Online Communities - What does it take to make them succeed?

The chatter started when Beeline Labs, Deloitte and the Society fo New Communications Research published their study 'The  2008 Tribalization of Business' . The study examined more than 100 business with online communities and was published in the Wall St Journal.

The study found that a 'disturbingly high number of these sites fail' and that Thirty-five percent of the online communities studied have less than 100 members; less than 25% have more than 1,000 members - despite the fact that close to 6% of these businesses have spent over $1 million on their community projects.

The study highlighted that the largest obstacle to making a community work are not technology related or getting funding but getting people involved in the community (51%) finding enough time to manage the community (45%) and attracting people to the community (34%).

Some of the key Tips for a Successful Online Community included:

• Keep your community simple and intuitive - complicated tech tools will hinder your community

• Have dynamic leaders

• Be clear about the purpose for the site

• Keep it fresh and active - include new content and new topics

• Get core passionate participants before you launch and

• FOCUS ON THE VALUE TO THE MEMBERS

The final point is one of the most critical.  The old WIFM - whats in it for me is very relevant for online communities when we live in a time-poor society with competing demands.

An Australian community that perhaps missed the 'value to members' takeout was the recently launched A Pampered Life 

With life getting busier and time pressures increasing every day, Naprogesic ( a period pain drug) is giving women the opportunity to take some well deserved time out for themselves with the launch of A Pampered Life - the first Australian online branded community for women.

Not only did community cop flak for the way it was launched (a generic email out to top Australian female bloggers) but it lacked one of the critical elements of a successful community - the WIFM factor.   While other Australian online communities such as Huggies have a good 'talkability' factor the Naprogesic  does not. I am not sure women want to chat endlessly about their menstrual cycle.

The Naprogesic site has information about period pain, the related drug and a period planner (calendar) but it also has sub-sections on subjects such as travel and fashion that are not unique. In fact if I was interested in those areas I would go to Vogue forums or to the Lonely Planet forum - so once again what value are those sub-sites actually adding?

Was the Naprogesic site a missed opportunity? could it have been executed better? I don't think so - some subjects and products simply don't have the 'talkability' factor and brands need to recognise that.

So is it all doom and gloom? no.  Online communities can produce a wealth of consumer insights, innovation, word of mouth and help with your organic seo strategy but they must be well executed, have a high talkability factor and put the community rather than the company at the centre.