What you don’t hear much about is a category of industrial strength online community providers who have actually been improving workforce productivity, increasing customer satisfaction, and developing market share though the use of enterprise class online communities for years.
Names like Your Membership (www.yourmembership.com), Ramius (www.ramius.net), My Neighborhood America (http://www.neighborhoodamerica.com/), Hive Live (http://www.hivelive.com/), Igloo (http://www.igloosoftware.com/), and Mzinga (http://www.mzinga.com/en/home/) have typically not made the headlines but represent vendors who have shown online communities can play a significant role in today’s business environment.
In practice today, these enterprise class online communities are being harnessed by many companies to consolidate and communicate best practices as well as centralize access to standardized processes. They are also used to foster innovation through collaboration and knowledge sharing. In addition, companies are using online communities to identify and connect to organizational expertise.
Online communities deployed today are helping companies improve customer satisfaction and increase market presence by offering 24/7 customer support programs that utilize interactive forums, blogs and customer wikis. In addition, companies are building constituent loyalty by implementing affinity communities focused on specific product lines or services. Another very effective use of online communities is supporting suppliers and partners by sharing best practices and information.
So the value of online communities is already proven; it is just a question of how you get there. The bad news is these enterprise wide initiatives typically demand much planning and large budgets. The good news is they can provide strategic advantage and significant cost reductions.
Having put online communities in context, I would like to get back to Facebook, Myspace, Plaxo, LinkedIn, and Twitter but first let’s take a slight detour and look at a middle tier of online community offerings. These are companies like Socialcast (http://www.socialcast.com/), Social Text (http://www.socialtext.net/), rSitez (http://www.rsitez.com/index.html), Kick Apps (http://www.kickapps.com), and Wetpaint (http://www.wetpaint.com/).
These companies represent a more tactical and usually lower cost online community option typically priced on a per user basis with rich but somewhat limited functionality. These are probably good choices for tactical or smaller scale initiatives.
But let’s bring things back full circle by looking at where enterprise class online communities from the likes of Ford motors, Volkswagen, and Tropicana are springing up. You guessed it Facebook and Tweeter. Why, you ask? Because Facebook and Twitter are effective and economical ways to reach an audience of 250,000,000 potential customers.
In summary, if you are looking for highly customized enterprise class strategic online communities, our first group of vendors is what you are looking for. Successful online communities here can provide significant strategic value. If, on the other hand, you are funded or missioned to develop an online community that is smaller in scale, our middle tier of vendors may be the right solution. And finally, if you are just looking to meet the masses where they live, Facebook and Twitter are a good choice.
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