CIM – Digital Strategy – December

2019

Essential Reading
Table of Contents
1. HOW TO LAUNCH A SUCCESSFUL ONLINE COMMUNITY: A STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE...................................4
FREE VS. OWNED COMMUNITY FORUMS: WHAT'S THE RIGHT MOVE?.............................................................5
Free Community Platforms............................................................................................................................5
Owned Community Platforms........................................................................................................................6
HOW TO BUILD AN ONLINE COMMUNITY.........................................................................................................7
1. Choose a platform for your community.....................................................................................................7
2. Develop a launch framework.....................................................................................................................7
3. Identify key internal stakeholders for the community................................................................................8
4. Set up your community...............................................................................................................................9
5. Begin a soft launch...................................................................................................................................10
6. Promote your community.........................................................................................................................12
1. 10 TIPS TO DEVELOPING YOUR ONLINE COMMUNITY.........................................................................12
How to lay down the foundations.............................................................................................................13
Helping your online community thrive.....................................................................................................14
Facebook case study with Squishable......................................................................................................17
2. 5 REASONS WHY ORGANISATIONS SHOULD DEVELOP THEIR OWN ONLINE COMMUNITIES.................19
Is Social Media Marketing a burden for organisations?...............................................................................19
Do organisations trust the public social networks?.....................................................................................20
Who owns the content and community?......................................................................................................20
5 reasons why organisations should have their own online community.....................................................20
And so in summary.......................................................................................................................................21
3. HOW COMMUNITIES INFORM BUYING DECISIONS.............................................................................23
5. 7 EXCELLENT EXAMPLES OF COMMUNITIES & MEMBERSHIP SITES WHICH GET IT RIGHT.....................25
HOW TO BUILD AND NURTURE ONLINE COMMUNITIES................................................................................................25
1. Blogging on Your Own Terms...................................................................................................................25
2. Long Exposure Photography....................................................................................................................26
3. Deily..........................................................................................................................................................27
4. YouMoz.....................................................................................................................................................28
5. YouPreneur...............................................................................................................................................29
6. Geeks Life..................................................................................................................................................30
7. Quiet Speculation.....................................................................................................................................31
Conclusion....................................................................................................................................................31
6. 5 CRITICAL REASONS TO INVEST IN ONLINE COMMUNITIES................................................................31
7. HOW TO BUILD AN ONLINE COMMUNITY FROM SCRATCH.................................................................34
THE VALUE OF BUILDING (OR GROWING) A COMMUNITY............................................................34
1) COMMUNITY ADDS VALUE FOR YOUR CUSTOMERS.............................................................34
2) A COMMUNITY IS A GIANT FOCUS GROUP................................................................................36
3) A COMMUNITY IS WHERE BRAND AMBASSADORS ARE BORN...........................................38
4) COMMUNITY DRIVES RETENTION................................................................................................38
COMMUNITY BEST PRACTICES............................................................................................................39
HOW TO BUILD A COMMUNITY..............................................................................................................40
STEP ONE: START SMALL....................................................................................................................40
STEP TWO: ADD A LAYER OF EXCLUSIVITY..................................................................................42
STEP THREE: INSTILL AN ETHOS OF HELPFULNESS.................................................................43
STEP FOUR: MAKE CONNECTIONS AND LET GO.........................................................................45
STEP FIVE: SPREAD THE WORD ABOUT YOUR COMMUNITY..................................................46
STILL NOT SURE WHERE TO START?.................................................................................................49
8. KEY URL’S.......................................................................................................................................... 49
9. EBSCO READING................................................................................................................................. 50
 1.
How to Launch a Successful Online Community: A Step-by-
Step Guide

It's no secret that the way people buy has fundamentally changed over the years.

These days, people are conducting their own research, reading product reviews,
and seeking out recommendations before making a decision, and online
communities are beginning to play a role in this process.

As of 2018, according to the B2B Buyers Survey Report, 45% of business buyers

spent more time and resources researching purchases than they did the previous
year. So, the more platforms you can launch your brand on, the more you can
strengthen your buyers' research.
B2B communities like G2Crowd or GetApp can be used to educate prospective
customers and help them make better buying decisions, but how do you start?

These forums provide people with an opportunity to learn from existing customers
experiences and offer space for community feedback that can be used to bring trust
and authenticity into an otherwise stale procedure.

If you're launching a new community or refreshing an existing one, taking time to

prepare a plan is crucial for ensuring success. The best way to start is to
determine why you are building the community to begin with. Reasons may range
from you are trying to support your existing business or marketing efforts to
wanting to counteract negative reviews and identify passionate fans.

Either way, there are two questions you should consider when creating an online
community:

 Why should I engage with my customers online?

 What's the best platform to do it with?

To walk you through the process of setting up an online community in more detail,
keep reading.

Free vs. Owned Community Forums: What's the Right

Move?
Although social networks and community platforms seem interchangeable, there
actually is a clear distinction.

Social media, in general, is composed of users who have nothing in common (only
using the platform because their friends are on it). Communities, however, revolve
around a specific issue, and it's up to you to take the social network and engage
certain users on that platform to form a community that's focused on your industry.

With this in mind, there are two types of communities you can launch: free or
owned. Here's the difference:

Free Community Platforms

There are "free" platforms like Facebook and Twitter, which offer community-like
features, but using them has its pros and cons.

One key pro is that it's free for users and comes with a built-in audience. In other
words, you can stand up an account, create content, and publish it to your followers
for free, as long as you do the leg work to find out who on this platform you want
to reach
The con, on the other hand, is that you don't truly "own" your community and are
therefore beholden to the decisions these companies make for how the platform
serves your content to others. Right when you've mastered the platform your
community lives on, the content algorithm changes, and you're forced to pivot your
content strategy to retain your users' attention. It's been known to happen.

Here's a brief list of free platforms to consider, if you decide to launch a

community in this way:

 Facebook
  Twitter
 LinkedIn
 YouTube
 G2 Crowd
 GetApp
 Quora
 Discourse
 Glassdoor
 Slack
Owned Community Platforms

Then there's the owned platform like a community forum. This is a place that is
owned by the brand and offers all the benefits of a social media platform, but with
much more control and flexibility on how you communicate with your members.
For example, if you launch a blog or website with a forum or comment section for
your visitors, this is an owned community that you can manage yourself.

As with free communities, there are pros and cons to an owned community. We'll
start with the con this time: From an audience perspective, you're starting from
scratch. Owned communities give you more freedom over your brand's messaging,
but until your customers find out about your community, you have way more
promoting to do to grow that community than you might have on a free platform.
One major pro to owned community platforms is that they give you tighter
controls over your branding and messaging -- without having to compete with the
noise of other communities on the same platform. A toy store on Twitter, for
example, might have a built-in audience to engage, but this business has to
compete with all the other toy stores on Twitter that are interacting with the same
people.

Community platforms also allow you to go beyond the limitations of social

networks. Features such as deeper analytics, single sign on (SSO), gamification,
more access to your members and custom design allow you to create a better
experience for your fans. If you require a secure, private area for your fans to
interact with one another, this might be your best option.

How to Build an Online Community

1. Choose a platform for your community.
2. Develop a launch framework.
3. Identify key internal stakeholders for the community.
4. Set up your community.
5. Begin a soft launch.
6. Promote your community.
1. Choose a platform for your community.

There are two types of forums: one revolving around shared interest and the other
that is more informational in nature.

With a shared-interest forum, you're bringing together people who happen to be

interested in a common topic where they can explore and connect with each other
on a larger range of topics. Collaboration between members is key here.

Informational forums are largely used when you want to create a space for the
community to search for and share content related to your product, service, or
designated topic in one location.

Once you've identified the use case and the type of engagement you're after (i.e.,
customer support operations or brand loyalty), you'll want to start looking at
detailed features that would support your community goals. These can range from:

 Deeper analytics
 Ease of use and good user interface
 Customer support
 Platform flexibility
 Integrations
 Mobile
2. Develop a launch framework.

When determining what business problem you want to resolve with your
community, consider the following.

Are you looking to:

 Increase your customer satisfaction ratings?

 Decrease costs related to customer support?
 Increase demand of your product/service?
 Identify and mobilize influencers and advocates?
 Increase collaboration?
 What is your use case? Will you use the information gained internally, externally,
or a combination of both?

Knowing these answers will make it easier for you to identify why you are
launching your online community and help you align its purpose to your intended
goals.

3. Identify key internal stakeholders for the community.

After determining the need for forming your community, your next step is to
identify your company's stakeholders. You can consider three categories of
stakeholders:

1. Those who will be managing the community. For external facing communities,

this group of stakeholders may include the community manager, marketing
department, and/or customer support. The stakeholders may vary greatly for
internal communities.
2. Those who will be impacted by the community. If your community is external
facing, marketing is generally involved because the answers you are seeking will
have the most impact on them. If there is feedback from the community regarding
product improvements, product management may also be involved.
3. Upper management. This stakeholder is the person who is responsible for the
community and all that are affected by it. Usually, an executive could be an
operations manager or a CMO who oversee all digital experiences.

Another way to go about identifying stakeholders is to lump the role of the

community manager along with the social media management role. Your
marketing team, operations department, customer service, or perhaps a specially
created department may be put in charge of the community launch. In this instance,
each department is likely to put focus on key performance indicators (KPIs) that
are meaningful to them.
Marketing KPIs
 Market share
 Customer sentiment
 Mobilizing influencers and advocates
 NPS - Net Promoter Score
Operations
 Operational efficiency
 Reducing support costs
Customer Service
 CSAT - Customer Satisfaction Score
 NPS
Product Management
 Product testing
 Market research
 Beta testing
 Customer feedback

Typically, only one person will be tasked with the community launch. However, by
leveraging resources and other talent within your company, your launch can be less
stressful and more successful.

4. Set up your community.

Making a decision on what platform to use for your community is the first step. If
you are launching the community on your own or taking a team approach, you will
want to make sure that you or your team are familiar with the software you will be
using. This is a good opportunity to play with a demo or go through some hands-on
training.

After you and your team have a good understanding of the software you'll be using,
you can move on to making some setup decisions. These include:

 Keeping your community pre-launch private. You do not want outsiders

having access to your community until you are ready, so make sure to enable your
privacy settings.
 Displaying a list of recent discussions for the forum on the "homepage
view." New members or first time visitors may be more apt to join in the
discussion if they see what is trending in your community.
 Creating your initial categories. Remember, your initial category list is not
carved in stone and you should avoid creating too many categories at the start.
Keep it simple and let your categories evolve. This will help keep a handle on
discussion noise.
 Reviewing the sign-up process for members. The easier the process is, the
more likely people will want to sign up for your community. You should consider
a setting up a single sign-on (SSO). It is also important to thoroughly test your
sign-up process before the pre-launch.
 Defining the roles your staff and members. Decide what roles will be
included within your community, such as moderators or super members. Consider
who on your staff will be the community's admin, moderators, or community
manager.
 Assigning permissions for roles. You will need to assign and test
permissions to the roles you create. For example, you may restrict new accounts
from posting pictures or links.
 Deciding which features will be enabled. This includes plug-ins, add-ons,
and other features that are integrated into your online forum. Some features may
not be needed right away, but others may be crucial to getting your team the data
they need.
 Setting up gamification. Start thinking about the perks you want to reward
your members with. This could be badges or other types of recognition for
different achievements, such as being a beta-tester.
 Implementing your theme. You will want to tie your forum into your
brand. Do not settle for impersonal default settings. For example, utilize your
company's color scheme and add other personal touches.
 Configuring spam controls. Take advantage of your software's spam
controls. Test the controls against a baseline of your trusted users. Adjust the
settings as needed if you find that valid content is being labeled as spam.
 Setting up outgoing email. Decide what email address will be used for
forum notifications. Review your welcome and registration emails to make sure
they say what you want.
 Testing. You need to test everything before over and over until you are
happy with all the parts of your forum. As you get closer to launch-time, your
testing should become more stringent. Consider all types of probably scenarios and
prepare yourself beforehand that not everything will be perfect. Get ready to decide
on a launch date.
5. Begin a soft launch.

Once you are satisfied with the workings on your community, it is time to get
ready for a soft launch. The purpose of a soft launch is to get your community
ready for your full and public launch.

A great example of a soft launch is from BigFish Games with the introduction of

their new game: Dungeon Boss. While preparing for the launch, they placed their
app in the Apple Canada store and drove users to their community forum in a
closed and private environment. They got a lot of customer feedback, some of
which was incorporated into the Dungeon Boss game title. Consequently, when
they launched worldwide, it became one of their most downloaded games.

Your soft launch should occur in three stages:

1. Preparing for the Soft-Launch

At this point, your community should be ready to be launched. All test content has
been removed and any known issues have been fixed or have been scheduled to be
fixed. It is time to pre-populate your community with quality content that will
spark discussion and make good use of your existing content. Start off with at least
10 discussions using your existing material. Recruit your colleagues to get the ball
rolling with these discussions. Tone is important, so you will want to set the right
tone before moving on to the internal soft-launch.
2. Internal Soft-Launch

The purpose of the internal soft-launch is to identify problems using trusted people
from your organization, colleagues, and friends before your forum goes public.
While they are trying out your community, they can provide you with valuable
feedback and report errors they find before moving to the full launch. This phase
will allow your moderators an opportunity to learn how to use the tools that will be
used in your forum. Any training deficiencies should be addressed and additional
training provided if needed. Request feedback from your internal users. Then, set a
deadline to move to the next phase: your public soft-launch.
3. Public Soft-Launch

This launch should be limited to a select audience that you will encourage to give
you feedback on your new community forum. To form this group, try requesting
volunteers from trusted customers, creating a banner on your website, or including
a mention of it in your company newsletter. During your public soft-launch,
address the following questions:

 Who should you include in this group?

 What problems do you want to solve while in this beta stage?
 What is needed to transition the community to live status
 What is your hard deadline to take your community to fully live?

Your goals should include:

 Getting the public involved

 Refining your community
 Receiving feedback
 Ensuring that your moderators and team are comfortable with the platform
6. Promote your community.

Once you have your date set, it's time to get the word out to your target audience.
The best way to do this is to take advantage of your existing presence online.
Promote your launch all over your website, through email communications, and by
having your sales team and customer service reps tell your existing and potential
customers about the launch.
Here are some more tips that will help you drive the first 100 members to your
community:

 Invite your contacts. No, it's not always fun to bombard your family
members, friends, or professional contacts about something you're working on ...
but it works.
 Discuss with everyone and anyone. Get in the habit of talking to people
everywhere you go, especially if your community is centered around a broad
product or service that has value for many people.
 Enlist the help of new members through gamification. Ask your growing,
early group to help you broaden the network by inviting their friends, colleagues,
and digital connections. You can encourage this through contests or reward
systems integrated into your platform.
 Partner with influencers. Collaborating with a related and complementary
company can be an effective way to promote your new community and welcome
new members who like both products and services.

Make sure you have configured all your Google and Webmaster tools accordingly.
Provide a sitemap and make your community visible. If you have completed all
these steps, the odds are that your online community launch will be successful

1. 10 tips to developing your online community

The emergence of social media platforms, online forums, and company or
product blogs has led to a number of consequences for brands, including
an opportunity (and compulsion) to embrace new ways to connect with their
target audience and a desire to build thriving online communities.

The ‘secret sauce’ that gels a community around a brand can be hard to
find, but there are certainly a number of principles which can help take the
right approach.

How to lay down the foundations

Preparation tends to play a key part in success, and this is no exception. 
Make sure you establish a few fundamental pieces as you embark on a
mission to develop your brand’s online community through:

 1. Internal buy-in

Developing and nurturing online communities is an Art. It requires a specific

skillset, time, dedication and perseverance. Don’t underestimate the
resources required and make sure that you get buy-in from key decision
makers within your business.  As with any brand-building activity, budget
will likely be needed. Don’t let it surprise you or anyone else.

 2. Aligning your community management strategy to your brand’s

vision and goals, as well as to your marketing and customer
service strategies

These should go hand-in-hand. Keep in mind that the way you develop,
nurture, and manage your online community will inevitably influence your
brand’s reputation.

Your latest TV campaign might help you deliver your messaging

successfully, but skilfully handling the ups and downs of your online
community and managing your customers queries or complaints will show
that you can actually ‘walk the walk’ as well as ‘talk the talk’.

 3. Choosing your channels

Brands are faced with an increasing number of online social channels

through which to engage with their audience. Think about those most
relevant to your brand (social media, blog, forums, groups, etc.).

Consider starting small and learning from your interactions with followers
before expanding to new platforms. Avoid the ‘ghost town’ syndrome by
ensuring you don’t abandon a Twitter account, product blog or brand forum
after a mere few posts. 

 4. Letting the experts guide you

Your social media or community strategy is the first step towards success,
but the ultimate goal is flawless execution. Make sure you have talented
Community Managers on board to support you. They live and breathe
online communities and will be your most precious allies in the
development of a thriving community.

Community Managers will give your brand a face, a degree of humanity,

and will be your strongest advocates. You can’t afford to get this one
wrong.They should be part of the resources you account for in your initial
budgeting.

 5. Being clear on your success metrics

Times are tough, budgets are tight. Where there is an investment, there
needs to be a demonstrable ROI. Define what that might be for your brand
upfront, so that all parties involved are clear on what success looks like and
on their responsibilities in achieving it.

Look broader than ‘Likes’, ‘Shares’, and ‘Retweets’.  Consider looking at

the number of mentions your brand gets over a period of time (and
compare this to your competitors), comments per post, CTR% on your
social media links, mentions from key influencers etc.

Helping your online community thrive

Once the backbones are in place, get ready to execute. Helping your
community thrive requires skills and patience. Every Community Manager
will tell you that it can be overwhelming, discouraging even at times. Be
tenacious.

 1. Establish a 2-way dialogue

Amazingly, 27 out of Interbrand’s top 50 global brands still don’t talk to their
fans on Facebook.  It begs the question ‘why have a Facebook presence at
all?’ since this is precisely the USP offered by social media channels.

If you are looking to entirely control what’s being said about your brand,
social media probably isn’t for you. It is about establishing an open
conversation with your target audience and being part of the discussions
involving your brand.

Most of all, it is as much about listening as it is about talking.

Coca-Cola recently revealed that roughly 10-20% of the content produced
about the brand on social media is posted by the brand itself, compared to
80-90% posted by their fans. Whilst this ratio may be hard to achieve for
most brands, it shows the company’s willingness to truly engage.
In your dialogue with your community, be open, authentic and responsive.

 2. Give your brand a face and a personality

Online communities are a fantastic opportunity to let your brand’s

personality shine. Is your brand irreverent and fun, is it cool, caring, or
perhaps it conveys a certain status? Humanize your brand - community
members tend to relate most easily to brands when they have a ‘face’.

 3. Create content your audience wants – test and tune

Fans, followers and online communities are generally pretty savvy. Plainly
regurgitating your latest PR or marketing slogan will not cut it.

The best way to ignite a dialogue with and amongst your community is to
post content they are interested in talking about, sharing and engaging
with. Vary the content you post (articles, competitions, deals, interactive
posts, photos, etc.), and where possible tailor it to suit specific channels.

Test and fine tune as you learn what resonates best with your community.
And remember, your content doesn’t necessarily have to be solely focused
on your brand.
Coke Zero’s recent Skyfall competition is a good example of content
diversification.  It encouraged Facebook fans to send pictures of their best
007 poses, with a chance to win tickets to an advanced screening of the
new Bond movie. Both concept and prizes were slightly removed from
Coca-Cola itself.

 4. Identify, nurture and leverage your key influencers

Leveraging your brand’s online influencers is a no-brainer!. They are

passionate about your brand, will welcome an opportunity to get involved
and will help spread the word and grow your community.

Offer them something valuable in return for their help. It may be previews
of upcoming product features, advanced tools which aren’t available to the
rest of your community, opportunities to be the first ones to test and review
your products, free subscription to your members only content, etc.
A few years ago, when Ford launched its Ford Fiesta Movement, it carefully
identified and selected 100 key social media storytellers to help spread the
word about the new Fiesta.
Each one of these influencers received a European version of the Ford
Fiesta months before it was officially launched in the US, and was given a
challenge to complete with the car every month for 6 months. In return,
they provided rich accounts of their experience across YouTube,
Facebook, Twitter, and their own online communities.

The campaign was a huge success with over 6.5 million YouTube views
and 50,000 enquiries received about the Fiesta.

Your budget might not stretch that far, but your imagination can. Find
innovative ways to encourage your key influencers to talk about your
product.

 5. Don’t shy away from addressing tricky issues

Whilst sharing interesting content will help develop your online community,
it is your handling of tricky situations which will speak volumes.  Not only
because it will give your brand a chance to show what it’s truly made of, but
also because this is typically the type of content that ends up going viral.

Facebook case study with Squishable

A few months ago, Squishable.com, who sell giant soft toys, ran a
promotional campaign on Facebook, significantly discounting its usual
prices. With over 500,000 Facebook fans at the time, the brand soon
became overwhelmed by the response received and started struggling to
cope with deliveries.
What could easily have turned into a social media disaster was instead
handled with a great deal of transparency and responsiveness from the
brand. They contacted all buyers within days, informed them of the
situation and assured them of the hard work the team was putting in to
honour all orders as soon as humanely possible. Their updates were
authentic, humble, and allowed the brand’s personality to shine.

And the PR crisis was skilfully avoided.

When faced with a crisis, remember that the world will be watching you. Do
‘the right thing’, and do it promptly.  It often pays off to be transparent and
upfront. Gratitude and a humble attitude can also go a long way.
 2. 5 reasons why organisations should develop their own online
communities
Refer url : https://www.smartinsights.com/social-media-marketing/social-media-governance/
social-media-research/

In this multi-channel digital world within which organisations now operate,

social engagement is a priority for many. With the growing use of social
media platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest many companies see
their communities as solely developing on these social networks. But
should their online communities be limited to the social networks? This
recent social media benchmark research from the CIM showed that just a
quarter of companies have their own proprietary online community.

So, in this post, I'll be looking at why this may be limiting your options for
engagement through social media.

Is Social Media Marketing a burden for organisations?

Organisations have been attracted by participating on the public social sites
through the promise of greater brand and business engagement, but for
many, whether their investments are delivering an ROI is unclear. Recently
I was challenged:  “So if my online travel website is receiving 25,000
unique visitors a day, then why have I only got 2,000 followers on
Facebook?”
In my opinion, social media marketing is more often than not, under-
funded. Why? Because the strategic benefits for social engagement are not
being realised and the ROI for social engagement is difficult to measure.

The vicious circle that social engagement finds itself in is that without
investment the public social channels don’t deliver, but without a clear ROI,
social engagement isn’t considered strategic by organisations and so
doesn’t receive the investment it deserves...

Do organisations trust the public social networks?

Social engagement also challenges organisational structures and cultures,
with many organisations still unsure how best to engage with their
audiences. Community managers and social media marketers are given
the responsibility to manage presence across the social web, but when
difficult situations occur, the lack of senior management or organisational
commitment to participating in conversations on public social sites leads to
weak responses and a lack of commitment to the customer or audience.

Who owns the content and community?

Another factor raising its head is the growing awareness and realisation
that the content and communities built in the public networks belong to the
public networks.

There is also a growing frustration that the limited analytics and insights
available from the public social networks prevent organisations from
measuring their ROI from the significant sums being invested. Then there is
the need for spend on advertising your community within the social
network, for example through Facebook advertising. There's also the
limitations on communicating the brand and sales manages you need to
because of the design options available on the social platform.

5 reasons why organisations should have their own online

community
Organisations wanting to strengthen social engagement between
employees, partners, customers and their audiences can consider building
their own online communities.

1. A purpose built online community can significantly improve the quality of

engagement between the organisation, customers and audience.
Why? Because organisations want to retain the copyright to shared content
and conversations; and so by bringing engagement into their own online
community, organisations are motivated to engage in higher quality
conversations...

2. An online community will encourage more participation leading

to ideation and crowdsourcing.

A huge benefit in improving the quality of engagement is greater audience

participation in discussions, forums and blogs, giving the organisation a
treasure chest of market feedback and customer opinion that can drive
further product or service developments.

3. Developing an online community adds value to and complements the

organisation’s other digital assets.

Thanks to web technologies such as OpenID & RSS, an online community

can very efficiently attract and aggregate conversations from across the
social web and also signpost visitors to business websites, e-commerce
and customer service portals.

4. Ownership of content and community assets are retained by the

organisation.

Not retaining copyright to content and conversations is of concern to

organisations when participating on the public social sites, and so offering
an online community under an organisations own terms and conditions has
real appeal.

5. An online community also enables the organisation to measure

ROI through access to social engagement, community and conversations.

For organisations looking to better engage and serve their communities,

the insights and analytics that can be gained through access to in-depth
quantitative and qualitative data is gold dust and just can’t be undervalued!

And so in summary....
Engaging on the public social networks is a non optional marketing activity
for the vast majority of organisations, but in my opinion, the public social
networks are not the “be all and end all” to social engagement for business.

Investing in your own online community gives organisations a platform to

develop greater and deeper ties between employees, partners and
customers, thereby giving organisations the opportunity to fully realise the
strategic benefits that social engagement can bring.
3. How communities inform buying decisions
4.
 5. 7 Excellent Examples of Communities & Membership sites
which get it right

How to build and nurture online communities

A surefire way to build trust and foster brand loyalty is to establish an online
community or membership site. It provides your audience with a sense of
belongingness, exclusiveness, and the reassurance that your company is
looking out for your valued customers. However, before you get ahead of
yourself, remember that a successful community is not easy to establish. It
requires extensive planning, research, and time and effort in order to set up
an engaging platform.
The first step in creating an evergreen community is understand the how
the best in the business have done it in their respective markets. Below are
seven of the best online communities or membership sites operating today:

1. Blogging on Your Own Terms

Membership sites do not have to be complicated. For example, Blogging
on Your Own Terms by Daniela Uslan is built completely on Facebook. It is
a community built specifically for bloggers who need guidance and support
in their careers. It worked on a simple premise of bringing like-minded
people together on a single platform.
If you want your platform to garner opt-ins, then you should make the entire
process simple and convenient. While some membership sites work on a
paid subscription basis, Uslan’s community is completely free to join. Her
brand’s alignment in keeping things simple is apparent in the sign-up
process as well. All users have to do is enter an email address and join the
Facebook group.

Takeaways:

As a community manager, you should understand that social connections

are built with humans. Daniela Uslan clearly established herself as
the face of the business that the blogging community can relate to.
Furthermore, you need to make sure that your group administrators have
human names as well to make them more approachable.

2. Long Exposure Photography

Another example of a simplified membership site is Long Exposure
Photography. As the name suggests, it is a photography community based
on the Google+ social platform. However, a noticeable difference between
the previous example and this site is the strict set of rules that manage the
community.

You see, this group is more of a professional community that is built for
passionate photographers. In this case, the use of Google+ is perfect
because image sharing, feedback, and networking are all integrated within
the platform.
Takeaways:

When building an online community, you need to carefully choose a

platform that can highlight what your group is all about. Community
managers also need to leverage any built-in features (image sharing,
comments, and “+1”s) to foster a tight-knight community.

3. Deily
While some of the best online communities connect like-minded
people, Deily nurtures a unique experience that unites people from different
religions. The genius behind Deily’s platform is that it encourages people to
contribute user-generated content for the purpose of discussion or debate
regarding a person’s faith. Users can upload audio clips, videos, full
articles, and photos that share their religious views and opinions.

The more quality UGC gets posted on Deily, the more discoverable they
are in social channels and search engines. Sure, your brand may not deal
with a field as big as religion, but you can borrow inspiration from Deily’s
full-blown site structure and features.

Takeaways:

Since there is a number of different religions that may have opposing

views, Deily did not force everyone to interact in a single channel. To better
manage your community, make sure you offer different “subgroups” that
segregate your audience. Besides, by giving every subgroup equal
privileges on the site, users are encouraged to respect and learn from each
other.

4. YouMoz
Moz is a popular, authority website for all things SEO. It is the go-to place
for digital marketers looking to demystify SEO and keep up with the ever-
growing competition. Additionally, it is a place where SEO professionals
and gurus can share their knowledge. In the YouMoz blog, any member
can post articles on SEO news, tips, strategies, and case studies.

If there’s one thing YouMoz accomplished for the brand, it is to aggregate

all the best, experience-based tips and insights by the SEO community in a
single location. As an incentive, quality posts will get promoted on the Moz
website itself – granting exposure to dedicated members who pour their
heart and soul in their submissions.

Takeaways:

YouMoz’s success strategy hinges around user-generated

content or UGC. This type of content is deemed trustworthy by the online
community since they mostly made from firsthand experiences. You can
also promote UGC in your membership site to make users feel more
involved with the community’s development.

5. YouPreneur
The path to entrepreneurship is a rugged road full of uncertainties and
challenges. As an entrepreneur, you need all the help you can get when it
comes to making informed decisions to make the most out of your
investments. YouPreneur is an entrepreneurial community by Chris Ducker
tailored to give aspiring entrepreneurs a helping hand.

This particular example proves that monetization can be easy if you as long
as you target a profitable market. The YouPreneur is full of battle-hardened
marketers and entrepreneurs – including Chris Ducker himself. Given it is a
paid subscription, entrepreneurs and startups need to consider
membership as an investment. They need to learn and make time to use
the platform regularly to get the most out of them.

Takeaways:

Paid membership sites need to offer a lot of value to retain subscribers.

Fortunately for YouPreneur, Chris Ducker’s experience along with the
submissions of other qualified individuals were leveraged well and
translated into useful information. Make sure your site offers a ton of
valuable content to users; outsource from different contributors if
necessary.

6. Geeks Life
If you are planning a paid membership site, the first thing you need to
consider is your pricing model. Geeks Life managed to hit the nail in the
head by working with a "pay with what you can" basis. This means users
can specify their pricing to suit their usage needs. This process eliminates
the need to formulate packages that give your audience fewer options for a
subscription.

Today, however, Geeks Life tweaked their flexible pricing model and
settled for a donations system. Upon signing up, members can choose how
much they are willing to donate, which will give them access to behind-the-
scenes content, printed newsletter subscription, and a 10% discount for
other products.

Takeaways:

Giving the audience more control over their payments is a great way to
attract more subscribers. This strategy basically gives everyone with
different budgets the opportunity to join. You don’t need to do exactly this,
but you need to make sure you have flexible membership options to suit
your audience’s different needs.

7. Quiet Speculation
Finding an idea for a membership site can be a lot harder than setting up
the site itself. A great strategy for this is to look at niche products, services,
or brands in a new angle. Observe trends and issues that people already
talk about. Quiet Speculation is a great example that identified a gap
between the demand for information and the availability of sources. It is a
growing online community that tackles the “money-making” aspects of
Magic the Gathering. Yes – the trading card game.

Takeaways:

As the internet continues to grow, new opportunities arise for bringing

communities closer together. If you’re planning to build a new membership
website, pay close attention to the latest trends in popular industries—
preferably something you’re genuinely interested in. Look to fill the gaps
between the demand for information and the availability of resources.

Conclusion
If you are struggling to build a membership site, there is a ton of examples
that can make it all look easy. With the examples above, you should have
more than enough ideas for a successful membership site that rally your
audience together – providing them with a community with your brand as
the herald.

6. 5 Critical Reasons To Invest In Online Communities

In a social and digital economy, accurate and credible information becomes hard currency.
People often trust independent influencers, communities of buyers, or even employees more
than messages from a brand. That's why we read the customer reviews on Amazon before the
product details.

It's not different in B2B where buyers turn to communities for the same reason that
consumers turn to reviews -- they're looking to peers for authentic opinions. These opinions
educate prospects and influence their purchasing patterns. In fact, 80% of B2B sales start
with online search, and up to 90% of the decision process is done before prospects talk to a
vendor.

That means companies with strong online communities win.

By identifying and working closely with community influencers, we hear market feedback
sooner. We develop and deliver better products, services, and support as a result. The
community members, in turn, can help explain these products, services, and support to the
marketplace in a very credible way. Maybe not always in the words we would have chosen,
but in a way that will cut through the noise and capture people's attention.

This valuable conversation is just one of the benefits of a strong community. Here are five
key reasons for investing in an online community.

1. Co-innovation: The days when companies could plan secretly in an ivory

tower, then launch and adjust based on feedback, are over. Ever faster
innovation cycles and a more dynamic competitive landscape require
bringing your audiences in earlier. Communities make them part of
developing the future of your company.
2. Customer success: A community creates an environment that ensures
customers are successful -- because community users help each other. Lines
 blur within and between organizations when people come together based on
what they need to get done. Knowledge and network trumps title and
position.
3. Learning 2.0: Remember when you'd go to the library as the starting point of
learning something new? Today, what you know is who you know. People
learn in networks and communities. Hence investing in a community is an
investment in knowledge -- for organizations and individuals.
4. Career opportunities: Everyone knows the chances of getting a new job
through an ad are slim. The most promising way? Through a network. Where
are networks the strongest? In communities! Your community is the best
place for members to learn, grow, and spend a career. That makes your
community -- and your company -- important to them.
5. The family factor: A community is all about people. I call it the "family
factor." The bonds in communities go far beyond purely professional
relationships. People become friends, mentors, supporters, coaches. They
spend a large part of their careers, their lives, together. It is not surprising
that members of a strong community tend to stay within that ecosystem.
Retaining such experts benefits everyone, including your company.

If you want to invest in a community, you have to be brave enough to start a conversation
that matters. A strong community will give you an unfiltered view, and sometimes it'll hurt.
But your most honest critics are also your most valuable potential advocates whom people
will listen to.

If you've invested in the partnership and your strategy is for the long haul, a community will
provide a fruitful and constructive collaboration that in return will help you excel in serving
your customers.
 7. How To Build An Online Community From Scratch
 
Think about how often you see brands shouting their messages at their audience. No
engagement, no context, no conversation.

Those brands look spammy and self-centered, not exactly trustworthy.

Brands that foster community on the other hand clearly care about their customers.
They converse with their customers, sometimes even one-on-one.

They want to learn more about their interests, needs, and behaviors. They want to
solve their customer’s problems.

As a result, their customers care about them and what they have to say in return.
They become loyal to these brands.

Tip your hat to those companies. They knew how to build an online community.

Here’s why.

THE VALUE OF BUILDING (OR GROWING) A

COMMUNITY
A community is a place for inclusion; a place where people bond over a common
interest, passion, or purpose. It’s a place where relationships are built.

For businesses, a community is a place where your customers build relationships

with each other and your brand. Here are four reasons why that matters.

1) COMMUNITY ADDS VALUE FOR YOUR CUSTOMERS

Your community is a resource for your customers. A place where they can find
information and answers quickly. They can bounce ideas off of each other and work
through problems. They can meet new people who share their passions and
interests. People go to communities to feel accepted and nerd out over interests.

The CloudPeeps community is one of the strongest examples of inclusion and

added value I've seen. The company is a marketplace that connects businesses with
freelance community, content, and marketing professionals.
Aside from access to jobs, CloudPeeps adds value for its freelancers (Peeps) with a
tight-knit community where they swap advice, stories, solutions, and interesting
content.

The community is hosted on a Facebook Group that sees several posts per day, all
with high engagement.
The high level of expertise and experience of the talent on the platform is what gives
CloudPeeps its competitive advantage. The community helps keep and grow that
talent, adding value to both the supply and demand side of the marketplace.

2) A COMMUNITY IS A GIANT FOCUS GROUP

At the risk of sounding creepy, you’ll learn far more about your customers’ needs and
interests by observing them talk to each other than you ever will with a survey.

Don’t get me wrong, I love quantitative data, but qualitative let’s you learn more
about who your customers are, rather than what they think they want.

Even if a customer is happy to answer your survey, they’re going to answer

questions with a customer hat on. They’re going to be thinking, “how’s this going to
impact my experience in the future?”

On the flip side, if they’re in a casual conversation, their guard is down. Their
thoughts and ideas will be open to other opinions and influences.

David Spinks and the CMX crew spark meaningful and relevant conversations within
their Facebook group all the time. The magic really happens when people outside of
the community post thought-provoking comments.
CMX hosts conferences, meetups, workshops and content for community
professionals. A post like this gives them insight into what their audience is
interested in without having to ask! It also allows them to lead the conversation.

They can then build content or a conference panel around the topic with more in-
depth analysis. Thanks to the commenters, they even have ideas for potential
speakers.
3) A COMMUNITY IS WHERE BRAND AMBASSADORS ARE BORN

Some customers will be so excited about your community that they’ll get other
friends to join. They’ll talk about your brand with their networks on and offline. They’ll
ask how they can help. They might offer a blog post, ideas, user testing, or to even
go to events on your behalf. The options are endless.

Having a customer wanting to shout from the rooftops about you is priceless.

Look at Product Hunt. The site’s community members are so passionate that some
have created spin-off communities. One being MakerHunt, an incredibly active
Slack community with more than 1,200 members.

The Maker community receives value through swapping advice, stories, and
resources. They're also given access to influencer AMAs, early access to Product
Hunt features, and more.

Product Hunt, in turn, has a captive audience and a pre-formed group ready to beta
test and share new features at any given time.

4) COMMUNITY DRIVES RETENTION

Your customers are more likely to stick around if they have a community they feel
tied to. If there's any doubt whether a community will generate a return on your
investment, consider this:

 Increasing customer retention rate by 5% can increase profits by

up to 95% over the long-term (HBS)
  Increased engagement on community sites can result in up to
25% increase in revenue (MSI)
 Friend recommendations are the number one influencing factor
in purchase decisions (Brand Advocates)
 It costs 80% less to retain a customer than to acquire a new one
Now you have more clarity as to why you should create a community and what it
could mean for your business.

Do you know that you have something of value your customers want to talk about?

Do you think your customers could learn from one another or find value in
connecting?

If your answer to either is yes, it's time to start community building. Let’s go!

COMMUNITY BEST PRACTICES

{brake squeal} Before diving into the steps for building a community from scratch,
let’s quickly cover some basic best practices even the youngest of communities
should consider. These will help ensure that it runs smoothly, even when starting
small.

 Focus on a niche to start: Why should someone participate in your community?

What’s a popular (and relevant) topic that doesn’t have a community around it? Focus
on that and let your community split into sub-topics organically (more on this below).
 Have guidelines: There’s a reason why even Fight Club had rules. Guidelines
prevent anyone ruining the experience for others. They also clearly state upfront that
anyone who does will be asked to leave, making that conversation slightly less
awkward if it ever comes up. Keep your guidelines simple to start: No spamming, be
kind, be generous, only share relevant content, etc.
 Create a habit: Product Hunt was a success because it was addicting. It’s earliest
community members looked forward to seeing the email in their inbox every
morning. Make your community a habit with email, notifications, assignments,
making members accountability buddies, etc. Find a way to ingrain your community
in their every day (or at least weekly) lives.
 Ask for feedback: Touch base with your members regularly to see how they’re doing,
what they’re getting out of the community, and how you can improve the experience
for them. They’ll appreciate that you care and it will keep them engaged.
HOW TO BUILD A COMMUNITY
Here are five simple steps — consider it your foundation — you can take to build an
online community from scratch.

STEP ONE: START SMALL

Like most things, a community isn’t going to be huge on day one. The most
successful communities often start as small email lists, friendly dinners, forum
threads, etc.

They later grow into something significant as you learn more about its value, and as
its members become autonomous ambassadors.

Starting small takes patience and doing things that don’t scale, but the effort pays off
in the long-term.

Ryan Hoover started Product Hunt as a small email list for friends to share cool
products they’ve found. After much market validation (positive feedback and word
spreading), Ryan saw the opportunity for a real site and community.

In March of 2015, Product Hunt saw its 1,000,000th upvote and that email list of
friends now has more than 43,000 subscribers.

To get there, they talked to their community members (Ryan was kind enough to get
on the phone with me when my product blew up overnight), hosted brunches, made
incremental changes, and kept their members in the loop the entire time.

By starting small, testing, and iterating, you'll find ways to scale your community you
would never see on day one. To illustrate, here’s my own experience.

I started a music discovery service called A Song A Day by total accident in 2014. I
had an idea, built a landing page, bought a domain, went to bed, woke up, tweeted it,
and it went viral.

I originally intended on sending a song to a group of friends every morning. After

trending on Product Hunt for an entire day, I had hundreds of people expecting
personalized song picks the next morning. Oops.
Although I tried to go at it myself for a week, that clearly wasn’t scalable.

Fortunately, there were plenty of people who loved sharing music and wanted to
help. I started with a small ‘pilot’ group of curators to help me find and send songs. I
chose about ten people: some close friends, internet friends, and a couple of wild
card strangers just to see what happened.

With this, I was able to test different processes while we figured out what worked
best. I communicated with them via a private Facebook Group and sent periodic
surveys. Once we had a solid process and even more subscribers, I began bringing
on more curators who matched our listeners’ needs.

Today, we’re a community of 45 curators sending songs to 3,500 listeners. More

than 500 people have shown interest in becoming a curator! We’re a tight knit group
always sharing music, insights into our processes, show announcements, industry
news and more.

Many of our curators have become close friends and meet up regularly for get-
togethers and shows. Some of them are even making music together! They’re what
keeps me going whenever I'm overwhelmed. I hope to continue to scale this
community as we continue to scale our process.
Here’s the resulting blog post of this conversation.

Action: Choose a handful of people to share your idea with. Get an email list going
or create a Facebook group or Slack channel. Kick it off with a few conversation
starters and see where it goes.

STEP TWO: ADD A LAYER OF EXCLUSIVITY

Exclusivity goes hand in hand with starting small. Some communities keep
membership low to keep quality high. Others find a way to grow and maintain that
quality.

Going back to the Product Hunt example - when they first launched the site, they
kept ‘hunter’ rights limited because it would’ve been too much to manage if they
opened it up to everyone.

This made those with hunting rights feel special and it made more people want in.
They eventually added referrals via invites so early members could invite their
friends to join. This spread the word of PH and made the hunters feel special …
again.

Quibb, a community for sharing quality content, has followed a similar path. Only
members who have been invited or approved are granted posting rights.

This has helped the platform avoid becoming the problem it seeks to solve. Quibb
started as a way to find quality content that was getting lost in the noise of Twitter.
Exclusivity keeps quality and engagement high. Quibb is one of my first go-to
sources when I’m curating content for clients for this exact reason.

We all want to be the first to try something. We all want to be the first to talk about
something new. Call us vain, but it’s fun introducing people to new things — to be an
early adopter.

Action: Invite a small, exclusive group to join your community while you gain a better
idea of what value your first community members see in it. Tell them that they’re the
firsts and that you’re keeping it exclusive - communicate what’s in it for them, and
who else is involved!

STEP THREE: INSTILL AN ETHOS OF HELPFULNESS

Your community members are there more for each other than they are for you.
They’re looking for a resource — a safe place where they can connect over passions
and interests.

By creating an ethos of helpfulness, you’re creating an open environment. A place

where your customers or community members can learn and share. And once
they’ve learned from others, they’ll be likely to return the favor.

Geckoboard recently created a community around helpfulness for

developers who use their product. Geckoboard has several (over 60) integrations
for creating KPI dashboards. For tools they don't have an integration for, they found
that customers were creating custom widgets.

They were impressed with what customers were building and assumed that if one
customer found a custom widget useful, so would others. So they gave them a place
to share and discuss the hacks, tricks, and custom widgets they’re developing.

Less than a month old, the community is already pretty active - impressive for a
product-specific community

As a result, the community gives Geckoboard a clearer view into how their
customers are using their product. They can now build stronger features more
tailored to their power users’ needs. Plus, customers get to nerd out over data,
engineering, sales, and marketing-related topics.
A less product-focused example is the community built around Vinyl Me, Please —
a monthly vinyl club. As a consumer brand, VMP went a step further than
encouraging social engagement (although, they're good at that too).

They created a vinyl resource: an active forum where members ask and answer
questions about vinyl, music discovery, hardware, and more.

Action: Add value for your customers by creating a hub for relevant information and
research.

STEP FOUR: MAKE CONNECTIONS AND LET GO

Erik Martin, former GM of Reddit once said in an interview:

“You’re not as smart as your users collectively. Just listen more

and trust that the people who are passionate about the subject
matter are going to do interesting and unexpected and amazing
things with control you give them.”
As the community builder and facilitator, it’s your job to connect your members — get
the conversation going, then step away. You can always chime in to answer
questions, clear up misunderstandings or share announcements. The point is to
allow your customers or members build connections with one another.

It's more difficult with forums, but with Facebook groups and Slack channels, your
community can break off into smaller groups to discuss sub-topics and areas of
interest. Or they can direct message each other to build deeper one-to-one
relationships. If you’re worried about losing control, don’t be. Your community will be
grateful for the relationships you opened up for them, and therefore remain loyal.

A great example is the #Nomads Slack community created by Nomad List where

more than 10,000 digital nomads get together to discuss travel, work, new
opportunities, and more.

As the facilitator, Nomad List has the opportunity to be their number one resource
and in turn, learn about trends and interests among their community.

Youjin Do, director of One Way Ticket - a documentary on digital nomads - found
her crew and most the people she interviewed on #Nomads.

Action: Bring a few customers together in a hangout and see what happens.

STEP FIVE: SPREAD THE WORD ABOUT YOUR COMMUNITY

Once you have a solid foundation - let’s say five to ten people engaging regularly
and clearly getting value from your community - it’s time to enter stage two.

You’ve learned more about the value your community adds to its members’ lives.
You have an idea around what sparks engagement and what doesn’t. You’ve
developed and distributed guidelines based on past behaviors and lessons learned.

Now it’s time to add some members and work your way to scaling. There are several
ways to do this, and the most effective will depend on the type of community you run.
There are, however, several best practices that have proven effective for many.
A referral program: As mentioned, the Product Hunt and Quibb communities
allowed early members to invite people to join. Ello did the same thing. The
assumption is that if your early community members contribute to the community in a
meaningful way, so will their friends. They’re only going to invite the best of the best.

Referrals are a way for members to share this cool thing they’re a part of while
spreading word of your brand. The most effective referral programs reward referrers.
Rewards might include swag, early access to exclusive features, event tickets,
product discounts, partner discounts or freebies, etc.

Some referral programs use points systems. If your collective community has an
ounce of gamer in them, they’ll get excited about a leaderboard. They might even get
a healthy competition going, adding another layer of engagement.

Tiered-invites: You likely have Tier-A customers (hyper engaged, super loyal) and
Tier-B customers (moderately engaged, loyal). When starting small, invite Tier-A
first. Then, once you have processes and guidelines in place, invite Tier-B. And so
on. This is slow and smart growth at its best. SaaS programs like Intercom (CMS)
or NomNom (feedback insights) are helpful in identifying your most engaged
customers.

Your newsletter: Don’t have one? Shame on you. (Just kidding - but

seriously, here’s why you should have one and here’s how to build your
list). Once you know you can manage a larger community, spread the word to your
existing customers via your newsletter. Let them know the goal of the community
and the value they’ll find.

Your social channels: Hopefully your social audience is relevant to your offering
and pretty engaged. Once your community is running smoothly and you have a tight
process in place, unleash the hounds! I mean, announce it to the world. Share
highlights, wins, and insights from the community. Give your broader audience a
taste of what they’re missing and why they joined. The Geckoboard community saw
a big spark in interest simply by announcing their dev community on their blog and
social.

Invite influencers: If your community is open to the public outside of just customers,
it could be effective to get an influencer involved. Better yet, maybe one of your
customers is an influencer. Find someone who’s relevant to your community and will
truly add and gain value from being involved. When you reach out, make sure you
communicate that value to them - what they’ll get out of it.

Here’s an example of an influencer outreach email I’ve sent on behalf of a client

inviting them to join a community (given, I knew the person, which helps).
Very casual and mentions a different topic we’d been discussing, but ultimately,
effective.

(very) Targeted outreach: If you’re trying to grow a massive community open to

people outside of your customer base, outreach is an effective tactic. Identify
relevant newsletters, publications, and blogs to share your community with (this
Copyblogger article will be helpful).

Craft a short and compelling message communicating why their audience will

want to get involved (a common theme here). There’s several tools available for
identifying relevant outlets such as BuzzSumo (for finding the most shared posts
about a given topic) and ContentMarketer.io (for finding email addresses).

Your personal network: Maybe you’re not building a community for an existing
brand. Maybe you’re building a community that could turn into a brand.

That’s kind of what happened to me with A Song A Day. I had thrown a curator
signup form on the site, which saw a ton of submissions when it went viral. But that’s
not where I started. I started with friends and friends of friends and people who
reached out proactively via Twitter or email.

Anyone who’s begging you to volunteer their help is at least worth listening to. Start
with a call to your own network, then go from there.

STILL NOT SURE WHERE TO START?

Email two of your most engaged customers or readers today and ask them if they’d
find value out of interacting with each other. Make an intro and see what comes from
it.

8. Key URL’s
https://www.cyberius.com/blog/why-should-we-build-a-digital-community-infographic/

https://communityroundtable.com/what-we-do/research/community-maturity-model/

https://exchange.cim.co.uk/blog/how-to-convert-fans-into-ambassadors/

https://www.socialpinpoint.com/blog/6-benefits-of-online-community-engagement-digital-
tools/
 9. EBSCO Reading
EBSCO Read
CREATIVE PLACEMAKING: MARKETING COMMUNITIES AND SUCCESS METRICS.
https://web.b.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail/detail?vid=0&sid=9e56af63-ac53-49bc-8cc6-
d4f5f8e665cc%40sessionmgr102&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d
%3d#AN=137195090&db=plh
Online Communities and Firm Advantages.
https://web.b.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail/detail?vid=0&sid=2637a198-6ac3-4721-9d33-
a066e6ba8809%40pdc-v-sessmgr02&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d
%3d#AN=135629854&db=plh
Social Dollars in Online Communities: The Effect of Product, User, and Network
Characteristics.
https://web.b.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail/detail?vid=0&sid=32c04075-ea1e-4739-9a7e-
be40e129f137%40sessionmgr101&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d
%3d#AN=127019663&db=plh

Contextualising social capital in online brand communities.

https://web.b.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail/detail?vid=0&sid=e4a03df6-e608-4b93-848b-
475788e18355%40sessionmgr101&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d
%3d#AN=137015683&db=plh
NURTURING ONLINE COMMUNITIES: AN EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION.
https://web.b.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail/detail?vid=0&sid=0ac2d960-1a2a-4a42-b966-
b3b4cb5f27d9%40pdc-v-sessmgr05&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d
%3d#AN=136245817&db=plh
Consumer engagement in online brand communities: the moderating role of personal
values.
https://web.b.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail/detail?vid=0&sid=7fa85034-8366-4336-aced-
b3b2302f0d9f%40pdc-v-sessmgr03&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d
%3d#AN=138729034&db=plh