Online Communities: Build, Buy or Steal
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Everyone is clamoring to build an online community today. Not only is it the marketing technique of the year, it is also a very effective way to strengthen your products and grow your business. The question is where do you start, how do you grow and what do you do with your critical mass once you have it. As the title of this post implies, there are a many ways to grow your community, some more appropriate than others.
This whole post was triggered by the recent events by SpeedDate.com. If you haven't heard (or had it happen to you), SpeedDate has been buying Facebook applications from various developers over the past few months and "stealing" their members over to SpeedDate. Last week, they bought and took over an app called Oregon Trail (You remember, the game on your Apple II or Commodore 64 where you leading a wagon train across the United States). To me, this is worse than a traditional bait and switch. You've signed up for a fun game...reminiscing back to your childhood...and then BAM, you now have a dating application on your profile (and your wife is asking why). Even though SpeedDate has over 500,000 users, I'll be watching to see if any of this negative press hurts their existing community.
Ok, so we've established that stealing members is just wrong, but what about buying members. This is a little more gray because of the many ways you can "buy" a community member. If you are thinking about promoting your community though a contest or promotion, be aware of the downsides to this approach. The majority of your new members are only interested in the prize you are offering, not long term benefits. That being said, you will get some new members that will stick around, become loyal participants and even brand advocates. These true gains need to be measured against promotional costs, not the superficial total registration count.
That leaves us with the build option. Of course this is the best option, but it is the most difficult. Not only do you need to create an environment that adds value to the member's experience, you need to promote this community and spread the word of your offerings. I'd recommend starting the promotion process with your own employees. Hopefully they are your biggest brand advocates and you can use their stature in social networks to start establishing your community. If you are creating a new site, have your employees link to it from their blogs and network profiles. If you are creating an area on an existing network, have your employees join in. Using what you have and people you know is a great place to start.
Best practices and techniques will continue to evolve, but being up front and transparent with your potential community members is the best way to create a good reputation and continue to build a strong online brand.
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