5 strategies for building an online community

By Christopher Elliott

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They say the secret to every effective Web site is having the three “C’s”—commerce, content, and community.

How to sell your products or services online and how to create content for your site—these are the simpler concepts to grasp. Building a community? That can be a bit more complicated.

Building a virtual community of users and customers is arguably as difficult as populating a real community. You’re not just asking these folks to buy your product or service. You’re also inviting them to stick around and talk. You’re asking them to live there.

Why should you build a community? Because if you do, your customers are more likely to return.

Online community members visited Web sites nine times as often, stayed five times as long, and represented 65% of sales, a recent McKinsey & Company survey found. Odds are your competition already knows that. A 2006 survey of midsize and large companies suggested that 89% of them had adopted at least one of six community-building tools, such as blogs, wikis, social networking, or content-tagging.

And yet you hesitate. Many people worry about what having a community might mean to a site. "They’re afraid of what some people might post," notes Richard Buck, chief executive officer of Eluma, a Tewksbury, Mass., software development company.

Instead, he says people should consider what would happen without a community. In this day and age, says Buck, everyone knows how to find customers’ comments on the Web. "If they’re not happening on your site, they’ll find them someplace else," he says.

Here are five strategies for creating an online community that’s focused on your business, plus a few thoughts on what could happen to your site if these ideas aren’t implemented.

1. Pursue a privacy policy and other trust-building safeguards.  A key to developing a successful community is reassuring your customers that you’re worthy of their trust. "People want to buy from who they know and trust," says online marketing consultant Sarah Spencer of Got Clicks? in Richmond, Vt. "If you can build the trust, you can build the business." That means having an airtight privacy policy, moderated forums, blog comments that are stripped of spam, and other safeguards that will reassure your community members that this is a safe place to exchange ideas and that you can be trusted with their business.

   What if you don’t? A survey by researchers at the University of California at Irvine and Massachusetts Institute of Technology concludes that online users may be unwilling to use your site if you don’t address their privacy concerns. And having fewer users means less business, of course. Here’s how to create a privacy statement for your Office Live Small Business site.

2. Get involved in your community yourself.  An online community is more than a few technological components strung together on a site. It is a "living, breathing resource" says Doug Shuman, senior vice president of customer marketing at Register.com, a domain name registration service. And a key part of any online community that’s hosted by your site is, well, you. You’re able to offer the authoritative information that’s a catalyst for intelligent conversations taking place on forums, in the comments section of your blog or in the e-mail discussion group. Many business owners take a hands-off approach to community, when, in fact, being a part of it would make it many times more effective.

   What if you don’t? An online community without you can be a dangerous place. If you’re not moderating your forums and monitoring blog comments, you’re essentially handing over the community you worked so hard to build to outsiders. Might as well send them a key to your office while you’re at it.

3. Offer something unique in your community space.  Here’s an obvious strategy that’s not always so obvious to sites in search of a community. Make something that doesn’t exist anywhere else. Build it, and yes, they’ll come. Uniqueness—not "reinvent the wheel"—makes your site stand out, says Eric Moll, director of word-of-mouth marketing at ID Society, an Internet marketing agency in New York. "There’s a very good chance that there already is a community devoted to what you are interested in discussing." Do a little research before setting up a blog, forum, wiki, or any other community-building application. Then open a forum that’s different enough to attract people—or find an established community space and use it to let people know about your site.

What if you don’t? Having a site that looks and feels like everyone else’s will ensure that your company doesn’t stand out from the crowd. It likely will attract an average community and yield so-so results. Sameness doesn’t sell.

4. Become a thought leader for people in your industry.  People will come to your site, and stay, if they’re fascinated by your community. A group that follows the herd is far less interesting than one that leads. Being a thought leader establishes your company as an innovator and a resource for people to turn to when they need an expert. Being what Mark Ranalli, chief executive of the social networking site Helium.com in Andover, Mass., brands an "online thought leader" means that the information on your site can transcend the community and cement your reputation as an a reliable resource outside your company. "That lets you reach more people who may never make it to your Web site or blog otherwise," he adds.

   What if you don’t? Your community—and your site—could become marginalized. If you don't establish yourself as a thought leader, then you're a follower. Of course, there's nothing wrong with being a follower, except that you're competing with tens of thousands of other blogs, forums, and newsletters that are doing the same thing—tracking news and trends and discussing them. It's much easier to follow than to lead, but it isn't as rewarding for your community. Or your business.

5. Find the resources you need to reach a critical mass.  A community must be nurtured in order for it to grow. The most common mistake business owners make when trying to build a community is failing to cultivate it. Ed Rogers, chief operating officer of Ektron, a Web management software company in Nashua, N.H., calls it reaching "critical mass," and says sites often fail at it. "I would say it’s the most widely overlooked element in building a successful online community," he says. In other words, you must find and be willing to invest in enough resources—both in terms of technology and content—to make enough people want to visit your site. Some of the more popular community-building resources are free or inexpensive, and easy to use. They include Ning, Orkut, and Easy Free Forum.

   What if you don’t? When community is an afterthought to your online business, it’s like removing one of the legs of a three-legged barstool. Your site loses balance and ultimately becomes ineffective.

Creating a community takes time, too. I’ve created several Web sites over the last decade, and the first two "C’s"—content and commerce—were things that could be developed almost overnight. But the community took many months, even years, to find. On one of my projects, I waited the better part of a decade for the community to begin driving a significant amount of traffic to my site.

Put another way, you can do everything right—you can win the trust of your customers, create compelling content, and become a leader—but the results may not be immediate.

The last "C" is more elusive. But it’s worth waiting for.

About the author   Christopher Elliott is an Orlando, Fla., writer and independent producer who specializes in technology, travel, and mobile computing. His work has appeared in numerous newspapers, magazines and online. You can find out more about him on his Web site or sign up for his free weekly newsletter.