Community
- A set of interwoven relationships built upon shared interests, which satisfies members’ needs otherwise unattainable individually
Criteria that Define Successful Community
- Membership is a conscious choice
- Member base has achieved critical mass and sustainability: sufficiently large membership base that consistently gathers, participates, and adds value in community meeting areas
- Members feel a great sense of trust: feeling safety when making a transaction, sense that an individuals personal information will not be misused (e-mail spamming), knowledge that members generally respect and self-enforce community etiquette
- Members achieve benefits in scale
- Roles are not hierarchical or imposed
- Effective facilitationand site structure keeps community activities on track: successful communities share a high degree of focus within their operations– threads are easy to follow, no inappropriate postings, etc.
- A spirit of participation and feedback is clearly cultivated: encourage community-wide feed back
- A sense of affiliation is achieved through ownership of equity in the community: ebay members can build equity through methods such as garnering a more credible online reputation
- Efficiency in interaction is maximized: through mailing lists, bulletin boards, or live chats- choose formats which maximize the efficiency of a typical community interaction
- The community is easily navigable: easy for visitors to explore
Foundations of Community
- Information-driven communities: built upon shared interest in information and seek to exchange information such as facts and opinions
- Activity-driven communities: shared interests in activities that can range from buying antiques to meeting new friends to playing a role in an online game
- Commonality-driven communities: shared interest arising out of commonality from sharing the same profession, ethnicity, or lifestyle stage
Ways Communites Function
- Real-time systems: immediate communication where messages are sent, read, and replied to immediately (Internet relay chat, web–based chats, virtual worlds)
- Asynchronous formats: delayed communication where time between a message being sent, read, and replied vary (mailing lists, news groups, bulletin boards)
Three Primary Value is Created withing Community
- User to User: user-generated content such as member-written articles, opinions and advice (advice, shareware, good conversation)
- Administrator to User: administrator-created content such as exclusive research and reports and activities such as scheduled chats and special guests (can also take place as offline events such as parties)
- User to Administrator: User-generated value such as revenue from product sales, content fees, usage fees, commissions and advertising sales
Benefits that Community Generate From Parent Firms
- Cost Benefits: Reduced Customer Service Costs, Reduced Customer Acquisition Costs, Reduced costs from decreased product flaws and marketing mistakes, reduced marketing costs
- Revenue Benefits: increased customer segmentation and customization, increased branding, deepened customer relationships
Different Levels of Community
Amy Jo Kim Levels
- Visitors: no persistent identity in the community
- Novices: new members who need to learn the ropes and be introduced into community life
- Regulars: established members who are comfortably participating in community life
- Leaders: volunteers, contractors, and staff who keep community running
- Elders: Long-time regulars and leaders who share their knowledge and pass along culture
Randall Farmer Levels
- Passives: individuals who do not actively engage in but attend virtual communities
- Actives: those who participate in activities and topics created by others
- Motivators: those who create topics and plan activities of interest to other community members
- Caretakers: Those who serve as intermediaries between community members