There are many factors that measure the success and benefits of having an online community and providing a platform for it to thrive, varying from the design of the website to active participation. This blog will focus on creating a community for a business rather than an individual creating a community, and will consider some factors that contribute to success and how to measure success along with the reasons for building a community.
The many contributing factors to success
Before anything else, it must be considered whether there is a desire for the proposed community to be built. Without desire for the community to exist, there can be no community and any attempt at building one will be a futile exercise.
Whether an online community is intended to have its own website or simply to be an appendage of one, the design of the website or provision of space for the community (i.e forum) is crucial to its success. Uniformity is important, therefore ensuring that a forum and the overarching website is attractive, easily accessible, and simple to navigate is vital to the performance of the website as a whole (Djamasbi et al., 2010); indeed, it is key for visitor retention, increasing visit frequency and duration, and, in the case of forums, for increasing the volume of contributions (See Hernandez and Sorman, 2012 on design of an internet forum).
Many studies have been conducted examining what makes a successful online community. Iriberri and Leroy (2009) explored the extensive research in this area, finding that online communities must be given a purpose in order to increase the chances of success, as well as integrating rituals and encouraging etiquette (Kim, 2000). Also important is motivating participation (Koh et al., 2007) and protecting the privacy of members (Leimester and Kremar, 2004). Iriberri and Leroy suggest that there is a life cycle of a community, and, by determining what point in the lifecycle (e.g. inception, creation, growth, maturity and death) the community is at any given time, it can be decided what design components are most relevant and necessary to be implemented at that point. Iriberri and Leroy further assert that implementing sound design choices from the various guidelines available at the right time is likely to maximise their impact to increase both participation and online community presence.
Life-cycle of an on online community (Iriberri and Leroy, 2009)
Garland, n.d. asseverates the importance of consistent and great content. Although Garland’s viewpoint is essentially focused on individual blogging, it can still be applied to businesses that might wish to produce their own content (articles) or promote good content creation. He also stresses that engagement with the community is important. Thus, if someone were to submit a comment, providing a response to that comment can instrumentally increase the online PR of a company (Wright and Hinson, 2008).
The value of specific features is another factor to consider, including what they actually add and whether they are necessary (Silverman, n.d.). Too many can cause needless confusion. Too few may lead to members becoming disinterested or finding difficulty in interacting with the community. Thus, the aforementioned implementation plan for what is needed is key (suggested by Iriberri and Leroy). In helping to decide what is needed, community feedback can be helpful since users might request much-needed additional elements; such feedback ties in with, and is integral to, engagement.
Implementing too strict guidelines could discourage participation while adopting an overly moderate approach might result in low-quality posts or encourage the introduction of spam. A balance must, therefore, be struck. Moderation is needed in such communities, but as Silverman suggests, your members themselves may apply that for you by uniting against negativity, which, in turn, may serve to strengthen bonds between members and build a greater sense of shared identity.
Student Room – An example of a thriving online community. More examples
Tripadvisor – A thriving online community.
Measuring Success
It is easy to say that the way to measure success is the number of members in the community. However, if no one interacts or participates then the volume of members is worthless; the community would in effect be dead.
It is generally agreed that success is measured by the volume of members’ contributions and the quality of the relationships among participants. For example, Preece (2001) identified two groups: sociability (number of participants, messages per unit of time, satisfaction, trustworthiness, and reciprocity) and usability (volume of errors using interface, productivity, user satisfaction). Both categories should be observed to evaluate success.
A word of advice
It should be noted that it is not recommended that a community should be created to attract new customers. Whilst it is not implausible that this can be achieved (for example, by encouraging existing members to invite friends), its success is nevertheless highly unlikely; the primary advantage of using an online community is to increase customer retention through customer interaction and participation, thus deepening relationships and loyalty. The same can be said that online communities should not be the main platform for generating sales, boosting SEO, or used for short ad campaigns. Whilst some success may be found in using an online community for these reasons, there are much cheaper, quicker and more effective tools and techniques that can be used instead for each of these forms of digital marketing.
A further determinant of whether building an online community is a sound idea for any business venture is understanding what the business is trying to achieve and the type of community it wants. For example, a magic shop will have different needs to a football club; an individual will have different needs to a big company. Another consideration is to ascertain whether the community already exists while assessing competition is important. If another community already exists then what would a new one bring to the community or improve upon the other. Can the communities work together?
Takeaway
Building an online community is no easy task, but by looking at examples of success and following the appropriate guidelines, the process can be made easier. There is no one set way of doing it as each community will have a different demographic and will respond differently to certain things. If successful, it is an incredibly effective way to interact with customers, a powerful tool for customer retention and loyalty and a valuable asset for any company to possess.
References
Iriberri, A. and Leroy, G. (2009). A life-cycle perspective on online community success. ACM Computing Surveys, 41(2), pp.1-29.
Djamasbi, S., Siegel, M. and Tullis, T. (2010) ‘Generation Y, web design, and eye tracking’, International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 68(5), pp. 307–323.
Garland, D. (n.d.). 12 Keys To Building Your Online Community. [online] The Rise to the Top. Available at: https://therisetothetop.com/davids-blog/12-keys-building-online-community/ [Accessed 11 Apr. 2017]
Hernandez, J and Sorman, H. (2012). ‘Designing a usable internet forum’ Ume˚a University Department of Applied Physics and Electronics
Kim, A.J. (2000). Community Building on the Web. Peachpit Press, Berkeley, CA.
Koh, J., Kim, Y.-G. and Bock, G.W. (2007). Encouraging participation in virtual communities. Communications of the ACM 50(2), 6.
Leimeister, J. M. and Kremar, H. (2004). Revisiting the virtual community business model. Proceedings of the Tenth Americas Conference on Information Systems, New York, NY, USA, August 2004.
Millington, R. (n.d.). Don’t Start An Online Community For Any Of These Reasons – FeverBee. [online] FeverBee. Available at: https://www.feverbee.com/worstreasons/ [Accessed 11 Apr. 2017].
Preece, J. (2001). Sociability and usability in online communities: Determining and measuring success. Behavior and Information Technology Journal 20(5), 347-356.
Silverman, M. (n.d.). 6 Common Mistakes in Online Community Development. [online] Convince and Convert: Social Media Consulting and Content Marketing Consulting. Available at: http://www.convinceandconvert.com/community-management/6-common-mistakes-in-online-community-development/# [Accessed 10 Apr. 2017].
Wright, D. & Hinson, D. (2008) ‘How Blogs and Social Media are Changing Public Relations and the Way it is Practiced’, Public Relations Journal Vol. 2, No. 2.