CommunityMarketing

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Marketing is about convincing others to give a compensation (usually in conventional money) for goods or services they receive from the provider.

Everyone who seeks to change the way society thinks engages in in some sort of marketing. You may want to convince people to buy your product, to donate to you, to vote for you, to visit your school play, or to take an interest in protecting the environment. Marketing is also about understanding others, which is the first step to gaining influence.

For most organizations there are two target groups:

External. The organization needs something from outside itself, such as money, goods, or services. Alternatively, it seeks to change the behaviour of society around it. It may conduct research to improve how it services its market.

Internal. The organization seeks to change its own behavior, such as setting a new policy or introducing a new service. It must then inform its own members. It may also consult its members before making a major decision.

An online community is different from a normal organization. While normally there is a clear separation between inside and outside an organization, an online community is both inside and outside the organization. It may not even be rooted in an organization, but instead span many organizations. It is UsAndThem rather than Us vs. Them.

A community grows when someone from outside the community joins the community. They will then be inside the community. The messages one presents to the outside world must be consistent with the messages presented inside the community because people will read both messages. This differs from a typical organization that might have a different message inside than outside.

Also, in traditional marketing, communication is most often in one direction from one party to another; for instance, an organization advertises a new service to its customers. However, in a community, everyone can communicate with each other. Customers can talk to other customers, and even directly to members within your organization. Marketing in an online community then is more about fostering and directing a conversation rather than saying anything specific.

FridemarPache: My guess for the future is: CommunityMarketing and conventional CorporationsMarketing? will converge more and more to OnlineConversation? as proclaimed in CluetrainManifesto and the most attractive conversation will be of such a kind, that produces and shares real wealth as sketched in [AboutusOrg:Wealth] or also in CreatingAndSharingWealth.

This page is to build a pattern language about how to market (advertise, sell ???) your community so as to encourage people to join. This came up in a few places recently. We don't have a good name yet, and this is just at the "collecting notes" (brainstorming) phase. Please chip in.

Contributors: SunirShah, JohnWindmueller, HelmutLeitner, FridemarPache, ..

I'm writing a learning module on community marketing now for the FAO, so I'll have a lot more to say. -- SunirShah

Sunir, where can we find it.

General:

BuildingVirtualCommunities
TheArtOfHostingGoodConversationsOnline
BrandManagement. Build a TradeMark. (Of course, forks will steal your TradeMark)
PhysicalConnection
InviteAuthors? (cf Ward's quote, recently resurfaced on WikiForum in a JohnAbbe comment)
Sell! Use SalesQuestions.

Internal community issues:

SuperordinateGoal and a MissionStatement
AddValue? to the world. Build good content in your wiki.
AvoidConflict. This is why trolls suck. (Safety is important)
RadicalInclusiveness - be as open to people as you can.
UsAndThem

BirdsOfaFeather?

External community issues:

Avoid TopicCompetition
ConnectYourWiki? to other online communities and systems. TourBus. WikiNode.
StrengthenYourNeighbourHood? to strengthen your wiki.
Embed yourself in other vehicles, like the InterMap.

Technical:

Register with search engines, ODP.
Provide a MachineInterface
Provide NetworkService?s.
Provide RSS feed
ExternalReferrals
Keep your wiki engine "state of the art"

Other:

CollaborationBooster
ExpandScope, perhaps even to "RegularPeople"

External resources

http://wiki.scrums.org/index.cgi?HowToGenerateWikiTraffic

TechSoup?: Hosting Online Events : http://www.techsoup.org/howto/articlepage.cfm?ArticleId=533&cg=searchterms&sg=marketing

TechSoup?: Online Events Checklist : http://techsoup.org/products/downdetails.cfm?downloadid=162

Writing a News Release: http://www.electroniccommunity.org/Training/Communication/write_news_releases.htm

Marketing Your Organization's Web Site: http://www.coyotecom.com/webdevo/webmrkt.html

Basic Press Outreach for Not-for-Profit and Public Sector Organizations: http://www.coyotecom.com/promote2.html

Think it Through: What it takes to design & fund an effective communications strategy : http://www.benton.org/publibrary/toolkits/thinkthru.html

Marketing Web Products and Services: http://www.sdcn.org/webworks/marketing/

Benchmarks for Building Extranets and Online Communities: http://www.benton.org/publibrary/capacity/extranet_benchmarks.doc

Online Events Assessment Tool: http://www.fullcirc.com/community/onlineeventplanner.htm

Evaluate the effectiveness of your communications effort: http://www.benton.org/publibrary/toolkits/evaluation.html

Monitoring and Evaluating Web Communications: http://www.sdcn.org/webworks/monitoring/

PS.: FridemarPache: I think this page needs refactorisation. Although in the intro the other contributors made the essential contributions I prefixed my part to take responsability for my (possibly) unorthodox engagement.

CategoryMarketing, CategoryWikinomics

CommunityMarketing

External resources

Discussion