This week saw the third year of the Community 2.0 Conference, an event focused on my coverage area as an analyst: online communities and social media. Attendance was down as compared to that of previous years, but this wasn’t surprising given the economy’s impact on travel budgets. (But you do have to wonder how much longer “two-point-oh” monikers will continue to be used before they lose all meaning.)
While the conference had no official theme, the focus was definitely on community ROI. More and more organizations are being charged with quantifying the impact their customer communities are having on their businesses. This is due in part to the economic climate in which all expenditures need to be justified and in part to the fact that customer communities have now been around long enough so that their ROI models are—or should be—better understood. (My own presentation was on this topic. The slide deck for “10 Critical Success Factors for Generating ROI from Online Communities” is here on Slideshare.)
Happily there were compelling case studies of companies showing strong ROI from their customer communities. Organizations such as Best Buy, the Mayo Clinic, and SolarWinds (provider of network management software, with a vibrant community at the pleasingly onomatopoetic Thwack.com) have found ways to put dollar values on the impact their communities have on their bottom lines.
On the disappointing side, the conference lacked the deep dives into many of the issues at the forefront of the industry. I would have liked to see more, for example, on identity management and reputation portability, the creation and enforcement of corporate policy (e.g., around employees participating in social media outside the community and on their own time), and the differences in participation and engagement between demographics.
That said, strong content abounded. Selected highlights included:
Andrew Rasiej, Founder of the Personal Democracy Forum (and former Chairman of the Howard Dean Technology Advisory Group) discussed the ways that technology, the Internet, social media, and online communities are changing politics, democracy, and civic life. His general take is that, President Obama’s recent successes aside, nearly the entire federal bureaucracy is stuck in the 20th century. He’s hopeful that, despite example after example of technological and social media ignorance and ineptitude from the local level all the way up to Congress, a more transparent and citizen-friendly mindset can be reached.
Dave Linabury, Community Manager at Navy For Moms (http://www.NAVYForMoms.com), told the story of that site. Built for the U.S. Navy to combat the most powerful hindrance to its recruiting efforts, mothers of would-be recruits, Navy For Moms now has nearly 17,000 members. They are incredibly—and often touchingly—grateful to have a place to connect with other women who live with the same concerns and fears about their children. From a business perspective, Navy For Moms has met its goals around reducing barriers to recruitment. But it has also become a “community” in the true sense of the word.
In a keynote address, blogger and social media strategist Chris Brogan phrased beautifully one of the game-changing aspects of customer communities. In these communities, he said, you can create “fandom for both the customer and the employee.” For example, communities can connect end users (customers) with the software engineers (employees) who do the coding. These users can definitely be fans of the engineers. But Chris points out that social technology can make it work both ways. Engineers, who would never have previously been in direct contact with users of their stuff, can now themselves be fans of the lead customers who make their applications sing and dance. Could such mutual admiration societies have sprung up before the Internet and social media?
Drew Bartkiewitz, VP E&O, Cyber and New Media Markets at The Hartford Financial Services Group injected a note of reality in his presentation on the risks to organizations related their online communities. A buzzkill to some, I found his concept of “Community Malpractice” fascinating. We’re all familiar with the business risks around data security and privacy, but the risks around intellectual privacy, brand reputation, and liability are less well understood. While your Web site’s terms of service may or may not cover you legally, Drew comes at this not from a legal perspective, but from an insurance perspective. Lawyers, doctors, and accountants, for example, can be sued for not meeting a certain standard of care. When it comes to online communities, nobody knows what the standards are. So how to you quantify those risks (as small as they might be)? How do you come up with an insurance premium? Drew and his colleagues are figuring this out.
My favorite story came toward the very end of the conference. Paula Berg, Manager of Emerging Media at Southwest Airlines, discussed a program the airline ran in which color ads were added to its printable e-tickets. The thinking was, when the tickets were printed out, they’d be covered with a great looking Southwest ad. But soon after this program launched, Paula was alerted to a flurry of angry tweets from customers within the community. Quickly investigating, she found that, because of the design and size of the ad, customers were going through print cartridges like crazy (particularly yellow, if memory serves). Who wants to print out a ticket only to be forced to replace a cartridge? And print cartridges ain’t necessarily cheap. So Paula immediately compiled a group of these tweets and sent them to Southwest’s CEO and head of marketing. Within four hours, the ad was redone in black and white. Black eye averted.
We true believers in the power of customer engagement do understand the business need to back this up with hard numbers. As the online community industry continues to mature, value propositions will only become more obvious and easier to calculate. The examples and stories at next year’s event—I say they skip a version number and go straight to Community 4.0—should therefore be even more compelling.
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