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Technology: Why business Online communities often Fail
You can build something, but will people come? In the world of online business communities, getting people to participate is hard. Deloitte surveyed more than 100 companies that have attempted to build on-line virtual communities. Interestingly, more than 60 percent of them spent more than $1 million in their efforts, but had difficulty in building traction. 35 percent have 100 or fewer users and less than 25 percent managed to ever get past 1000 users. 50 percent of the conmpanies cite that getting people engaged is their most difficult problem.
Why do so many of these sites fail?
The Deloitte survey highlighted three problem areas:
1. Spending too much on cool tech features. Many companies don’t have their priorities aligned and buy or spend on customization too much money.
Instead the recommendation is to identify who potential community members are and to reach out to them to attract them to the community.
2. Choose a geek with online community site building experience to be dedicated to the task. Too often those picked to lead up the online community have other job functions or pick someone from marketing.
3. Decide the right way to measure success. The number of visitors to the site is an interesting number, but one that doesn’t indicate if the site is having a positive marketing influence or if it is increasing customer loyalty.
Surprisingly, even though online participation may be weak, companies believe that they’re seeing benefits. 35 percent said that they’ve seen
an increase of word of mouth exposure. 28 percent have seen an increase of overall brand awareness. 24 percent are seeing an increase in customer loyalty.
“Communities can extend the edge of the corporation in truly transformative ways — tapping into new talent, helping design products and services, providing customer support and, most importantly, building the brand with the customer,” said Ed Moran, director of product innovation, Deloitte Services LP.
