The educational part of the program occurs within an un-conference setting.  The open dialogue between community leaders and iNET staff uncover exceptional insights on how to grow and support the health and satisfaction of all community members.   iNET also shares its vision, product road map, and other metrics with the community leaders.

The “all-expenses-paid”, two-day event gives the community leaders a chance to meet and mingle face-to-face with each other (six of iNET’s online communities were able to participate this year) as well as with iNET’s staff.  The 2010 conference pulled in community leaders from all over the country including Illinois, Arizona, Michigan, Washington, and Pennsylvania as well as from Canada.  In 2009, iNET’s Australian community, Web Hosting Talk Australia, made the trip to Cincinnati.

This year’s entertainment included an unbelievable Red’s baseball game  in the Great American Ballpark.  A private suite snug along side the third base foul line was a perfect setting to mingle and build relationships.  Great food & drink, great conversation and plenty of laughter rounded out the weekend.  The important work for iNET though doesn’t end with the conference’s close.  Afterward, iNET gets to work on the tremendous ideas and opportunities shared by the community leaders.  Ongoing communications and idea exchange also continues via iNET’s community portal, “ClubMod,” where community leaders help further shape ideas and opportunities.

The 2010 Community Leadership Conference was outstanding!  Thanks to all community leaders who were able to attend this year and we look forward to seeing you and new leaders in 2011!

This seems apparent but the virtual nature of the Internet is often at odds with human interaction. At iNET, we are working with fairly large communities with hundreds of thousands of members and sizable moderation teams.  I know at times it is a challenge to properly address the human side of the interaction especially with business-to-business communities where knowledge exchange is the primary intent.  After being asked the same question hundreds of times, members and moderators can get frustrated repeating the same response.  Often the interaction is a harsh, “did you search for it?”

Our community coordinator, Dennis Johnson and his team, continue to work hard to emphasize the human interaction among community exchanges.  For example, with one community we introduced community guides to help new members and visitors find their way through forum categories and sub-categories.  On another iNET community serving up discussions on all things Apple (e.g. Mac-Forums), the community leadership awards a “member of the month” to members who demonstrate a high level of assistance in helping visitors and other members fulfill their needs.

In any case, Martin is right that a community represents more than the technology platform it sits on.  It repesents a group of people sharing common interests with each individual serving a vital role in the overall community dynamic. It is certainly an area at iNET that we continue to focus on and work to improve. 

According to blog SocialMediaToday.com, some of the top trends reported by the study’s participants and presented in the report included:

• A majority (38% of 95 respondents) stated that within their companies the of online community staff and associated responsibilities actually fell under the Marketing department.

• Most (27%) of the participants said that 11-20% of their community members logged into the online community each month. The overall average member login rate is 34% and the Median is 25%.

• 27 participants gave detailed feedback about how they successfully attracted new members to their communities using Newsletter and Emails, Events, Search Engine Optimization and Marketing, and other techniques.

What I specifically found interesting was the success of growing community through surveys, sponsored blogs and allowing members to recommend to a friend.  Within a community environment, I would expect to find peer-to-peer recruitment (social influence from recommendations/word of mouth) as one of the strongest community building activities.  I also wasn’t surprised to find search engine optimization high on the list since online communities by their very nature generate excellent long-tail search opprtunties.

At the core of the report, an excellent presentation was given in response to the question, “how do you define Communtiy Member Engagement?”  The responses varied but the main points involved (1) amount of activity, (2) amount of content created and (3) amount of time spent on the site.  The type of community further defined the specific measures.

If you own, operate or intend to strat an online community, I highly recommend getting a copy of the report.  It will help set benchmarks for your metrics and provide some creative insight for new ways to grow your online communities and gain higher engagement.

There are fewer optimization resources for co-located hosting, but one that came recommended is WebHostingTalk.com, a discussion site where you can ask questions in topic forums, get tips, even special pricing from vendors. Note, however, that the rules strictly prevent lead generation or advertising.

It’s nice to see the plug on their blog. All of us at iNET feel that WHT is a great place for consumers of web hosting and hosted service providers to come together. But we also appreciate the recognition of how well the community is moderated in regards to advertising and promotion inside the message board.

With the onset of social media, the public controls the channel. There are literally millions of media outlets and tens of millions of contributors. Control is gone, and the control freaks are freaking out. If a community gets behind your product, the brand value is enormous. But even the most vaunted products are criticized, bashed, and dragged through the mud. So what is a marketer to do to protect and grow a brand? We have three recommendations:

1) Build a presence in the community

Figure out which communities are important to you and your brand, and get involved. If it’s a forum, start contributing. If it’s a blog, start commenting. But don’t spam the board or the blog with self promotion. Be helpful, unbiased and objective. In doing so, you will build your virtual bank account of goodwill with the membership, which will come in handy some day. By helping others through the sharing of knowledge, ideas and assistance, you will ultimately be helping yourself and your brand.

2) Respond, both to praise and criticism

In addition to helping others, respond to the praise and criticism your brand receives. Responding to praise is easy. A simple thank-you will do. Criticism… well, that can be a bit tricky. First, you MUST respond. Silence implies guilt. If the statement is untrue or misleading, try to clarify or offer a rebuttal. Provide supporting data. Stay focused on the facts and the issue at hand. Keep your cool. Never, ever make it personal. And if you made a mistake, admit it. Mistakes happen. You will be remembered by how you handle them.

3) Accept that not everyone will love you

Sometimes, no matter what you do, you will not be able to win over an unhappy customer or a vocal critic. It’s going to happen. Just accept it. However, you can take comfort that the audience is smart. Media is no longer neat, clean and sanitized. As a result, consumers of this media do not take everything they read as the gospel truth. They understand that not everyone can be pleased. They understand that there may be hidden agendas. Your brand will be judged on the overall sentiment. It will not be condemned for a handful of negative remarks.

With these three simple steps, you can minimize brand bashing and maximize brand building. In the brave new world of social media, it’s as close to “controlling the message” as you can expect.

Certainly, a lot of factors can affect conversion rate of an online community. We think there are a few key ones that are worth taking the biggest look into:

Quality of content. This one should be the easiest for a prospective member to figure out. If the content on the site is great and attractive, then people will hopefully want to come back for more. If folks find that their questions are being answered, and that the conversation in the community is deep and rich, they might be persuaded to sign up and find a home there.

Ease of registration. How hard is it to become a member? How easy is the signup form? How many mandatory questions are there? Is it a visually appealing process? Does the process seem safe and secure. I would argue that the typical vBulletin registration process we use is slightly unwieldly and in need of an UI update. That’s something we’re definitely going to address in our communities soon.

Attitude. This is the most subjective of all. What is the attitude of the community’s members and moderators? The prospective member may take a look at the spirit of the message board, and try to answer some tough questions. Does it seem like members are treated fairly? Do senior members make new members feel welcome and at home? Is the community pretty good at not feeding the trolls? Does the community stay on topic? Are the rules posted and clear? Do the moderators treat everyone with respect? If a member prospect answers any of these with a ‘no,’ they’ll likely second-guess signing up, or if they do–they might not stick around for long.

Existing patterns

• Friend lists and groups – Friends are the bread and butter of social networking (this should be obvious). If your social networking web site isolates users from each other, it is not a social networking site.
• Status frameworks – Status updates are quickly becoming a vital part of social networks. Services like Twitter, FriendFeed and Facebook have made this very clear. Features such as “message walls” and status updates provide users with ways to keep their networks updated and in the know.
• Open data access – Free the data. If you want to spark huge third-party development communities, you’ve got to open up access to your data. Facebook and others quickly figured this out and are now more successful because of the extremely active developer communities.
• Media sharing – This is still a murky area that no one has really nailed perfectly, but giving users a way to share their media is essential. Words are great, but pictures, audio and video are even better. As more mobile devices with higher quality cameras (both still and video) enter the market, more users will want to share their media with friends.
• Transparency – This is a big one. Most people understand that advertising funds most of the great services available on the web. The most successful social networking applications work in the required advertising without getting in the way of their users and without impeding the flow of information between users. Roadblocks, sleazy ads and interface annoyances will ultimately drive away users. If you need an example of this in action, look at MySpace.

Patterns missing in action

• Separation of friends and acquaintances – A huge problem for many users is dealing with casual acquaintances. Are they really friends? Do they belong in my network? You know who these people are: the guy you knew in high school but never once talked to who now wants to be your friend on XYZ network. Do you turn him down and risk being rude, or do you accept is request and start down the slippery slope of diluting your friend list? There needs to be a better way to handle the different levels of friendships that most people maintain.
• Friend recommendation – Last.FM, Pandora, Flickr, and YouTube are great at serving up content that you never knew you would like. Why can’t the same be said for social networking sites? Why can’t a recommendation engine be built that recommends people who might be a good fit for you as a friend, even if they aren’t already linked to one of your friends? This is an untapped market.
• Friend discovery – Friend recommendation is one thing, friend discovery is something entirely different. Social networks usually end up with fragmented or incomplete circles of friends. Not many social networks to a great job of helping me find my existing friends on their network. Some are getting better at it, but existing friend discovery could be improved.
• Credibility indicators – This could be considered a requirement for friend recommendation. Social networks should provide more tools that allow users to judge the credibility of other users. How do I know if this person is a legitimate friend possibility or just someone looking to hock their blog or web site? Indicators that are based on the aggregate actions of a user would be a great feature.

Patterns that should go away

• Email systems – Users already have email, stop being redundant. This is especially true when a web site sends an alert to a user’s real email address to let them know that they have new email on their site.
• Page view generators – Stop inserting detours that are meant solely to increase page views. “One of your friends is having a birthday today, click here to find out who!” Ugh. (I’m looking at you, MySpace)
• Site-specific chat rooms and instant messaging – Again, users already have their preferred way of chatting. Leave it be and stop fragmenting the market further.