:

A majority of respondents (26%) said that their community has existed for more than five years.

Of the high priority sites mentioned, five sites were mentioned as most important:

• Twitter
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• YouTube
• Second Life

The most important goal on ecosystem sites is to educate and inform followed by the goal of peer-to-peer evangelism.

Creating relationships between user and brand rated the most important activity followed by messaging and communicating timely information.

Most respondents are learning from current site participation and actively strategizing as they go along without a formal ecosystem plan in place.

Community managers or assistants are most often tasked with ecosystem site measurement.

More enhanced, direct communication is what respondents most value about ecosystem site participation.

The advice most given to peers was:

• Be efficient with process and measurement.
• Be responsive in communications to members/participants.
• Be authentic in the way you communicate and respond.

High Priority Social Media Sites
We asked participants to list the highest priority social media sites they maintain a presence on.

Of all the high priority sites mentioned, five sites were mentioned as most important. Those sites, and a snapshot of the organizations activities on those sites:

• 21 listed Twitter primarily for sharing information and building business relationships.
• 11 listed Facebook primarily for fan pages promoting company or brand.
• 5 entered LinkedIn for recruiting and client acquisition and retention.
• 3 use YouTube for sharing corporate videos including demos, game trailers and commercials.
• 3 use Second Life for health care support, meetings, recruiting and networking.

Priority Social Media Site: Twitter
Twitter was by far the highest priority social media touchpoint mentioned by the respondents.

Respondents mention using Twitter both personally and professionally (with both personal and “professional” accounts). Many users mentioned having more than 4 twitter accounts and personas.

Respondents mentioned using Twitter to:

• Listen / monitor sentiment, snapshot of current community “mood”
• Build business relationships
• Generate leads
• Support customers
• Connect with developers
• An extension of live chats and to keep people up to the minute
• Creating a network for event attendees
• Share news and marketing messaging
• Build awareness for their organization and cause
• Sharing online research re: community development
• Host events, such as the#gno Twitter party for women every Tuesday night

Note: The full report contains all of the write in data about Twitter, as well as Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and the other priority social media sites.

Social Media Strategy
The majority of our respondents have an existing online community destination they are hosting and managing. We have inferred from data collected in this study, as well as from interactions at our events and with client engagements, that have been slow to embrace social media participation because they have been primarily focused on increasing engagement on their respective, hosted sites. Participation in Twitter seems like the place many organizations start when they begin to experiment with creating a presence that includes hosted properties as as an extended social media presence. Not surprisingly, we found that a majority (66%) of respondent organizations do not have a comprehensive social media ecosystem strategy in place, as many are just beginning to experiment.

• 18% (10) replied yes.
• 56% (32) responded that they don’t need a formal plan.
• 16% (9) said that a formal, comprehensive plan is currently being written.
• 10% (6) replied no.

The Social Media Ecosystem report, which includes full results and all write in answers can be purchased on our research store:
http://store.onlinecommunityresearch.com/

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]]> http://www.onlinecommunityreport.com/2009/08/social-media-ecosystems/feed/ 0 http://www.onlinecommunityreport.com/2009/07/community-influencer-programs/ http://www.onlinecommunityreport.com/2009/07/community-influencer-programs/#comments Tue, 14 Jul 2009 16:31:59 +0000 Bill Johnston http://ocrdev.forumone.com/?p=436 Note: This post is part of the OC Tribe series. Each 2nd Tuesday and 4th Tuesday of the month, online community practitioners will be encouraged to explore a particular topic via blog, video blog, twitter, or whatever suites your fancy. The recap will be hosted on the site of another one of the bloggers in the loosely defined OCTribe group. This ad-hoc group (movement?) is just starting up, so please join in!

Today’s topic is the role of influential members in online communities. In the kickoff post, Gail Williams asks

“Who in your communities is an influencer of others? As a facilitator, moderator or community manager, how do you work with the most influential people in your network? As a designer, how would you accommodate the opinion leaders? Got three top tips for rewarding these valued members of a group?”

The Online Community Research Network studied this topic as part of the “Online Community Marketing, Growth and Engagement” report, published in July of 2008. At the time, Elite / Influencer programs were not a priority, and were generally being handled in an informal way. There were several reasons for this, including lack of executive support, overhead with finding and qualifying members, and the legal implications with having an “elite” or privileged tier:

“The real answer is that we don’t have much of an Elite program yet. We have started in the last 18 months to do some things, but haven’t yet gotten much participation. There are some legal reasons why we haven’t really done much so far. Go back and look at AOL. We’d like to find ways around the legal”

The case that the survey respondent was referring to was Greenberg vs. AOL (2001) which involved volunteer moderators suing AOL for back wages. To our knowledge, legal issues regarding influencer programs, and the related compensation, rewards or special privileges are still being approached on a case by case basis for organizations with programs.

Organizations that were attempting to identify influencers and elites stated:

• It is easy to identify influencers and elites because they tend to be easy to spot and they stand out from the crowd due to the amount of time they spend on the community and the amount of content they create or post.
• Others said it is all about relationship and knowing the people who are participating in the community and engaging them directly.
• A minority of people use algorithms and metrics to identify the influencers.
• One person stated they manually tabulate the postings that each participant makes each week.


Various tactics for engaging influential members included:

• Having Moderator contact the influencers directly via email.
• Providing extensive training and support.
• Highlight / celebrate influential community members in different ways on the web site.
• An escalation procedure and incentives (sometimes monetary) for converting members into subject matter experts, featured editorialists and/or ambassadors (geographic).
• I would recognize them in newsletters and on the website; send them a gift branded with our logo; quarterly send them something more expensive like an iPod.
• We increase the features available to these members for no charge.
• After the existing team has voted 100%, we approach a candidate with an offer to join in the decision-making group.

The write in answers from the study offer more insight:

Easy to Spot / They Stand Out (10):

• I have no methodology other than a feel for who is there most often, and who is listened to and respected by others.
• Influencers on our site are easy to spot – they have the most activity in submissions, Diggs and comments.
• Those who are comfortable with technology will be most likely to post and respond; therefore they will stand out in the community.
• Listen, track the people who are most interested and demonstrate that interest by spending a lot of time, posting a lot, etc. Then, most importantly, once we identify them and make contact, we provide pretty extensive training and support. Show them we really appreciate their support and want them to succeed within our community.
• We will probably start with those who actively engaged with our content — live events. Online courses, newsletters and seek out ways for getting them to engage with our content online.
• We are an online children’s game and we can easily identify the influencers by their levels in the game – so, no words of wisdom there, sorry.
• Monitor discussion.
• Directly. Just ask. It’s really that simple. Find the decision maker…keep it short and show what is in it for them and let the rest take its course.
• Tracking activity and having Moderator contact the influencers directly via email.
• Scan participation for quantity and quality of posts.

Relationships (5):

• The full team develops personal relationships with influencers and elites. They are also highlighted / celebrated in different ways on the web site, but I believe the personal relationship is the key engagement.
• I know them all by heart.
• Facilitators know who the most active contributors on their communities are.
• The community staff is part of the community so they recognize these people and through contact with them on the chat channels build up trust.
• Editors have connections to various “experts” that they’ve asked to be guest bloggers. We’ve had some success with this.

Use Algorithms & Metrics (4):

• We have algorithms for automatically identifying who is contributing lots of content, and the rating tools go into helping us identify who is doing interesting contributions. We also do “calls” for specific content and then comb through the submissions. We then have an escalation procedure and incentives (sometimes monetary) for converting members into subject matter experts, featured editorialists and/or ambassadors (geographic).
• Our platform has a member rank algorithm built into it, so we can easily see who’s among the top members according to total posts, quality (overall rating) of posts, and return visits to the community.
• Use metrics to see number and source of contributions and comments.
• We rank individuals for non-elite program means, using proprietary calculations, using a complex formula, including simple things like traffic, to very complex things like social network analysis (proprietary versions of centrality, between-ness, etc.)

Manually-tabulated Metrics (1):

• Unfortunately the platform we used did not have a recognition system, so I would have to manually tabulate postings for the week and key contributors/rated content. I would recognize them in newsletters and website under “Member Spotlight” where there was a printed Q&A with them, I would then send them a wireless kit that was branded with our logo and quarterly would send them something more expensive like an iPod. I then went from posting their interview to podcasting their interview and this would be posted on the website, in the forum, on newsletters, and anywhere else that was appropriate.


Community Volunteers (3):

• We have a team of volunteers that manage the communities. They are all active participants within the community and often they are the influencers. By being moderators and administrators they get the respect of their peers. We also identify the influencers and elites of our communities through automated metric and manual account reviews and on some sites we increase the features available to these members for no charge (where other members have to pay for these upgrades).
• We provide a lot of hands on support to the volunteer leaders of our 50+ networks.
• The community itself promotes users to moderator or admin status, existing moderators and admins set policy for the forums and administer sanctions. All moderators/admins can nominate a user for promotion to the admin team. All moderators /admins can veto any suggestion. To be taken into the admin team at any level requires 100% positive vote from the existing team and the community manager. The team then approaches the candidate with the offer to join in the decision making group.


Additional Resources:
Two programs that come up regularly in our research as target models are the Yelp Elite and Microsoft MVP programs.

Yelp Elite
http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2008/05/27/understanding-community-leadership-an-interview-with-a-member-of-yelps-elite/

Microsoft MVP
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/
http://www.socialtext.net/ocu2007/index.cgi?engaging_influencers_through_recognition_programs=

Influencer Session Notes from Unconferences past:
http://www.socialtext.net/ocu2008/index.cgi?managing_entitlement_wrangling_with_the_elite_noisy
http://www.socialtext.net/ocu2009/index.cgi?identifying_and_engaging_with_online_influencers

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]]> http://www.onlinecommunityreport.com/2009/07/community-influencer-programs/feed/ 1 http://www.onlinecommunityreport.com/2009/05/online-community-platform-services-satisfaction/ http://www.onlinecommunityreport.com/2009/05/online-community-platform-services-satisfaction/#comments Sun, 17 May 2009 23:19:58 +0000 Bill Johnston http://ocrdev.forumone.com/?p=420 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.

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]]> http://www.onlinecommunityreport.com/2009/05/online-community-platform-services-satisfaction/feed/ 0 http://www.onlinecommunityreport.com/2009/04/an-update-on-the-online-community-research-network/ http://www.onlinecommunityreport.com/2009/04/an-update-on-the-online-community-research-network/#comments Mon, 27 Apr 2009 17:24:00 +0000 Bill Johnston http://ocrdev.forumone.com/?p=413

We mention the Online Community Research Network on the Online Community Report blog quite often, but I haven’t given a comprehensive update on what we are up to in several months. Please allow me to rectify that.

As some of you know, the Online Community Research Network (OCRN) is a professional network of some of the smartest online community and social media practitioners. Forum One’s goal with the Network is to connect online community and social media pros to suss out best practices, solve problems and create a constant flow of new and inspiring ideas.

Who’s In?
We have over 100 online community professionals from a healthy range of industries and organizations. A sample of participating organizations includes: Adobe, Autodesk, American Express, Business Week, Consumer Reports, CNN, Edmunds.com, Global Giving, Google, IBM, Intuit, Microsoft, Razoo, and Yahoo! Membership skews towards Senior Managers, Directors and VP-level staff.

Research Projects / Current Practice Reports
The main activity of the OCRN is to develop and participate in an ongoing research agenda about online community and social media practice. What that means, specifically, is that members:

• Drive the Research Agenda – OCRN members vote quarterly on which research subjects to study.
• Help Design Research Studies - OCRN members help design the research studies by reviewing and giving input on survey instruments. We are usually able to accommodate specific questions from members into the survey.
• Participate in Research Studies - OCRN members also participate in the studies by completing the survey instrument, along with a select group from our extended network of 8,000+ community professionals. Members are also occasionally interviewed in-depth to supplement information gleaned from the survey process.

For a sampling of the Network’s output, check out our 6 most recent research reports. Follow the links to download an executive summary from each report:

• Online Communities: Platform and Services Satisfaction Report
• Online Communities: Surviving and Thriving in the Downturn Economy
• Online Community Culture: Establishing, Maintaining and Changing
• Online Community Compensation 2008
• Online Community ROI Models and Reports
• Online Community: Identity, Reputation and Ranking

Member Network & Collaboration
OCRN members have access to ongoing collaboration opportunities through our monthly roundtable calls, quarterly, member-only webinars where recent research findings are presented and discussed, and a member’s only “Request Advice” section (think LinkedIn Answers, but very focused).

Content
Members get access to a wealth of content, including an archive of all OCRN research reports, and a library of community and social media best practice content. We also send a monthly OCRN Update newsletter with key news from the Network, as well as social media industry highlights.

Why We (and our Members) Think This is Important
In the challenging economy, online community and social media pros are tasked with developing new tactics and strategies to show growth and value to their organizations, all while working with tighter budgets and fewer resources. The OCRN offers our members an opportunity to interact with other folks that are facing the same challenges in order to share ideas, collaborate and find solutions.


A Summary of the Benefits of the OCRN:

• Monthly Roundtable calls -  There are three to four 15 minute time slots for members to discuss projects, challenges or opportunities with their peers
• Quarterly webinars on current OCRN research
• Immediate access to all research reports on timely online community and social media topics (Currently 6 per year valued at $295 and up, each)
• Invitation to submit research topic ideas – Our members choose the topics
• Review and input on all survey instruments
• Access to the Online Community Resources Archive
• Members-only professional network

If you are charged with the online community strategy for your organization, please consider joining us. One-year memberships are now available at $495/seat and multi-seat pricing of $395/seat is available for 3 or more memberships purchased from one company. Please contact Heather Virga for special discounted pricing for more than 5 seats.

Go here to sign-up: http://ocrnmembership-ocrb.eventbrite.com

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]]> http://www.onlinecommunityreport.com/2009/04/an-update-on-the-online-community-research-network/feed/ 0 http://www.onlinecommunityreport.com/2009/04/current-research-social-media-ecosystem/ http://www.onlinecommunityreport.com/2009/04/current-research-social-media-ecosystem/#comments Thu, 23 Apr 2009 18:59:57 +0000 Bill Johnston http://ocrdev.forumone.com/?p=410 The Online Community Research Network is currently conducting our next research project regarding social media ecosystems. Specifically, we want to understand (and help others understand) how organizations are managing their hosted and external (think facebook, twitter, etc) online community touchpoints.

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

If you would like to participate in the study, you can find the research survey here:
http://bit.ly/yf881

All participants that submit a complete (and valid) survey will receive a copy of the final report, to be published in June.

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

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