Social Media=Organizational Change!

Online communities are not neutral.  They fundamentally change the nature and way a company does business.  All too often, an organization creates a social strategy and thinks nothing will be altered but the tools they will use.  And then .... the change hits the fan and they are left trying to react to the impact.

When launching a social media strategy it is so important that companies take a hard look at what the social footprint will do to their operations.  Are you ready and prepared to let customers roam, metaphorically, through your building and make contributions and suggestions? Are you prepared to become responsive to customers at the times they want to engage?  If your company's customer care processes are not up to snuff then you are not ready for a social media strategy just yet.  You need to clean up your house before company comes to visit.  If you are not skilled at taking input from customers then social media will only illuminate your flaws -shining a spotlight on them in a public way.

That being said, many companies don't have the option of remaining silent.  Take Toyota for example:  They are being talked about in all four corners of the world every day lately with vigor and emotion.  They can choose to respond and react, or they can just let it happen and hope it goes away.  But it won't, so they need to participate.

So, before you put time and effort into creating a digital community- be it a private community where members need to log in to access information and exchange ideas, or whether you plan to use the open web to engage via Facebook, LinkedIn Groups, Twitter or Bebo, be sure you have a plan for what you will do with the information exchange, who is responsible for interactions, where the information gathered socially will be recorded or captured, and how you will parse the wheat from the chaff.When companies first start to engage online they tend to treat all information as equal, but that is not the best practice. Figuring out the best ways to respond and leverage information gathered through the social channel is often a matter of adopting new practices within the organization. Here are 5 key points to consider:

1. Examine the source of information:  are they a client, prospect or influencer in the market? If there is no way to tell within your current CRM system - there is a need to reevaluate how data are being captured especially in B2B industries where clients often represent significant revenue streams.
   
2. Identify a group or staff responsible for timely response and arm them with proper training and messaging to ensure responsible and consistent replies.
   
3. Gather that which is relevant in a monthly or weekly report that identifies trends and "hot button" items and distribute it across the value chain (for example, if the social channel repeatedly identifies a topic for consideration or change, it might be worthwhile to pay attention).
   
4. Determine the areas that need redress and create a longer term plan of action.  For example, is there is a trend of dissatisfaction around a certain feature of a software platform, or if pricing is a trending issue, consider putting the issue on a working plan.
   
5. Proactively use the social channel to communicate future plans and message to the market potential outcomes of the feedback or idea generation.Discussion group / forum posts, thought leadership blogs and video are all potentially good ways to engage.

A 4 Stage Model for Member Engagement

“If you build it, he will come.” – Field of Dreams

If only this were true for any kind of online community. However, waiting for new members to show up and engage at your site will only rarely succeed. Creating a successful, vibrant online community – especially for an audience of busy professionals – requires a thoughtful, active approach to attracting, inviting, involving, maintaining and retaining members. The umbrella term to describe the process of acquiring and sustaining participation by members in an online community is member engagement.

From a strategic point of view, member engagement is much more than a numbers game based on visitors, visits and page views. The value of a professional community depends upon the quality of the information shared and the strength of the connections created between members, as well as the quantity of these activities. High-quality online collaboration requires regular outreach to new members, encouragement of current members, and reconnection efforts with inactive users to stimulate visits, participation and continuing engagement with other members of the community.

Encouraging collaboration and participation is not a one-time startup activity, but an ongoing process, one that is primarily concerned with building and sustaining user behaviors and interactions. Along with pure activity measures and measures customer and member satisfaction, member engagement is a key metric for site success.

Each member of an online community or professional network participates in the community or network at one of four stages of activity: being online, doing online, acting online and finally, thinking online. Each of these stages represents a greater level of member participation, involvement with community content and, especially, with other members.


Here is a Four-Stage Engagement Model for Online Community which simplifies the member engagement process. Rather than trying to craft communications and incentives for individual members, or using a single, standard approach for all members, the model helps group leaders and community managers categorize their memberships and create a package of communications and activities tailored to each stage.

Stage 1: Being Online

Characteristics:  Members who are new to the online community or are infrequent participants. They may be hesitant to visit or contribute. They may feel unsure about the technology or uncertain about community expectations. They need training, support resources, mentors and models to follow.

Engagement resources: Launch guides, welcome kits, “official greeters”, suggested content resources.

Stage 2: Doing Online

 Characteristics: Members who are somewhat invested in the community with limited contributions and member connections online. Members who visit occasionally and primarily interact with existing content. They rarely post documents or make comments. They are consuming but not making significant contributions to the community. A goal for this member stage is expand their participation into new or unfamiliar areas. They need encouragement to increase participation and experiment.

Engagement resources: Basic user recognition incentives and rewards; best-practice examples to support more participation and experimentation; receive mentor-ship experiences.

Stage 3: Acting Online

 Characteristics: Members who are invested in the community, and who have a growing list of contributions and member connections. They are active, make frequent contributions; create new discussions, request subgroups, offer help and support when asked; undertake experiments with ways to use the community toolsets.

Engagement resources: Encourage member-to-member support and leadership; intermediate member recognition incentives and rewards; best practice contributors.

Stage 4: Thinking Online

Characteristics: Members who are persistently active in the community and in contributing to its success over time.  Enablement for increasing participation for the community's most active and engaged members. They are the problem-solvers and inventors of new discussions and contributions or uses for tools. They are also the most invested in the community based both on successful outcomes and well-established connections with other members.

Engagement resources: Leadership and governance opportunities; advisory board members; best practice award recipients; advanced member recognition incentives and rewards including site performance metrics; mentors.

At each stage, different tools and techniques can capture the member’s attention and support or sustain their current activity, and encourage participation at the next level of involvement. The end state is a member who is active and very involved with the community, who visits regularly, makes useful contributions, collaborates widely, establishes multiple connections and offers help and guidance to other members. This member is a “model” participant, a mentor to others and, perhaps without realizing it, is a recognized leader within the community. No all member will progress through the cycles to stage 4.  Many will remain at stage 2 or stage 3 and that is OK - as with any group (online or offline)  not all members become community leaders. The goal is to create and increase opportunities for member engagement, and to help members succeed in their experience at every stage. 

Without Balance You Got Nothin' Online

Balance is everything in life be it work-life balance, love or a financial spreadsheet. Balance is especially important in a relationship and this is true online.  We must give in order to take, must offer value in order to receive value.  However, in many marketing circles, this balance is being misunderstood and disrupted online.  Many of the professional networks and groups I belong to are awash with requests and demands.  People want to connect with us, but rarely reach out once we are connected to them. We join groups in search of knowledge and peer relationships, but too often and too quickly the marketing material starts to flood our emails.

Striking the right relationship balance online is a new skill that has yet to be fully understood or embraced.  The research Don Bulmer and I did under the auspices of SNCR reinforced that the balance equation is likely to get worse before it gets better. In this research we found that the majority of professionals join professional networks and online communities to get access to peers and information that they couldn't access as readily in the in-person world, yet the majority of companies report that they plan on increasing their online marketing efforts using social media over the coming year.  What professionals want and what companies are willing to give is definitely out of balance.

In order to get better at the act of online reciprocity, there are a few rules of thumb that could help make the endeavor a lot easier and more successful for us all.  For starters, get to know your members.  Reach out to them programmatically to learn what is working or not working for them as members of the community.  Find out their topical interests and information needs and act responsively. Members outreach is an often overlooked activity that can lead to greater customer intimacy online - and I don't mean send them lots of surveys with a coffee card reward.  Really reach out to them to learn about their experiences with your organization.

Next, think about what you are asking for in relation to what you are giving to the members.    My favorite benchmark is the "three-fold rule" which boils down to the need to give three things before asking for one.  Now the "give" does not need to be financial but rather it should focus on an intangible gift such as a personal email with a piece of content that is worthwhile, or an offer to feature a member on the community, or a simple question about how the community can best serve the member.  Financial incentives quite frequently backfire in online communities as the goal of a community is to build a membership organization or community of practice. So the sheer act of buying members is not sustainable - as many will join but few will return let alone engage.  It is much better to have a smaller, more involved / interactive group of members in a professional community than it is to have large numbers of inactive registrants.  Though this may please sponsors and partners out of the gate, when the participation ratio drops significantly over time, as it will, the community winds up with high attrition. 

Another important consideration is the dynamics of power structures and exposure in order to successfully engage with members.  Many gated communities - those that require that a certain membership criteria is met for access - suffer from not being able to inspire the senior most members of the community to participate online.  In other words, the big dogs rarely post but they are the most coveted of all participants as their participation signals a tacit worth of the community.  But often the reason why big dogs won't participate is because the balance of power within the community is askew.  Senior professionals and experts typically have a difficult time asking questions or engaging in a charged discussion online (consultants aside as they make their money through self-promotion and thought leadership) because sharing information could potentially reveal their lack of understanding on a subject matter. Instead, many execs who engage online tend to make affirmative comments or add supporting concepts without ever truly revealing their thoughts.  Now, in order for the give-and-take of idea exchange to occur, which is a hallmark of successful communities, senior level participants add  the most value when they expose some of their thinking - warts and all.  This is how learning occurs for both the readers and participants. But these types of thoughtful exchanges remain largely elusive because it is difficult for people to expose the details of their practice.

Online communities can help change this dynamic by rectifying the equation - as soon as a professional is labeled or deemed an expert in something, they are much more free to take a stand on an issue. They have been validated and recognized and therefore have a greater degree of freedom of thought. Professional communities and networks would be wise to think through their relationships with their top-tier members in order to create space for their participation. 

In order for the online world to play catch-up to the best practice of off-line relationship building there is one thing I find to be largely certain- what works in the face world will work online.  Just as we wouldn't invite someone to come to an event or join a group and then immediately try to sell them something, we should give more thought to how to effectively build or extend relationships online. How's that for a virtual handshake?