Francois Gossieaux from Beeline Labs, along with Deloitte and the Society for New Communications
Research,
has done some great research on how organizations are using online communities in both the business-to-business (b2b) and business-to-consumer (b2c) contexts (some nonprofits were included in the mix as well). Over 140 organizations were included in the study, which covered online business communities with only a few dozen members, all the way up to communities with over 10,000 members. While we’re on the topic of online businesses, the idea of using tools similar to this keyword position checker google could help you get a better understanding of the SEO side of it all and finding ways of improving your business.
Here’s a link to the Tribalization of Business study results.
Some key quotes from Francois about the findings, by way of an interview with Shel Israel:
On organizational structure: “Most community efforts ended up reporting in to the CMO, even though
that is not where they all originated. In the recent past, most
community activities started somewhere as a skunkworks project – only
to be rolled into the CMO’s turf after the program gained recognition.”
On technology versus strategy: “Another surprise was how many companies started their community
initiatives as a technology platform decision – only to realize that if
you build it, they may not come. Some very successful community
executives suggested that if your community cannot survive in a Yahoo!
Group-like discussion environment, it will probably not survive
anywhere. One of the more important factors for the success of
community initiatives is the content strategy for the community – not
the technology strategy.“ (emphasis added)
On bringing marketing back to the customer perspective: “We believe that CMOs have an opportunity to transform their role
into that of Chief Customer Officer – and represent the Voice of the
Customer at the executive table…Leveraging the power of communities and the customer insights that
they provide could put CMOs back in the strategic seats where they
belong.”
The last word: “Please, don’t start your community project as a technology platform selection.”
Chris, this is really great stuff. Thanks for pointing it out. I love what Shel says about the platform vs. the content — because so many organizations think they can build a platform and watch it blossom without putting any content into it.
You can usually tell how much of an uphill climb an organization faces by how insistent they are on having their IT staff at all the planning meetings.
Fred Stesney is the Host of Stesnet, the only online community created exclusively for business owners. http://dodomarketing.blogtells.com/2008/09/17/marketing-and-serving-the-global-customer-part-2/
Chris,
Thanks so much for posting this. I really appreciate you continuing the conversation.
Maybe we should talk about the upcoming 2009 Tribalization of Business Study that we are in the midst of finalizing.
Francois