Online Communities

Navigating the New Frontier

A NEW GENERATION OF ONLINE COMMUNITIES IS SWEEPING ACROSS THE WEB. ARE YOU READY?     

If you let your fingers do the walking around leading IT Websites these days, you’ll see that online communities are on the upswing. For some companies, communities are all about lowering the costs of support through public-facing forums manned by customers and acknowledged experts. For others, they are about enhancing the company’s thought leadership reputation. Still others deploy their communities for bragging rights. In essence, they are keeping up with the Joneses.

But behind the scenes, a new generation of online communities is sweeping across the Web. Unlike their developer and support brethren, these communities focus on enabling dialogs among customers, prospects, trusted third party experts, and the company’s product and marketing managers and executives.  In a perfect world, these new communities can

Accelerate a company’s marketing impact;

Lower the cost of sales;

Engage customers in the product development process;

Pre-stage and test new products, strategies and messages;

Lower support costs; and

Put a personal face on an otherwise impersonal corporation.

They are, in essence, a new way for companies to harness “the voice of the customer” and translate it into a new and powerful form of social media-based marketing.

And they are going to change all of the rules of the game. Are you ready?

                    If not, we're glad you're here.

FINDING THE ANSWERS

In mid 2009, the siteIQ team launched an indepth study of the communities operated by ten major IT companies. The objectives of this research are to provide design guidance and operational insights to Web teams planning their first foray into communities over the next 12 to 18 months, and guidance for teams planning to expand existing communities into new brand and social media marketing venues. This research also focuses on addressing a wide range of important questions and issues, including:

• What risks do online communities pose for companies? How can companies capitalize on the online community revolution, while avoiding mis-steps and mistakes made by others?
• What types of content, features and capabilities are required to operate a best-in-class community? Which capabilities are "nice to have" and can (and should) be put on the back burner?
• What can you learn by observing user and member behaviors on leading communities? Why do some company's communities end up empty -- or in total chaos?
• Where can companies gather the best ideas and inspiration? Which companies really operate progressive, innovative, and effective communities that stand up to close scrutiny? Which communities should Web teams ignore?

The cornerstone of this groundbreaking research is a new siteIQ Online Communities Best Practice BenchMark, which identifies and catalogs 429 types of content, features and capabilities found on leading IT communities -- and measures community effectiveness and usability from the visitor's and member's points of view. Our indepth evaluations using this benchmark provide keen insights into the strengths, challenges, hits, and misses seen on some of the largest and most successful communities on the IT Web.

                      And you can have a front-row seat.