Guest post: What are the secrets to building a sustainable community?

Made Social on 10 September 2010 | View Comments

In advance of Social Collective, we have been inviting select people to guest blog and join the SoCol debate, hopefully offering a fresh point of view. We have been asking a range of people to contribute, including those working in social, client side, techies, journos etc with a view of building a wider picture. Any questions raised during this process will be addressed during a panel at SoCol in September.

The latest in the series is from Rob Howard, aka @robhoward, Telligent’s founder and chief technology officer.

What are the secrets to building a sustainable community?
By Rob Howard

I remember the call like it was yesterday. It was early 2006, and Dell was on the phone asking for our help in starting a blog. Since then, Dell has become one of the most well-known, most written about and most respected online communities.

Yet many other well-known organizations have attempted to replicate Dell’s success, only to fail. So why is it that some communities are sustainable while others are not? Are there tactics and strategies that successful communities use that other communities ignore? Is there a secret formula?

Yes.

Well, it’s not exactly a secret formula, but the following five steps can certainly help you transform your community from stale to effective:

1. Define the community strategy.
While it can seem complex from the outside, building a successful community is simple if you first apply a strategy for executing your online community.

• Understand the audience.
• Define goals and objectives.
• Implement a strategy.
• Apply solutions /technology.
• Measure results.

2. Understand the community life cycle.
Successful communities have a good grasp of the community life cycle. The community life cycle is simply a pattern of how people use, contribute and grow within an online community.

3. Create value by listening.
People come to communities first to solve a particular problem. Whether it is finding people (expert discovery, networking, etc.) or solving a particular problem (support, etc.), successful communities provide value that keeps members coming back.

4. Know the three cardinal sins.
Great community managers know the three “cardinal sins” of an online community:

• Build it and they will come.
• Once I’ve launched I’m done.
• More is better.

5. Measure, analyze and improve.
Dell continuously looks at hundreds of measurements to understand the health of the multitudes of communities they run. They are constantly measuring against objectives and goals based on the specific strategy they are executing.

In my session How to Build a Sustainable Online Community at the Social Collective conference after party, we’ll explore these five topics in more detail, provide some great case studies, and talk through some of the strategies that you can apply to your community. I look forward to seeing you there!

About Rob Howard

Rob Howard is the vision behind Telligent’s product development and innovation and is known throughout the industry as an authority in community and collaboration software. As Telligent’s Founder and Chief Technology Officer, Howard oversees product development and the company’s technology roadmap. A true pioneer, Howard contributed to the development and adoption of Microsoft’s Web platform technologies, where he helped create and grow the innovative ASP.NET community. In 2004, he continued his vision for customer engagement when he founded Telligent, which was first-tomarket with integrated online community software. Howard also understood early on the value of community analytics, and Telligent was first-tomarket with an application to address this need.

Howard has worked with customers including Dell, MySpace.com and Microsoft, and he is able to help organisations of any size apply the value of collaborative work to their business. An expert at developing enterprise collaboration software, he has authored several books on the topic of software development and speaks at conferences worldwide on the topics of social computing and software development. Howard is a member of the Lonestar chapter of the Young Presidents’ Organisation, and
he earned his Bachelor of Business Administration degree from Baylor University.

www.grokable.com
www.twitter.com/robhoward
www.telligent.com/company/news/b/teamblog/

About Telligent

Telligent is an enterprise collaboration and community software company. The company’s fully-integrated platform and portfolio of applications transform how organisations listen to, engage and measure interaction with customers, partners, prospects and employees. Telligent powers collaboration for many of the world’s largest brands, including Dell, Microsoft, Electronic Arts and Reader’s Digest. For more information, visit www.telligent.com.

View other posts in our guest blog series:

All’s fair in love and work by Rebecca Taylor

Reaping the social harvest by Kate Spiers

The web might be dead, so what does this mean for our clients… by Andrew Davison

“The Talk” by Max Tatton-Brown

Sshhhh; Social Media is a Feminine Model by Michelle Rodger

Social Media is Dead; Long Live Social CRM by Eric Swain

Power to your employees! But do brands have the guts? by Danny Whatmough

Helping clients better understand and engage in social media by Jonny Stark

The social media strategy series: Getting Buy In by Gemma Went

The tall and the long of it by John V Willshire

Social Media in the 21st Century – Deja Vu all over again by Paul Smith