Comments on: Online communities need management buy-in

By: An open letter to companies planning to build an online community | Community Building

Fri, 30 Apr 2010 15:54:28 +0000

[...] you build an online community, make sure you have complete management buy-in. It’s no good going into such an important project if there are still hold-outs in your [...]

By: Christina

Christina — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 22:47:42 +0000

Educating management that online communities take time will be the biggest hurdle to overcome. Management will want to see profit from any employee and the profit you bring will be more difficult to measure.

By: Paul

Paul — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 17:10:08 +0000

Although money is very helpful, you still have a big battle ahead of you when starting an online community.

By: How to build a new online community | Community Building

How to build a new online community | Community Building — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 18:35:37 +0000

[...] yourself (and your company, if applicable) a lot of questions before going any [...]

By: Lisa Scales

Lisa Scales — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 21:19:15 +0000

I agree – Communities need buy-in at the right level – I have experience of complete community buy in at board level and then none the next level down and it goes no where – the only people who can change this are the board so you have to be prepared to be honest and pretty forthright if you are not hearing positivity from middle-senior management.

By: Shawn

Shawn — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 13:13:23 +0000

Call it poaching, but if you have competition and their users are not very happy with some things (lack of response from community leaders), don’t have the features that they want, etc I will post along with them and include a link in my signature, profile, or whatever. Sometimes I’ll mention that another community that I’m on offers what they’re looking for and a lot of the times people will ask what the site is. Sure, people may like the grocery store across the street, but if it doesn’t stock the products they want or it closes too early, they’ll drive a couple of miles for another one.

By: Shawn

Shawn — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 15:47:33 +0000

It may take long time to build a community, but once done they are strong back up!!

By: Ash

Ash — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 15:05:41 +0000

It does take a lot of time to build an online community, you’re right about that. I like your focus on getting the trust from management too, very hard thing to do. Its hard to see how an online community can benefit at first… its something you have to adjust people to.

By: Robert Brown

Robert Brown — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 07:18:31 +0000

Hi Martin,

If you launch your online community before it is ready, you will most definitely fail. Your community needs to be built on loyalty and trust, and needs to be well thought out before starting.

Thanks for all the tips and points.

By: Jean-Paul

Jean-Paul — Fri, 29 May 2009 16:35:36 +0000

Great article Martin,

Build a solid online community takes time and it requires persistence and patience.

As community manager, I need to focus on my relationship with customers, prospects and provide information to stakeholders. More, I need to have clear goals with clear metrics to be able to show how the communities impact the company’s activity.

Regards
JP