With community members available at your fingertips 24/7 (and a portion of your budget dedicated to a MROC), it can be tempting to want to launch as many topics relevant to internal customers as possible.  However, it's critical to balance moderated activities each day/week between topics relevant to your organization and topics relevant to the community members.

This may sound like a fairly obvious tip, but the temptation can be strong.  The risk is higher attrition rates among members, who become frustrated with the lack of attention to their needs and eventually leave.  

We recommend trying to keep a 2:1 ratio of company-relevant to member-relevant topics in order to ensure there is sustained interest from community members.  Otherwise, you'll end up spending more money and time constantly recruiting new members due to high attrition rates.

Just another tip from your friends at PluggedIN.  If you'd like more, check out our paper on "10 Tips for Creating Successful Online Research Communities."  Happy MROC'ing :-)

I recently came across an online community for online community professionals called "Commania" and just had to share what they did for their profile pages with readers of this blog...  

When you click to sign-up for the community, the default avatar is one scary looking hybrid human-pig-mouse thing.  If you don't change it, you're stuck as the "pig guy" for the rest of your time in the community.  I think this is a brilliant little trick.  Granted, it's a little extreme, but it helps address a real challenge in online communities - getting people to take that initial step in customizing and sharing something personal.  If you can get your members to upload a custom profile picture, fill out a bio and at least introduce themselves to the community, you're going to have much better odds of keeping them around (provided, of course, you don't drop the ball as a moderator after that).   

Compare this to the current default avatar we use for the PluggedIN Platform...  Still annoying to have as a default, but downright benign compared to the "pig guy."  A better approach might be choosing to use your company's logo as the default avatar, or perhaps use a simple text message to indicate the profile picture needs to be change.  Nonetheless, I like the "creative" approach of the "pig guy" if you can get away with it :-)

-- Matt 

At some point during a pitch there is always the inevitable question - how much does it cost?  When designing an approach to a market research online community (MROC), a few key variables play the greatest role in deciding the ultimate price of the initiative, including:

• Community Size - As you can imagine, the more members in your community, the higher the price, as the costs for incentives, recruiting and overall community management scale with the number of members.  Building smaller research communities can help keep your costs down, while offering a number of advantages over larger communities.
  
• Length of Time - Running a MROC over many months (or years) is going to be more expensive, although the average monthly cost tends to decrease over time due to certain economies that result as the community progresses.
• Activity Level - Some research communities are highly active (e.g., daily research-related activities), while others tend to be moderately active (e.g., weekly or bi-weekly research activities).  As you can imagine, the costs for incentives, community management, moderation and reporting will scale accordingly.
• Sample Source - Recruiting from client-provided sample will result in significant savings over purchased sample, as will using an online recruiting method over phone-based recruiting. 
  
• Frequency and Type of Reporting - Last, but definitely not least, are the reporting requirements for a MROC.  Weekly memo community reports can be less expensive than a comprehensive summary report, although they may lack some detail. 
  

As you can imagine, the actual amounts for each of these categories will vary by the vendor, objectives of the community, etc...  However, I hope this provides you with a starting point for the variables to consider when outlining a MROC approach for your organization.

--Matt

eMarketer recently posted an article citing findings from a study about why people go online.  To check out the article, click on the link below:

Why people go online

The reason I'm posting this is because it has implications for anyone running a market research online community (or really any online community for that matter...).  The way a moderator or community manager structures activities should try to appease as many of these motivations for going online as possible.  Here are some examples as it relates to MROCs:

• 92% go online to "connect with others" - The community environment is a natural place for this to happen...  Consider creating a specific part of your discussion forums for a "water cooler," where members can connect with each other on any topics they want to talk about.  
• 96% go online for education - To appeal to this motivation, try pulling in RSS feeds or posting relevant content from blogs/twitter that will help the audience learn more about the given topic. 
  
• 82% go online to "be entertained" - While MROCs tend to have a focus on a given research objective, there is no reason why you can't make the experience entertaining for participants.  For example, start a discussion asking people to post their favorite YouTube videos.  That will get members talking and keep them entertained, far beyond the research activities.

Of course, these are just a few of the ways to appeal to the motivations for people going online while moderating an online community.  There are ways to appeal to almost all of the motivations on the list using online communities if you're willing to be a little creative...  

- Matt 

Let's imagine you're walking down the street in a fairly busy neighborhood full of restaurants (Boston's North End comes to mind first for me, but you pick the location...).  All of the restaurants look to be fairly decent, so you start to look for differences in other ways.  If you're anything like me (and most people), you'll probably avoid the empty restaurant assuming the lack of patrons is a statement on the quality of the food...

The "empty restaurant syndrome" is pervasive, especially in online communities.  To avoid this, it's important to have a critical mass of seed content prior to launching any online community.  This is especially the case in market research online communities, since they are slightly less conventional than traditional online communities.  Don't worry if it's just "filler" activity at first - it just has to be something to get people talking to each other.  Depending on who you talk to, the rule of thumb is anywhere from 4-5 posts per high-level forum topic area, but will vary based on your community size and audience.

We also recommend a "soft launch" for most MROCs, whereby you invite a handful of members first and then slowly roll it out to your entire group of recruited participants.  That way the late arrivals will feel like there is something of an established group once they arrive. 

These are just two tips for anyone planning to launch their own MROCs on the PluggedIN Platform.  Think of these ideas as this "virtual" way to avoid the empty restaurant syndrome.  Anyone have other tips to share?  Comments are open!   

I had a bit of an epiphany the other day (well, maybe not an "epiphany" - more like a random thought)...  I think I'm an online community moderator's nightmare.  Here's why.

I'm the type of person who is trolling any one of ten or so different communities or social networks at any given time.  I might be checking in on Digg.com, watching the latest tweets roll in on Twitter from my iPhone, reading through various group discussions on LinkedIN, looking at friend updates on Facebook, checking out my blog feeds through Bloglines and just generally checking-in on a variety of "niche" type networks I'm also a part of (e.g., various marketing forums, market research communities, etc...).  That doesn't even start to include any of the time I spend checking in on PluggedIN communities!

Here's the kicker though - I almost never contribute content or even actively participate in these public communities/social networks (even though I might spend a couple hours a day lurking).  I still feel part of a community (especially on sites like Digg), but I'm really not much of a contributing member.  In fact, as a moderator I'd be pretty disappointed if I had to have me as a member of one of our research communities :-)

Why don't I participate?

It made me think about why I'm like that, and how I could convince someone like myself to get off the fence and start joining the conversation, particularly in the online research communities we moderate.  

As for the why, I really think it comes down to a limited attention span and time available to find content that is really important.  I try really hard to balance work and life, and allowing for time to participate in all of the communities I watch is a luxury I don't always have.  Which leads me to the question...

How would I convince someone like me to participate?

I think there are a few ways a community or community moderator could get someone like me to quit lurking and start participating...

• Personalization and attention - I like sites that I can customize or subscribe to the content I want to see.  I need to find the content I'm looking for, quickly...
• Knowledge of who is in charge - I like sites where you know who is in charge on some personal level.  Even with Digg, you at least know some of the Digg team and can get to know them a bit (e.g., by following Kevin Rose on Twitter).  That makes me want to feel part of that community...
• New content - I need to see sites that are updated frequently, though not too much so.  Posting at least something new each day will generally get me coming back for more...
  
• Usability - Busy sites, or sites where it takes me more than a few steps to find the content I'm looking for, are a big no-no in my book.  In fact, they won't even make the cut of regular sites to troll through (much less participate in) if the usability of the site is poor.  
• A little "something" for my time :) - I'm not suggesting that I'll only participate if I'm given something directly, but a small acknowledgement that my time is valuable and the community appreciates having me as a member (even in my "lurker" capacity) would go a long way to me dropping the trolling habit and actually contributing content.  This could be in the form of inside knowledge only available to members, free products, discounts, etc...
• Feeling exclusive and "in the know" - I really liked Digg way back in the day when it felt like it was a geeky site about technology news.  It has changed quite a bit since then, and I still visit the site religiously.  However, it just doesn't have the same "exclusive" feel as it did back in the day.  The same thing happened with Second Life after it started receiving a ton of press and marketers jumped in the fray.  Sites that make me feel valued and exclusive for being a member are more likely to get my attention and contributions.   

What does this mean in a research community context?

Of course, this makes me think of a few community moderation and management tips for online research communities...

• Mix up discussions with surveys and polls - Polls are easy to participate in and help get lurkers (like myself) to take baby steps into becoming more active.  Put up an interesting poll and follow it up with a discussion around the results.  That's more likely to drive participation in discussions.
• Set reasonable expectations for time requirements - It's unlikely your research community is going to become anyone's homepage when they open their browser.  Set reasonable expectations for how much time people have to participate, and don't overburden them with activities each week.  I'm certainly not unique in having many different communities and social networks I'm a part of, and your research community members are likely to be in the same situation.
• Post personal profiles, pictures and ways of contacting moderators - As I mentioned with Digg and following Kevin Rose on Twitter, any ways that you can reach out and make the moderators seem more "human" will go a long way to building loyalty in a research community (or any online community for that matter).  Make sure you have a profile page with pictures, and try to update it from time-to-time.   

What do you think?

Would a community moderator like to have you as a participant?  How would you get someone to move from a regular lurker to a regular participant?  Comments and ideas are welcome!

--

Matt

Interested in getting the most out of your research community? Think about some of the following:

Make your research wish list

What are the specific issues and topics you will want to explore over the life of the community? In what ways do you want to "understand" your customers better? List these out before you get started.

Set your expectations 

What are you hoping to achieve through your research community? Are you replacing or supplementing other research efforts? What are the tangible measures of success for you? Share these with your vendor and review them over time.

Nominate a community champion

Who at your organization will be responsible for the research community? Who can liaise with your community vendor and your internal teams to make the experience the most rewarding? Responsibility leads to success.

Build a plan

How long do you want your community to last? How are you going to manage the flow of research activities over the life of your community? Does your business cycle require a certain focus on particular research items at specific times throughout the year? A plan is important to sustaining your community over the long haul.

Choose the right vendor 

Are you a DIY or a DIFM client? Who do you want to manage your community and more importantly, can that vendor deliver on what you need? If your focus is research, make sure you are comfortable with the researchers working on your community.

Know your audience 

Is there a natural affinity for your brand or are people more skeptical about you? What special characteristics does your audience possess that will impact the community design and overall facilitation techniques? Different types of people require different approaches to communities... one size does not always fit all.

While we've learned a lot over the years about how to run successful research communities, we've also had our share of mistakes.  However, it's from these mistakes that we've learned some of our best techniques for running research communities... (To learn about some of these techniques, download our "10 Tips for Creating Successful Online Research Communities" paper).

Here are three examples of where we've gone wrong in the past, and what we've learned from our mistakes.  Hopefully they'll help you as you setup or run your own online research community.

Mistake #1 - Trying to do too much, too soon

It's easy to get really excited about all the possible topics a research community can cover in the planning stages.  In the past, we would sit down and brainstorm every possible topic and try to figure out how we could cram that into a facilitation plan that made sense. 

Since then we've learned that it's best to pace out the activities over the life of the community for two reasons:

• It is more mindful of the member experience - While participants are generally compensated for their time and are usually very willing to share their opinions, there is a certain point of no return.  Overwhelm them early on with too many activities and they won't come back.
• It acknowledges the role of "organically" building out the facilitation plan - We've learned that it makes more sense to start with a few guided topics/areas of interest to the client, and then let them build into detailed discussions over time.  It's impossible to anticipate everything members want to talk about.  Once you realize and accept that as part of your planning, you're on your way to a more authentic and in-depth discussion with participants.   
  

Mistake #2 - Combining segments that don't fit

We've made this mistake on a few occasions now...  There is often the temptation to combine segments during the community design phase since it saves money and is generally more efficient to moderate and manage.  However, it's wise to carefully consider the topics you intend to cover with each and whether or not the segments belong together.  I've covered this before in my post on "Should I combine segments in a single research community?"

If you have a primary segment of interest, we recommend starting there first and then thinking about the segments you can cover otherwise.  If budget is a concern, perhaps using an already-established shared research community would be a better option to cost effectively run ongoing research with your secondary segments. 

Mistake #3 - Not varying activities

This is an easy mistake to identify, but a hard one to overcome...  We've made the mistake before of just running discussions, since research communities are ideal for ongoing qualitative feedback.  Over time, this impacted attrition rates in some of our larger ongoing communities. 

Since then we've learned that it's wise to vary up activities with a short survey or multimedia exercise from time-to-time, just so the experience doesn't become boring for participants.  This seems like a fairly obvious recommendation, but it's one that can be tricky to plan for.

Care to share?

Have any "lessons learned" from mistakes you've made with research communities?  Comments are welcome!

While members of a typical research community are likely to have a fair number of positive things to say about a brand, product or service, they are also very likely to share their negative feedback and "constructive" criticisms.  After all, the relatively anonymous nature of the internet puts brutally honest opinions literally a few clicks away from the public. 

This isn't something to be avoided in a research community; in fact, it's often from the negative comments that community managers and moderators are able to create the most valuable research activities focused around ways companies can overcome these criticisms.

From researcher to client service representative

However, one thing we've noticed when moderating research communities is that there is a tendency among many community stakeholders to jump into the role of customer service rep once they hear the slightest mention of a negative customer experience from a community member.  I've seen this happen in the backroom of many focus groups, although it's especially prevalent in online qualitative research where the feedback is highly visible to multiple stakeholders.  While the motive to solve the customer's problem right away is noble, it can have a few potential negative impacts on a research community, including:

• It changes the dynamic of the moderator to community member relationship - When a community manager or moderator is forced to jump to the role of customer service representative, it can change the way community members view the community and moderators/researchers.  Over time, they may see their role evolve from the "trusted advisor to the company" they were told they would be initially, into a role mirroring a more "conventional" online community or ratings/review site.
• It can lead to an over-emphasis on the negative - If community members notice that negative feedback is given special treatment or somehow called out differently, it can reinforce those behaviors in a way that isn't necessarily authentic to the way they would otherwise participate.
  
• It can seem "defensive" on the part of the sponsoring company - It's important not to be viewed as a company that bristles at negative feedback.  Members want to know they can be honest without hurting anyone's feelings (after all, that's part of the reason the "independent" moderators are there).
• It reduces the anonymity of members - If the situation calls for following-up with a member by email or a private message (as it often does), it can make members feel "singled out" or "watched," and lead them to feel their feedback might be misused.  Given the mandate for market researchers to protect the personally identifiable information of research participants, this can lead to an ethical dilemma on the part of the researcher.

What's the takeaway?

If you can, resist the urge to jump in and resolve every customer issue that is mentioned in a research community.  Instead, focus on ways that these criticisms can generate positive conversations around improvement.  It will help maintain a positive and proper researcher-to-participant relationship, while potentially generating valuable new ideas.

Companies often have a number of target segments they are hoping to learn more about using online research communities. As you can imagine, however, the cost and time involved with studying each segment in their own private research community can add up quickly. Inevitably, we are asked the question as to whether or not we can combine segments in a single research community to save a bit on the budget.

While the answer is ultimately “yes it can be done,” it’s a question worth seriously pondering first. It’s an important consideration, since it can be difficult (and expensive) to undo an upfront community design decision once you’ve started to proceed down one path.

There are many benefits and drawbacks to consider, as well as questions to ask yourself before combining segments. Read on for a list of some of these benefits, drawbacks, examples and questions, as well as our recommendations and “best practices” when combining segments.

Benefits of Combining Segments in a Single Research Community

Let’s start with the benefits of combining segments… Some of the benefits include:

• Cost savings - Combining segments saves money by allocating setup, design, moderation, analysis and reporting to a single community, rather than spreading these costs across communities. While it isn’t double the cost to create separate communities (as there are always economies of scale), it can save considerable amounts of money over time.
• Time savings - Along with cost savings, there are savings in time as moderators and client observers don’t need to spend time visiting each research community individually to view the research activities. While a single project dashboard helps with that, multiple communities still require time digging into each community.
• Diversity of opinions & ideas - Often times there are valuable insights and ideas that can be gleaned by combining people of different backgrounds in a single discussion and letting them speak openly about a topic. Think of it as a small-scale “Wisdom of Crowds” effect.

Drawbacks of Combining Segments in a Single Research Community

As with anything in life, there are always the drawbacks… Here are a few of the potential drawbacks of combining segments:

• Lack of shared background/focus - With multiple segments in a single research community, it can be more difficult to build a strong shared background/focus for members to bond around, particularly if each audience comes from widely divergent backgrounds.
• Alienation of one audience - It requires much more planning to ensure that the activities are balanced across each audience, ensuring that one audience does not feel left out from some (or all) of the activities.
• Moderation and community management - While combining segments eliminates the need to moderate and manage multiple communities, it still can be difficult to try and analyze responses from different segments on a per-activity basis. While we have capabilities in our research community platform that help us with this analysis, it still can require quite a bit of additional analysis that would not be required with individual communities.

“Good” and “Bad” Examples of Combining Segments

Here are just a couple of examples (among others) where it’s likely “safe” to combine segments in a single research community:

• Brand advisory research communities - Let’s imagine you want to setup a single branded research community that is designed as a private online community for current customers to discuss future products and services. In this case it would probably be fine to combine segments since they all share the common bond of being customers of your brand. The expectation would be that there are multiple types of customers in the community, which can be clearly explained in the community recruiting process.
• Shared product ownership (different versions) - It would be safe to combine segments of people who are using different versions of a single product, since they have the common bond of product ownership. It’s easier to separate them once they are in the community based on the version they own. We did this for T-Mobile when we developed a single research community for multiple variations of their Sidekick device.

Here are a couple of examples (among others) where it might be best to separate segments into individual communities:

• Segments with a wide age disparity - For example, combining Millennials and Boomers in the same community will work in some situations, but you’ll have to be careful. Large age disparities can make it difficult for members to find common bonds.
• Segments where one audience relies too heavily on another - An example of this would be patients and doctors. That would be a bit of a challenge to manage (and a potentially big legal headache), given that patients would likely be seeking out advice from doctors.

Question to Ask Before Combining Segments in a Research Community

Would I combine them normally? One question we like to ask companies who are considering combining segments in a single research community is whether or not they would combine these segments in a traditional focus group. If the answer is no (and you have clear reasons for why you usually separate these segments), then it’s highly likely you will want to consider separate communities.

Do I have the right tools to manage the analysis and reporting? Analysis and reporting on multiple segments in a single research community can get tricky if you don’t have the right tools to help you. Carefully consider your choice of a community platform before splitting or combining segments. For example, the PluggedIN Research Community Platform has “user list” capabilities that allow our moderators to carefully manage activities launched in the community. An “off the shelf” platform that is designed for other types of online communities may not have these capabilities.

Am I comfortable with user-generated content? In a research community there can be a lot of “across the table” discussion that can lead to positive and negative comments about your brand. You’ll need to be comfortable with people of all backgrounds sharing their positive and negative feedback, since you don’t want to artificially inhibit or sway their opinions. If you have serious concerns about what could happen if one segment negatively influenced another, then consider separating each segment into different communities.

PluggedIN’s Recommendations

If you have the budget, then we usually recommend separating segments in their own research community, particularly if that is what you would do in other research methodologies (e.g., focus group research).

However, if you’re going to combine segments in a single research community (after weighing the benefits and drawbacks carefully), here are a few “best practices” to consider:

• Transparency - Be as transparent as possible with members throughout the recruiting phase that they are joining a community with people from a wide variety of backgrounds.
• Diverse Activities - Try to mix up the research activities and content posted to the site so that one segment isn’t feeling “left out” at any given moment.
• Sub-Groups - Consider creating groups within the larger community for people of similar backgrounds to congregate and discuss topics independent of your research objectives.

There are also alternatives available, depending on the vendor you choose. For example, you may consider developing a research community with a key target audience, while using an omnibus research community (like PluggedIN Nation) to cost effectively gather feedback from other segments.

What do you think?

This post is designed as a starting point when thinking about combining segments in a research community (or really any type of online community for that matter). There are usually small nuances that might influence the recommendation to combine or separate segments, which we would be happy to discuss further given the chance. What do you think? Are we on target here? Are we missing any benefits/drawbacks based on your experience? Comments are welcome (and appreciated)!