Creating Your Online Business Community

Welcome to Web 2.0! Most of the people I come in contact with aren’t familiar with the Web 2.0 concept, so please allow Wikipedia to explain:

The term Web 2.0 is commonly associated with web applications that facilitate interactive information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design, and collaboration on the World Wide Web. A Web 2.0 site gives its users the free choice to interact or collaborate with each other in a social media dialogue as creators (prosumer) of user-generated content in a virtual community, in contrast to websites where users (consumer) are limited to the passive viewing of content that was created for them.

By contrast, Web 1.0 is defined as:

a retronym that refers to the state of the World Wide Web, and any website design style used before the advent of the Web 2.0 phenomenon.

Well, I learned a cool new word – retronym -- However, the definition of Web 1.0 doesn’t tell us much, so let me break it down:

Web 1.0 Web 2.0 Site design/structure/content management Developed and maintained by a web designer/programmer Developed with help of web designer/programmer and maintained by company/organization representatives who are reasonably technically savvy Site content Determined by company/organization Organically derived from what is mutually beneficial to the company/organization and the user Virtual presence On a computer monitor at www.yourbusiness.com On a computer monitor at www.yourbusiness.com and seen throughout  a vast array of social media networks (Facebook and Twitter front and center), on desktops, laptops, handheld devices, and even gaming consoles Software and development tools Proprietary Open-source

In short, the virtual world seems to be a much more collaborative atmosphere these days, which is undoubtedly a good thing. However, keeping up with the new trends can be very overwhelming, especially when you’re trying to determine where your company or organization fits into the spectrum.

A good place to start is with a simple paradigm shift. In the cloud, don’t think Company | Customer | Competition | Transaction. Think online business community.

First of all, what am I talking about by an online business community? I’m going to take business out of it for a minute and just talk about online communities. Now there are about as many definitions for online communities as you have time to sit around and google. But here are some criteria of a successful online community:

• It exists online (obviously).
• It pertains to a common topic/interest.
• There is wide-spread participation and interaction.
• Participation is mutually beneficial for all users involved.

If you’re reading this, it’s very likely you’re already a member of some of the net’s most prominent online communities, like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn or maybe you go to sites for political news and comment on articles and interact with other members. Or you like guns, or scrapbooking, or photography – whatever your fancy, there’s an online community for you.

So you get the idea, but what could this possibly have to do with your business?

Well it’s nice to be friendly and collaborative, but business is business. And online business communities are about growing your business.

It’s all about advertising’s good friends, reach and frequency. Reach – the number of people that get your message, and frequency – the number of times they get your message. The idea of building your online business community is to keep users coming back to the site, i.e. build loyalty, and to also gain new users, i.e. potential clients.

So keeping in mind the criteria of an online community, how might you start to build an online business community? Here are some suggestions:

• Create a variety of user-centered content that changes frequently, pertaining to a  topic or a family of topics such as:
  • Examples of client work
  • Informative articles
  • Announcements
  • Videos
  • Podcasts
  • Links to external resources

• Enable interactive components such as:
  • Posts that allow users to comment/share
  • Forum boards
  • Allowing users to post content

• And finally, promote the heck out of your content in one or (preferably) more of the following ways:
  • Using social networking sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, Linked-In, etc.
  • With your e-blast or online newsletter
  • By promoting your site’s RSS feed
    
  • Being a part of other online communities
  • In your printed materials

To sum it all up, think about why people go online nowadays – for information, entertainment, or to see and be seen – and design your site with the user in mind, moving toward the goal of making it the central resource for all things pertaining to your topic.  By designing your online business community to be a one-stop-shop, you’ll ensure that your users keep coming back, refer new users, and hopefully, well…shop.

© 2010 Level Up

Hope this article was informative – please visit my site and drop a line to let me know what else you would like me to blog about. -- Julie