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Building a Successful Online Community Derek Rice @derekjrice

Building a Successful Online Community - Social Media FTW

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Tips from a community manager on the tools and tactics that have worked in building online communities.

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Page 1: Building a Successful Online Community - Social Media FTW

Building a Successful Online Community

Derek Rice

@derekjrice

Page 2: Building a Successful Online Community - Social Media FTW

There is no one-size-fits-all method for building and growing a successful online community.

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What is an Online Community?

� More than a message board

� Decentralized platforms that facilitate conversation

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Platforms

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Platforms

Tip: If you try to establish your presence in too many places, you can quickly wear yourself thin. Review several to find what works best for you.

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One Client’s Community

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Platforms

Tip: Use your platforms to complement each other, and you’ll build deeper relationships with your audience.

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An Online Community IS

� A messaging channel

� Conversational

� Community-driven

� Interactive

� Customer service

� An opportunity to build one-to-one relationships

� Free research

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An Online Community IS NOT

� Traditional marketing

� Advertising

� A billboard

� Formal

� Self-centered

� Sales-driven

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Why Do I Need an Online

Community?

� Build trust, which in turn helps build brand recognition, loyalty and affinity

� Obtain a deeper understanding of your audience’s needs and wants

� Create one-to-one relationships with customers and prospects

� It’s what people want and expect

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What Makes You Act?

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Who Do We Trust?

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Tip: Trust

� Your online community is your opportunity build relationships and trust with your members.

� When you provide information to them, they become your best allies by passing it along to others who trust them.

� Through social media, they may passing it to hundreds of people.

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“The Participatory Web”

People use the web to:

� Browse

� Interact

� Personalize

� Talk about and connect with what and who they’re browsing

� Share those interactions and experiences with others

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Characteristics of an Unhealthy

Community

� No response to member questions or posts

� Arguments dwarf other participation

� Members are leaving – and announcing their departure

� Spam

� No clear purpose

� Tumbleweeds

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Characteristics of a Healthy

Community

� Active discussion

� Interesting, relevant content and conversation

� Attracts and retains the right kind of people

� No spam

� Respect and civility

� Clear purpose

� Provides value for members

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So how do you get there?

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Step 1: Determine Your Goals

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Goals

� What is the purpose of your community?

� What do you want your community accomplish?

� What’s more important to you: qualitative or quantitative results?

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Goals

Client example:

� Develop an active community that is interested in sleep and sleep issues

� Build awareness of new product

� Targeted communication to specific areas

� Gain entry into large warehouse chain through demonstrated sales

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Step 2: Management

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Management

Your manager is:

� The party host

� An active and high-profile community member

� Accountable to everyone

� Company

� Community

� The “voice” of your brand

� Sets the tone for the community

� Becomes your brand’s online persona

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Management

Your manager should be:� Friendly (the Golden Rule)

� Patient

� Creative

� Proactive

� Fun

� Articulate

� An excellent writer

� Knowledgeable about your brand

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Management

Find the best fit

� Will you rely one person or multiple people?

Page 25: Building a Successful Online Community - Social Media FTW

Management

Find the best fit

� Do you want a “face” behind the brand, or will your manager act as the brand itself?

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Management

Considerations

� Time-consuming

� Can be a full-time job, at least in the beginning

� Community may eventually take some of the load, but may not

� Creating a page or profile takes days, but success takes time – and hard work

� Time-sensitive

� Online community members expect responses in hours (or less)

Page 27: Building a Successful Online Community - Social Media FTW

Step 3: Listening

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Listening

Research

� Before jumping in, gather information

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Listening

Find out if people are talking about:

� Your company

� Your competition

� Your industry

� Other factors that impact your business

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Listening

Who’s doing the talking?

� They may be interested in your company, product or industry (your target audience)

� Your target audience may not be who you think they are

� Helps define and refine your target audience

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Listening

What are people saying?

� Figure out what the most popular topics are

� This is what your audience is interested in

� Helps you determine your messaging

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Listening Tools

Google AlertsGoogle.com/alerts

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Listening Tools

Twitter searchtwitter.com

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Listening Tools

search.twitter.com

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Listening Tools

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Listening Tools

Socialmention.com

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Listening Tools

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Tip: Listening

Tip: Compiling listening results can be as simple as a checklist, as involved as a Word document where individual conversations are catalogued, or anything in-between.

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Tip: Listening

Listening is a continual process

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Step 4: Identifying Influencers

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Influencers

As you identify your audience, also identify influencers

� Recognizable

� Greater than average reach or impact through word of mouth in a relevant marketplace

� Their opinions matter to others

� Engaged in conversations with hundreds or thousands of people

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Influencers

Why influencers?

� When they talk, people listen

� They may talk about you

� More people will join your community

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Influencers

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Influencers

An influencer doesn’t have to be a celebrity:

� Industry bloggers

� Trade publications

� Local personalities

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Influencers

Industry-specific influencers

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Identifying Influencers

Blog Search Tool – Technorati.com

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Identifying Influencers

Where do you find information that’s relevant to your industry or niche?

These are some of your influencers

They’re talking to your influencers.

They’re talking about your influencers.

Page 48: Building a Successful Online Community - Social Media FTW

Step 4: Developing Content

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Content

Create a messaging toolbox:

� Key words

� Key messages

� Protocol

� Engaging

� Responding

� Escalating

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Content

Content drives participation and growth

The Content Loop

Good content = return visits = word of mouth = new members = more content (community-generated)

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Content

The right kind of content:

� Is high-quality, relevant to community

� Addresses members’ interests

� Sparks discussion

� Provides a sense of purpose and direction

� Establishes your company as an expert in your field

� Positions your company as a valuable resource

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Tip: Content

Start by focusing on a small number of topics that speak to your community members’ shared interests. You can build on

these topics later, using your community as a guide.

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Content

People are looking for:

� Useful information on a topic they find interesting or attractive

� Engagement in experiences to improve their personal or professional life

� Examples: How to improve job performance or be a better parent

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Content

They are not looking for:

� Information on how to buy more of your product

� Calls to action

� Communication that’s mostly brand-specific

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Content

Ask yourself:

� What value am I bringing to my community?

� Why would my community members care?

� What kind of conversation could this generate?

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Content

Sources for finding content:

� Google Alerts (set up during Listening)

� Blogs

� News outlets

� The web

� Community members

� Influencers

Page 57: Building a Successful Online Community - Social Media FTW

Tip: Content

YOU can be the best sourceof the valuable content you share with your community.

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Messaging

Getting it rightFinding the balance between

self-interest and providing

value in your messaging

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Tip: Content

Whatever content you share with your community, keep it bite-sized. This makes for a quick read and it can easily be passed on to others.

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Content

Before launching, quietly build your online presence (social networking, blog, etc.) and seed those channels with content

� Helps with attraction

� Nobody wants to be the first

� Nobody wants to join a barren or inactive community (which isn’t a community at all)

Page 61: Building a Successful Online Community - Social Media FTW

Step 5: Launch

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Launch

� Activate your channels

� Reach out to the audience and influencers you identified during the listening process

� Invite them to join your community

� Members select themselves based on common interests

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Launch

Questions to consider before launching:� Where will you communicate with your

community?� Use those tools and platforms you’ve identified as the best fit for you

� When will you communicate?� Experiment to find the days and times when your community is most active

� How often will you communicate?� Experiment, knowing the community will help you find a balance between too much and too little

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Tip: Launch

Remember: You’re inviting people to join and participate in your community, and an effective

invitation does not include a sales pitch.

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Step 6: Engaging

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Engaging

� Engagement is a way to promote your community and attract new members

� Communities are driven by relationship building, not by the sales cycle� Communicate with people as members or potential members, not as prospects

� People seek out those communities that share their interests

� Allow your community to be a platform for open, honest conversation

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Engaging

Participate

� Ask open-ended, thought-provoking questions

� Conduct polls

� Offer incentives

� Contests

� Reward good content and/or participation

� Join in others’ conversations

� Provide thoughtful, expert answers to questions

� Become a trusted friend

Page 68: Building a Successful Online Community - Social Media FTW

Engaging

Engaging influencers� Re-tweet something they’ve said on

Twitter (add an interesting comment)

� Post on their Facebook wall or tag in one of your wall posts

� Comment on a blog post

� Comment on YouTube video

� Mention them in a blog post

� Link to their website or blog

� Be memorable!

Page 69: Building a Successful Online Community - Social Media FTW

Engaging

� Participate in your community at least once a day

� Use more than one of the platforms you’ve decided to use

� Make your participation constant and consistent

� Participation doesn’t have to be starting a conversation

� Don’t drown out everyone else

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Ongoing: Responding

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Responding

Why respond?

� Community is about two-way interaction

� People want to know they matter.

� Immediacy is key: respond quickly to complaints, endorsements or any kind of mentions.

� A response, especially a fast response, will build or strengthen trust

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Tip: Responding

Rule of thumb:

� Work day: respond within 1 hour

� Overnight/weekends: respond within 12 hours

� Do your best

Page 73: Building a Successful Online Community - Social Media FTW

Responding

Negative feedback

� Find a balance between moderating (reactive) and managing (proactive)

� Often the best course of action is no action

� Know when (if ever) to delete a post

� If you must respond, avoid being defensive

� Respond kindly, as quickly as possible

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Responding

Seize the opportunity to turn this:

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Responding

Into this:

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Ongoing: Monitoring

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Monitoring

� Use your listening tools and tactics as you continue to monitor and participate in the conversation

� Use aggregation tools like TweetDeck, Seesmic, RSS feeds and email alerts for instant notification of updates to your community.

Page 78: Building a Successful Online Community - Social Media FTW

Monitoring Tools

Example:

TweetDeck� Allows you to

monitor:� Twitter

� Facebook

� LinkedIn

� Others

� Updates regularly, automatically

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Tip: Change

� Tools, services and networks are constantly evolving, which means your community will evolve too

� Expect and be prepared for change, especially community-driven change

� If something isn’t working, don’t be afraid to ask the community what they’d like to see

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The Family Handyman

Website� Interesting,

informative content

� Forum

� Advice blog

� Social networking logos link to profiles

� Newsletter signup

� “My Project Binder”to personalize experience

� Magazine subscription info

Page 81: Building a Successful Online Community - Social Media FTW

The Family Handyman

Twitter� Engaging content

� Directs traffic to Facebook, website, forum, blog

� Regular schedule –at least once a day

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The Family Handyman

Facebook� Engaging content

� Active discussion and participation

� Community

� Family Handyman

� Link to website prominent

� Posts direct traffic to forums, blog

Page 83: Building a Successful Online Community - Social Media FTW

The Family Handyman

E-Newsletters� Interesting content

� Articles link to website

� Specific links to blog and forum included in every issue

� Recognition for community members

� Social networking logos link to profiles

� Magazine subscription info

Page 84: Building a Successful Online Community - Social Media FTW

Homework

ASAP

� Identify your manager

� Set up your listening tools

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Homework

7-14 days

� Gather and compile information

� Identify your audience and influencers

� Set up at least a Facebook page and/or Twitter account

� Seed your platforms with content

� Determine your messaging and content

Page 86: Building a Successful Online Community - Social Media FTW

Homework

14 days on

� Launch

� Follow

� Invite members

� Engage

� Respond as much as possible

� Make the time!

Page 87: Building a Successful Online Community - Social Media FTW

Homework

30 days

� Evaluate your efforts

� Change what needs to be changed

Page 88: Building a Successful Online Community - Social Media FTW

Contact

Derek Rice

[email protected]

derekrice.wordpress.com

twitter.com/derekjrice

linkedin.com/in/derekrice