You have incorporated community objectives into your company’s plan, designed the community to foster member ownership and finally launched your very own community – so now what?

Well, that’s a great start; however you are not at the finish line yet. After the preliminary push to launch the community is complete, you must then shift your focus to a continuous effort to drive adoption.  This is a three-step process, which includes:

• Driving traffic to the site
• Encouraging engagement
• Enabling members to become evangelists for the community

Read the entire post on the Telligent blog.

The first to market, the first one with the answer, or the first one to accomplish a goal are all things that people aspire to be. Finding people who are eager to be the first one to arrive at a meeting, the first one to try someone’s newest food dish, or the first one to express an opinion in a community they do not own is far more rare.

It takes effort to be first in a community – no real culture has visibly been established, so you have to think hard about the appropriate way to contribute. It takes risk – there is no assurance that what you are contributing is on point, whether others will respond in a manner that is personally damaging to your reputation, or whether there will even be any return (a good conversation, increased reputation, a sign of gratitude, etc.) on your investment of time. So why be first?

Read the entire post on the Telligent blog.

How does peer support and social identity relate to building a community? These two elements are what researchers believe are likely motivations for continued community participation among users. While gathering information is often a key driver for initially getting members to a community, this is not what will keep them coming back and becoming active participants. When launching a successful community, companies need to act more like facilitators than as dictatorial owners. Listen to what the users like and want, then play the facilitating role as they build and grow the community.

So now, let’s talk objectives. With any new venture, whether it is starting a new social media network to try to become the next start-up sensation or something as simple as creating a new app for the iPhone – you have to have an objective.

Read the entire post on the Telligent blog.

Building a world class community requires that you plan for the user’s second visit. Users will come the first time to have a specific information need met. They will come back a second and subsequent time if they can engage in community activities.

When companies are launching communities, they need to think beyond the initial visit and think about how they can ensure that users come back again. They need to figure out how they can allow visitors to see that there are other people that they can engage with around their common interest and that there are people with whom relationships can be formed with over subsequent visits. All communities, even those with a primary business objective of providing customer support, should have the same goal of repeat visits – even when everything related to the product or service is fine.

Read the entire post on the Telligent blog.

How do you define success? Depending on who you ask that question to, success may have a different meaning. If you ask a bakery magazine publisher, the response may be that success is measured by the number of subscriptions. If you ask the museum curator, their success may be measured by the number of visitors that enter their doors each day.  Truthfully, it’s different for every person, every company and every industry.

However, when it comes to building world class communities, success is more than just a goal for the number of members you would like to see in the community or the number of page views you would like to get.

Read the entire post on the Telligent blog.

Business objectives are a key aspect to any company. Therefore, it is important to keep in mind that business objectives for a community must be established at a strategic level within the organization. The more aligned your community’s business objectives are to the company’s overall objectives and value proposition, the greater the potential for benefit and return.

Now you may be thinking to yourself, how exactly can your company identify powerful business objectives for the community? A focus on a few essential questions is helpful:

• How can online community support your company’s differentiators?
• What are the top strategic objectives of the senior leadership in your company?
• What are the company’s core values?