The Online Community

Development Process
A complete process you can use to
grow, develop, and manage your
online community

One of the hardest things we ever had to do was put all the
things we knew to be true about online communities into a
clear, step by step, process.

Over the years we simplified the process as much as possi-

ble. We reviewed what did and didnt work for most organi-
zations. We spoke to dozens of other community managers
about what worked for them.

Over time we developed a process that we could use to de-

velop an online community for almost any organization.

If you have ever wanted a step-by-step process you can use

to guide your community development efforts and track
progress, this should help.

If you have any questions, please contact:

[email protected]
+44 (0)20 7792 2469
www.pillarsummit.com
Step 1
Set realistic objectives

At this stage its vital to ensure the organization has objectives which:

a) Are connected to the ROI (increased revenue, reduced costs)

b) Are something a community approach can achieve
c) Are understood by all stakeholders

Dont take any steps until all these three have been achieved. This is
MUCH harder than it looks.

Step a) involves connecting the organizations overall problems to the

community effort in a way that increases sales (e.g. increased repeat pur-
chases).

Step b) requires explaining what a community can/cant achieve. A com-

munity isnt the best approach to reach new audiences, for example.

Step c) involves training sessions/information packages. You have to work

within the organization to establish these and ensure a clear understand-
ing of objectives.
Step 2
Resources & Expectations

At this stage you prepare the organization for the community. Specifically,
you need to get:

a) Knowledge
b) Skills
c) Resources

Knowledge includes internal understanding about how communities

develop, how to run and manage a community, time frames, and measure-
ment. You dont want your boss thinking you can develop this within three
months. Establish the processes for how the organization responds to the
community too.

Skills include the ability to interact with the target audience, create great
content, organize and manage online/offline events, persuade volunteers
to help, market/promote/grow the community, develop the platform, and
influence the community en-masse.

Resources include a reasonable budget (usually five to six figures), man-

power (and support throughout the organization), and use of existing as-
sets such as existing audience/customer lists.

Go through each of these in turn; make sure the organization has pledged
to support you on every one. I sometimes make a client sign a sheet stating
we have access to these resources.
Step 3
Audience & Sector Analysis

Now we can get started looking at the audience. You need to identify what
your audience really cares about. Not just the topic, but the specific inter-
est within that topic.

If your audience is teachers, then you will have groups that have just be-
gun teaching, want to change teaching, are subject-specific teachers, want
to learn how to deal with troublesome students, are close to retirement,
are based in specific locations, or have new ideas they want to try. You
want to pinpoint the strong common interest.

There are four steps to this

1) Sector analysis. Identify who and what is important in the sec-

tor (existing communities, major issues, important people, PEST
trends).

2) Demographic analysis. Research the demographics of your target

audience. Look for clusters around age, location, gender, income.

3) Habit analysis. Research habits of your audience. What do they

do within the topic. What tools/platforms do they use? When do
they use the internet?

4) Psychographic analysis. Interview 50 to 150 members of the tar

get audience. Learn their biggest problems, most common interests,
and biggest hopes/aspirations for the future.

By the end of this you should be able to identify specifically who you will
approach, what topics are interesting (and you can initiate discussions
around), who/what is influential within the sector, what trends to prepare
for and what platform to use.
Step 4
Conceptualization

Based upon the audience analysis, determine what type of community

it will be. It will be either a community of action, circumstance, interest,
place, or practice.

The type of community affects everything else you do in the community,

so pick carefully. Dont default to a community of practice/interest. Dont
compete directly with existing communities. If there are several existing
communities of interest in your sector, develop a community of action
instead.

1) Decide type of community

2) Identify the benefits members receive from participating.

3) Plan what will happen in the community

Next you need to identify the tangible benefit from participating in the
community. Were not talking about joining here, but actually participat-
ing. Benefits like learning, solving problems, befriending experts work
better than connecting and sharing.

Now identify what will happen in the community. What will members talk
about? What events and activities will take place? What type of content
will be created? This is all based from what your research told you earlier.
Plan out the first 3 months of actions for those that join the community.
Step 5
Platform Development

Stages 5 and 6 are concurrent. You begin using a simple platform (usually
a mailing list, LinkedIn/Facebook/Google group) to facilitate early inter-
actions. Meanwhile you develop the platform using the information you
have gathered about your audience and your own needs and resources.

This consists of several stages

1) Identify highly used features in similar communities.

2) Develop a functional specification (only include the essential

features in the beginning (e.g. discussion boards).

3) Wireframe the platform (make sure the latest activity is above

the fold on the landing page of the community).

4) Decide between free, white label, open-source, or enterprise

platform. This depends upon your audience needs (e.g. picture
sharing), in-house resources (e.g. developer/designer), budget and
urgency to get the community going.

5) Select a vendor (use previous examples of active communities

they have developed with plenty of referrals and develop the plat-
form.

In the order above, we would usually recommend a simple mailing list or

LinkedIn group as a free platform, Ning as a white-label platform, Drupal
(or Drupal Commons) for open-source, and Lithium as the enterprise solu-
tion.
Step 6
Inception

Remember those 50 to 150 people you interviewed earlier? Theyre the

founding members of your new online community.

At the end of the interview, ask if they would be interested in being in-
volved in the community. Invite 10 of this group per day to the mailing
list/free group you have established. Initiate discussions on topics of inter-
est.

1) Invite 5 10 members to join the community (this is for momen-

tum).

2) Initiate discussions on topics highlighted in the audience analy-

sis.

3) Individually prompt members (active and inactive) to participate

in the community.

4) Individually interact and build relationship with the early mem-

bers.

5) Move the community to the new platform.

Over time, you gradually build momentum and test what does/doesnt
work. You also identify the key early members of the community.

Aim to achieve 50% of growth and activity being initiated by members as

opposed to being initiated by the community manager (critical mass). For
simplicity, assume all these steps below include rigorous data collection
and analysis.
Step 7
Establishment

As the community grows, you shift from direct interactions to macro-level

activities. You need to sustain growth and momentum while creating sys-
tems to effectively manage the community at a large-scale.

Gradually shift from micro to activities that affect more people (not quite
not macro).

1) Write content about the community

2) Organize regular events and activities

3) Recruit your first volunteer

4) Initiate referral techniquess

5) Implement sense of community tactics.

6) Integrate community activities with the organization

Your aim is to achieve 90% of growth and activity being initiated by mem-
bers (maturity phase) and develop a sense of community.
Step 8
Maturity

In the maturity phase, you shift to optimize tasks. These tasks include.

1) Optimize social density of the platform

2) Steer the direction of the community in desirable areas

3) Ensure the community is influential within its sector

4) Grow and manage the volunteer team

5) Optimize the newcomer to regular conversion ratio

6) Optimize the community platform

7) Establish clear goals and vision for the community.

The goal of this phase is to ensure the community becomes as self-sustain-

ing as possible and try to reach the 99% of growth/activity generated by
the community, and a strong sense of community.

You also need to worry about the return on investment here. This means
closely aligning the organization with the activities of the organization
with the activities of the community.
Step 9
Mitosis

Beyond a certain level (it varies), the sense of community typically be-
gins to dip followed by corresponding dips in the number of participating
members and, eventually, the level of overall activity in the community.

As the community grows, its more difficult for members to recognise other
members, have a shared history, and feel they can influence the commu-
nity. You therefore need to facilitate smaller sub-groups within the com-
munity, while sustaining the existing community.

1) Identify common sub-niches within the community by demo-

graphic, habits, psychographicm or experience elements.

2) Creates places for people that share these elements to interact

with each other.

3) Find people to grow and manage each specific group.

4) Promote each place to this audience and ensure each group has
developed to establishment before beginning the process again.

5) Repeat to ensure high levels of activity.

Only facilitate one or two sub-groups at a time. Ensure each has reached
critical mass before moving on to the next. This is a repeat process that
continues indefinitely.
The Process
Communities Can Last Forever

There is no natural life span on communities. Communities die either

through mismanagement or the collapse of interest in their topic. For ex-
ample, communities based around TV shows gradually fade when the TV
show end.

Most communities, with effective community management, can survive

forever.

The WELL is coming up to its 30th birthday. Older communities are

already two decades old. They have members that have seen each other
through dozens of evolutions in their sector, have seen members grow up
together, raise families, change jobs, go through hardships, and provide
support in innumerable ways.

You dont need to rush the process above. You dont need 3000 members
in three months. Take your time, follow the traditional community-builder
way and get it right.

Youre building an asset that can support you and your organization for
decades.

This is the most cost-effective thing youve ever done. If you do this right,
you can build future generations of fans (Harley Davidson). If you do this
wrong, you will build a failed short-term marketing campaign (Genera-
tionBenz).

Thank you for reading. If you like this free document please do one thing
for us, share the URL with your followers on Twitter.
The Pillar Summit
Learn how to grow, build, and scale
thriving online communities

How would you like to guide your organization through the entire process
of developing any number online communities? How would you like to
learn the skills to become a world-class community manager?

If you want to become a world-class community manager, sign up for The

Pillar Summits Professional Community Management course. This is an
online-course, based upon proven social sciences, that will teach you how
to grow, manage and scale a thriving online community for your organiza-
tion.

The course features:

100,000+ words of written material covering every step of the

community development process.
A library of case studies
Live weekly lessons (which are recorded so you wont miss one)
Unlimited access to FeverBees personal coaching to support your
community
Incredible guest speakers
Access to key academic journals
Template scripts/strategies and other documents we use for our
own clients
Problem-orientated live discussions.
End of term assignments covering the course material focused
specifically on your organizations community efforts.

Click here to sign up: www.pillarsummit.com

Registration closes Sept 24.