FreshNetworks Blog

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I’ve read a few posts and articles this week discussing a report from showing that Facebook users spend more time on site than Twitter’s. These articles make the assumption that increased time-on-site is a good thing; that it is a sign of greater engagement and involvement with the site.

It is certainly true for social networks that there are significant benefits to be gained from increasing time-on-site. Perhaps not for the immediate benefits of greater engagement, but more because it is a sign of the increasingly important role that any particular social network is playing in a user’s life. We’ve written in the past how Facebook’s valuation is possibly related to a shift in our use of the internet to put social networks at the heart of a user’s experience. And in this context, time on site is important.

But in an online community, where we are interested in shared ideas and experience rather than share of time online, is time-on-site a useful measure of engagement?

As a health measure, we use time-on-site a lot at FreshNetworks, it is useful to measure and monitor over time and together with other health measures (such as number of unique users, depth of visit and frequency of visit). But a greater time-on-site does not, in itself, mean a better online community. We are more interested in the share of ideas than the share of time online. We want people to join, benefit from and, if they wish, add to the debates and conversations in the community. We want their contributions, even if they only spend a small amount of time on the site itself. Online communities are about shared ideas and interests – we want people who add to them.

So time-on-site is a useful health measure, but it does not necessarily determine the success of your online community. That’s why we think that the success of your online community should be tied to specific business objectives, and not to relatively arbitrary measures such as time-on-site and unique visitors. We have very successful online communities with only a hundred members, and very successful ones where people visit less often or for less time. It’s about establishing your business objectives and then working to maximise your share of ideas and share of insight. Not fighting to get more time spent on your site if that time is not productive or helping you reach your aims.

Some more reading

• Metrics and intuition (thisisherd.com)
• Forget Social Media Measurement. Get Back to the Basics. (kylelacy.com)
• ROI-Return On Influence (directmarketingobservations.com)

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We wrote last month about the Zappos story, about how they have used customer service to extend and enhance the customer experience and how this has had a positive impact on sales, satisfaction and growth. This example highlights the power of customer service – of listening to and then rewarding customers.

We know the real benefit that a brand can experience from engaging with its customer directly through online communities. Both in terms of the insights and ideas you can get from them, and also the way you can amplify word-of-mouth and build loyalty with them by listening to what they say and responding.

But even more than that. Customer service – listening to customers and having a direct dialogue with them – is a form of marketing. And an effective form of marketing at that.

This week’s Required Reading at FreshNetworks is a presentation Lane Becker from Get Satisfaction, delivered at Next09 that looks at exactly this issue. For Becker, customer service is marketing, and for brands who get this right, it is characterised in three ways:

1. You put conversations at the centre of your business – focus on exchange of ideas and information, in your business and with your customers
2. You get better at a smaller range of things – you can’t solve everything so you focus on the things that make a real difference to customers (which you identify by having a real dialogue with them)
3. You break down silos – customers don’t see a business the way many businesses are structured, so when they want to interact with you silos can get in the way

Some more reading

• Customer service is such an important job, perhaps we should spread it around (myventurepad.com)
• Follow-up on “Get Satisfaction, Or Else…” (37signals.com)
• Customer Service Is Defined By Customers (staygolinks.com)
• next09: The Seven Rules of the Chief Meaning Officer (designmind.frogdesign.com)

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It can be tempting, sometimes, to thing that online communities and social networks are about words. About people writing their current status, discussing in forums or sharing ideas. It can be tempting to think that text is king. And this just isn’t so.

There are many reasons for the over-dominance of text in some online communities, but two important ones are

1. the original message boards and forums were predominantly for text communications
2. until relatively recently text was the easiest way for users to get content onto the internet

But with a rise of both social media rich sites and of webcams and broadband connections this is no longer the case. People can now communicate their ideas easily in text, image, video or voice. As long as we let them, that is.

The truth is that not everybody likes using words, and even for those who do, sometimes an image or a video can convey things that words just can’t. If we want people to communicate their ideas and interests in our online communities we should then allow them to use whatever medium suits them best for the message they want to convey. We should allow images to alternate with text and video to be posted in response to written questions. If you make it easy for people to do this and to breakdown the barriers for communicating then you will find that you get both more and more creative ideas.

Images do foster creativity and they allow a different kind of conversation and exchange of ideas to take place. Just take a look at sites like Dailybooth to see this in action. The premise of the site is simple – members are encouraged to upload a photo of themselves everyday. But where it gets really interesting is to look at the comments. Photos beget photos – people respond to the photos with photo comments of their own. This leads to a level of creativity, ideas exchange and insight that just isn’t possible with text. Whether it’s people showing the latest item of clothing they bought, part of their home or just exchanging wishes by photo, this is the kind of insight that any brand or organisation could benefit from.

So not everybody likes words and, perhaps more importantly, words are constrictive.They don’t allow us to exchange many ideas that are or interest and of value. So no online community (and especially no online research community) should restrict its users to text-only conversation. The reverse should be true. They should encourage people to share ideas in whatever medium makes sense to them. Technology should not limit them and should be invisible. It’s the ideas that count, after all.

Image by hern42 (gone for a while) via Flickr

There is often a misconception about online communities – that they are exclusively online. This just isn’t true, and indeed shouldn’t be true. Online communities are, put simply, communities of people who share a common interest, aim, goal or problem. They meet online but this does not need to be at the exclusion of them meeting offline. In fact there are significant benefits to doing so.

I was reminded this today having spent the day meeting and talking to the members of one of our online communities. Talking to them about how they have used the community to date and about the changes we are bringing to it as part of a fairly comprehensive relaunch. This kind of face-to-face feedback is incredibly useful. You can watch how people use the community, what they like and don’t like and prompt them for their thoughts on everything from the look and feel to the navigation and even accessibility issues. Impromptu and direct user testing and feedback at its most useful.

But perhaps even more informative today was to watch the community members talk to each other. Listen to what they discussed and what their common areas of interest and opinion were. This kind of insight is priceless when you are building, growing and managing an online community. The more you can understand about your community members, the better you can make the community for them.

And of course there is a real benefit to members meeting each other. They share a common interest and that’s why they get together online. Providing a way for them to get together offline too just enhances their experience. Which has to be a good thing.

So if you can find a way for your online community to meet offline, and go along to meet them too. You’ll be surprised what you learn and the benefit it brings to everybody.

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An online community takes effort and often time to plan, build, seed and grow. You need to work hard to make sure you get the business objectives right, work out who you are going to engage and how to engage them, and then work with them to seed and grow the community with them.

That’s why it’s a shame when this effort goes to waste. When your online community fails to live up to its promise.

So how do you make sure this doesn’t happen to you? That you don’t waste your online community?

Here are four ways that we have often seen the opportunities that online communities offer being wasted, and some thoughts on how to avoid suffering the same fate.

1. You just aren’t present in the conversations

An online community is a dialogue, you work with and alongside the other members of the community on a shared interest, issue, topic or problem. It is no good just asking questions and expecting answers. Nor is it any good just sitting and watching what others say. You must be part of the conversations. Talking to people and exchanging ideas with them.

The biggest danger of not doing this is that the community members will become disillusioned. They will start questioning whether you are even listening and the conversations and debates will stop being about the original subjects and start being about you. This makes a very intimidating environment for new community members and so you will find that a small bunch of members take over.

The solution is simple. Talk to your members. Ask them questions, answer theirs and give your own opinion. Enjoy your community and enjoy talking to the other community members. They’ll respond to you taking part and you, they and the community as a whole will benefit.

2. There’s no link back to the organisation

A branded online community, or one that is clearly from a particular organisation must be connected into that same organisation. Community members will quickly lose interest if they think that nobody is listening to and feeding back on what they are saying. They will uncover a community manager who is unable to connect them into the organisation or represent the organisation in the community.

A real connection is needed to make the most of your online community and this can often mean enacting real change in your organisation. If you are using it to its full potential, an online community should be a way of getting the customer voice deep inside your organisation. You should be talking about the online community in meetings right up to, and including, the Board meeting. This is the way your customers are heard in the organisation, and the way your organisation can talk to its customers. Make sure you do.

3. You are not encouraging organic conversations

Too many online communities appear to have a fixed purpose or objective and only encourage people to take part on this. They may be communities based on media share, and not encourage discussions or forusm. They may be online research communities that do not nurture organic discussions on broader topics or between research activities.

Often the most useful benefit that you will gain from your online community will come from the areas and discussions you least expect. The topics you didn’t initially focus on or the debates and discussions that your community members start themselves. Organic conversations are where things get exciting. They are where new ideas can really come from and where the community can truly come to life. Make sure you don’t stifle them.

4. You moderate every contribution before it goes on the site

There is a time and a place for pre-moderation, reviewing and approving every piece of content before it goes on the community. But in most cases this isn’t needed. There is nothing more frustrating for a user than arriving on a community site, finding interesting topics and discussions, registering and then adding their own thoughts only for these not to appear on the site. Many of these users will leave, frustrated, and never return.

Pre-moderation can be deadly. It should be handled with care and used only where other means are not possible or appropriate. Trust your community members to be responsible in their discussions and they will trust you back