Planning a Community
Plan Your Community Strategy
Success doesn't usually happen by accident. Take a look at the most vibrant communities, and you will find they share one thing in common: a clear and visible strategy. Even if the end result looks effortless. In this wiki we will talk about the process of defining your strategy, the first step in making your community's success a conscious choice.
It all begins with a plan.
Strategy and tactics
People often talk about strategy and tactics interchangeably. The reality is that they are quite different, and premature discussion about tactical details can be harmful.
Good teamwork takes energy and persistence, no matter how large your organization. Tactical negotiations take precious time and energy away from the strategic planning process. Yes, tactical details are important, and we do care about them deeply… after we're done done with the big picture.
Three simple questions
Your community strategy will allow you to concisely answer:
- Why will this community exist?
- Who does it serve?
- What will it accomplish?
Notice the lack of a "how" question; we're still focusing on our end goal before considering tactics.
A note about technology
It will be tempting to talk about technology at this stage, as there are countless offerings that let you open up a new community site in less than an hour. We know too well: it's fun, it's exciting and empowering to wield these tools. Resist this temptation! Unless you are the next Google, technology is probably not your leading strategy. Put people and content first before you consider what technological options are right for the job.
Setting the Strategy
1. Why should this community exist?
Your community should have a compelling, focused reason for its existence. It could be as simple as a new "listening" program to learn what your customers are saying about you. Or a new channel to get the word out and promote your products. Enabling your customers to self-support themselves in a user group. Empowering your members to create local events. These are all valid strategies. What's most important is that you can answer "why?" before getting caught up in the details of the latest technology trend.
Larger communities may have several "whys". This can be OK, as long as their roles are complementary, and your community's mission is coherent enough to be explained in a sentence or two. If your answers to why, who and what questions start to diverge, you may want to re-prioritize.
Your answer to "why should this community exist" does not have to be public. It's often best to define this in concrete business terms before translating it into the language of your customers or end users.
2. Who are we serving?
Good strategy involves making conscious decisions about your future, and your constituents are at the very the heart of this. Marketers have long known that segmentation is a valuable strategic planning exercise.
Knowing who you are reaching helps clarify your strategy, and it's often beneficial to treat different groups of people selectively with separate communications. Once you clearly understand the different groups of people who will use the community, and the paths you hope they follow, we can begin to plan the user experience.
Market segmentation is an old concept, and while there are many methodologies for slicing up your target audience. Conventionally, marketers will choose to segment their users based on some combination of geographic, demographic and various behavioral aspects, including what they do and what their attitudes, i.e. their "mindset". These are all important considerations.
But we are most interested in a specific approach to behavioral segmentation that is unique to the community sphere.
Behind every thriving community there is a special group of people whose collective impact is an order of magnitude greater than the other members. We call these people "boosters", and they are more than individual contributes. Boosters have a systemic impact. They create energy that is felt in different ways: membership growth, content vibrancy, and sometimes financially.
Do figure out who these people are early. While you may already have some boosters working for you at the launch of your community, one of the top priorities is how to involve these people, and how to find more of them!
Outside and inside
Keep in mind that your community will serve both external and internal constituents. The planning stage is a critical time to get your internal stakeholders on board.
If the right people aren't involved at the beginning, your project will be at risk. The larger the organization, the greater the jeopardy. Have you ever seen a project deflate after a critical decision maker appears out of nowhere months after kick-off? This happens across corporate America daily, and the aftermath isn't pleasant.
The birth of a community is not a time to be stealthy. Every person with any possible role in your project should be named, and have a clearly defined role in the project manifest. If they will have a contributing or approval role in the project, bring these individuals to the kick-off workshop. This is your one opportunity to communicate why this community should exist and to inspire your team. Plan the meeting carefully and make sure these important individuals embrace your strategy.
3. What will it accomplish?
Once you've determined why your community exists and who it serves, it's possible to imagine what a successful outcome looks like and how it can be measured.
Look beyond atomistic metrics like visits, visitors and page views. Those can be indicators of success, but we are interested in more meaningful sources of feedback on the vibrancy of your community.
Try to focus first on the activities which are most central to your mission. Is it contributions? Membership growth? Salamander populations? This will vary quite a bit depending on the business you are in.
The closer these map to your defined strategy, the better. It may help to think in terms of:?
[who] does [what] [how many times] by [when].
For example:
- Customers resolve 100 of their own technical support requests online during the first 6 months.
- Members set up 50 grassroot events the first year after launch.
- Our organization establishes 4 active regional chapters with local leaders by June, 2010.
The targets you set may be SWAGs, but once you start measuring your efforts, those efforts will keep getting smarter.
What's next
Once you have a specific and actionable strategy, don't file it away:
- Communicate your community strategy to all stakeholders.
- Use it as a guide when evaluating requests and suggestions from stakeholders.
- Revisit it throughout the life of your project to ensure you stay on strategy.
Our next Best Practices article will focus on the process of launching a community. We hope you found this helpful and would love to hear your feedback!
