“Launching an online community is an art, not a science,” says CNET’s masterful study of the topic, which is at [http://builder.cnet.com/Business/Community/index.html] and is required reading for anyone starting an online community. Its fine case studies, such as the one above, will be featured throughout this article.
But hey, of course you want to start an online community, that’s why you’re here and not playing Hearts under an assumed name. So, just what is an online community? CNET observes that “on the Net, community usually boils down to finding ways to let users talk to each other in real-time chat rooms, as well as on bulletin boards, also called forums or discussion boards.”
The Gartner Group, a prominent high-tech research firm, in their useful overview, “Mining Marketing Gold in Online Communities,” clinically define an online community as “a constantly changing group of people collaborating and sharing their ideas over a network – – in this case, the Internet.” Physically, it’s made of server- based communication engines that can provide such settings as a graphic representation of a seminar hall, or use 3-D graphics to create a “place,” or simply facilitate textual interaction — known more simply as “chat.”
Cathie Walker, listed as Chief Schmoozing Executive at the Centre for the Easily Amused [http://www.amused.com], says the essence any sort of online community “is to give your visitors something to do. Whether it’s chat rooms, bulletin boards, or other options, keep them busy, let them interact with each other, and give them a way to give you feedback — which you will, of course, listen to and act upon.”
Business Opportunities
GolfWeb is a demographer’s dream, loaded with affluent golfers. Although people come to find something to help their game, they stay for the interaction with their friends and information on the site. So there are community-building elements, including polls, Pretty Good Golf (a Java-based game), fantasy golf leagues, and the 8,000- strong, $29.95-a-year Players Club, where readers play their own version of the Ryder Cup. GolfWeb serves some 10 million page views per month on the main site, and running this community requires six editorial staffers (who cover news, write columns, and so on), five engineers and five producers. It’s financed by advertising revenue and venture capital.
Mentioning feedback, Walker hints at the most striking business opportunity of online communities, which businesses have been slow to appreciate. “Online communities provide an opportunity for marketers to capture valuable information about current and prospective customers, and simultaneously inspire loyalty in customers by making them stakeholders in an interactive exchange,” concludes The Gartner Group. Yet “few organizations,” it finds, “are taking advantage of this opportunity, in part because the term ‘online communities’ still inspires confusion.”
Using informal surveys conducted over a space of a few months, Gartner found that “a majority of respondents had no opinion regarding online communities, or saw them as best suited for entertainment applications.” Yet once they’re explained generically as “the process of improving communications and collaboration with the enterprise, both internally and externally,” all kinds of options spring to mind. “Armed with this definition, most respondents understood that when a large number of people are given the tools to collaborate efficiently, not only can valuable content be created and retrieved, but such content can be used as direct input to the business planning process,” Gartner notes.
Building an Online Community — Should You?
Medical writer Elin Silveous was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. She soon realized there was a need for understandable medical counsel online. She created “Better Health & Medical,” featuring articles about health interests as well as a live chat area. Today Better Health & Medical consists of 53 message boards broken down by diseases, such as arthritis or Huntington’s disease, and 2,100 topical folders divided by subject within each disease — as well as 35 message boards on the Web. Each month the community convenes 600 mutual support meetings, all maintained by six full-time staffers and more than 200 group facilitators.
Online communities aren’t for everyone. “Before dedicating time or resources, take a cold, hard look at your topic, audience, purposes and commitment to bringing the user’s voice to your Web pages,” CNET warns. “What resources can you devote to the project? Does your site fulfill a need or address subjects that people feel passionately about –whether it’s sports, religion or ham radios? If not, save yourself lots of money and pain.” Web sites devoted to selling pipe fittings might have a hard time building a meaningful, rewarding and profitable online community.
Excite’s “People & Chat” channel is just one of many venues that let users set up discussions within their large, successful sites — an excellent way to test whether or not there’s sufficient interest to start your own community. “It’s best to test out your concept before investing in and implementing software,” says Excite’s Julie Gomell, “because no matter how much time and work you anticipate, it’s more than you imagined.”
Other check points:
– Be clear about the purpose of your community. If you want to gather a group strictly to sell a product, create an infomercial instead. Potential community members will feel betrayed, CNET advises, “if they’re invited to a party and discover that it’s a Tupperware sales pitch. Your community will succeed only if you’re committed to the subject and genuinely interested in the people associated with it.”
– Make sure your topic is suited to a community. Take an objective look at whether it’s something people will get together and talk about — “Really Cool Stuff About Me” probably won’t work. Salon’s “Table Talk” is a highly successful online community since its intellectual editorial content stimulates conversation.
– If you want to sell ads, make sure your target audience has the demographics to make advertising work. Research your market. “To see where your target audience fits in,” CNET advises, “look at existing organizations or census data, whatever is applicable to your particular group.” Expect an initial technical investment of up to $5,000 for the appropriate chat or forum software alone — plus you may need to hire moderators, or upgrade your server if your site really takes off.
Keys To Successful Online Communities
Talk City has no content other than community. Created in the spring of 1996 from the ashes of Apple Computer’s failed eWorld online service, Talk City was first populated by 65 former eWorld hosts and some 5,000 members of the audience. Today it logs 1.5 million hours of chat each month. It’s real-time, and there are chats going on about every imaginable topic. Logging on is like being at a party, standing in the middle of half a dozen conversations on the same rather general topic. Talk City takes its cues from community members themselves: “We raise the flag and see who salutes,” says founder Jenna Woodul.
Be a gracious, considerate host. Experienced moderator Gail Ann Williams, director of conferencing at The Well, recommends welcoming new participants after their first arrival, either in e-mail, a private real-time “send” or “whisper,” or in a discussion thread or topic area set aside just for people to introduce themselves. However, “some hosts feel that a welcome in e-mail is too intrusive unless the visitor has actually posted something,” she says. But “one thing a host can be fairly sure of is that nobody likes to go into a new place for the first time, compose a response, then have it sit there without ever being acknowledged. Even a simple ‘Hello! I’d love to hear more about your experiences with …’ or ‘Nice to see you here’ can mean the difference between someone’s feeling snubbed, and feeling like a welcomed participant in the conference.”
It’s still work. “Just as you can’t just take their coats, put out some stale potato chips and leave the room when your relatives arrive — no matter how much you’d like to — maintaining your community requires hours of work, and regularly visiting your Net neighborhood,” Walker says. “Don’t just set up chat rooms or bulletin boards, walk away and expect things to go smoothly.” She works seven days a week, “checking into the rooms and my e-mail regularly. The regulars know that they can send me an e-mail if there’s trouble, and that I’ll look into it as soon as I can.” Remember Gomell’s warning earlier that online communities are always more work than you imagine.
Assert control. This means having rules and enforcing them. CNET advises: “Know ahead of time what sort of community you want to make. What kind of conversation and community atmosphere do you desire — dinner party, dating bar or mosh pit?” Choose whether to post explicit rules or let the community develop its own standards within the context you create. But whatever policy is set, you must enforce it. You have help available — both Talk City and Parent Soup, a support, information and community site for parents, use software agents to filter new posts for offensive language. Will you simply toss online troublemakers or rely on peer pressure to keep them in line? “Post standards of behavior, and insist that they are followed,” Walker says. “It won’t guarantee that everybody is your friend, but most of them will respect you for it.”
