Gaining Market Intelligence Through Communities

What we will cover today• Introductions

– Blue Coda– National Apartment Association (NAA)

• Keys to creating a successful Social Community

• Building Commons 3 with the NAA

• The importance of a Social Community – NAA

• Q&A

Introductions

• Blue Coda– David Henriquez, Sales & Marketing– Jason Schaffer, Director of Technology– Tim Tufts, Project Manager

• NAA– Mary Scott, Online Resource Manager– Julie Barden, Web Manager

What are the keys to creating an engaged Social Community?

• Build a scalable Social Community platform– Example – Drupal Commons 3.x– Take control of your data

• Increase your community’s social activity– Encourage your users to participate– Engage with influencers/ thought leaders

• Convert community activity– Into sales and marketing opportunities

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How do you use a community platform?

• Here is how:– Step 1: Analyze…and ask:

• What content drives the most activity?• What sales and marketing initiatives engage the most users?

– Step 2: Optimize… and ask:• How can we better promote user content?• What do users want in their experience?

What is community data?• It is not:

– Advertising campaigns– Marketing slogans– Branded messaging– Sales pitches– Marketing emails

• It is:– Users directly interacting with other users

Our first community example:

What Amazon knows…• Users want to hear from other users

– Spotlight reviews (positive, critical)– Allowing video reviews– Linking to the reviewer’s profile– Email campaigns asking for reviews

• How to use data to optimize user experience and promote user content– Review window mouse-over– “167 of 170 users found this review helpful”– Reviewing the reviewer

B2C community revolution

B2B community revolution

Our second community example:

Moz community features we like:• Social integrations• Promoting community members

– Top users– Featured users– Gamification

• Sales and marketing integration– Webinars (Mozinars)– Events– Community promotion

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How can you integrate sales and marketing into your community?

• Funnel leads in and out

• Utilize your marketing content

• Meet your community!

Create a better customer support experience

• FAQs

• Smarter live chat

• Trend analysis

• Social integration

• Internal collaboration

Who are the key players within a community?• Community Managers

– ROLE: Moderates/promote discussion regularly, etc. forum moderator, etc.

– WHO: Employee or community volunteers or both

• Content Curators– ROLE: Create content to drive discussion, etc.– WHO: FTE or community volunteers or both

• Thought Leaders– ROLE: Value add contributing to the community– WHO: Your employees!

How to use Social Communities to gain market intelligence:

1. Build a scalable platform

2. Analyze your data to optimize the user experience

3. Moderate community conversations

4. Regularly create and update content

5. Integrate sales and marketing into your community

Great examples of Social Communities:• Amazon• Moz

• Salesforce – success.salesforce.com• Vimeo• Drupal.org

Another community example:

National Apartment AssociationWho is the NAA?• America’s leading advocate for quality rental housing

• A federation of 170 state and local affiliates, with membership of over 63k representing 6.8 million apartment homes

• Serves multifamily housing owners, managers, developers, and suppliers

• Drupal user since 2013

• Acquia client since 2013

National Apartment Association

The Challenges• Lack of integration between primary NAA website and community

• Confusing user experience

• Inability to cross promote and associate content

• Difficult administrator experience

• Missing some key community features

National Apartment AssociationThe Solution• Built fully integrated community on Drupal Commons 3 platform• Migrated several thousand pieces of content, files, media and community

activity• Integrated key community features such as:

– Featured community announcements– A blog where internal thought leaders create articles, and users can

continue conversation via posted comments– Ability to quick “connect with a member” via a directory of member

profiles– Collaboration space for key documents and files– Topic specific forums– Ability to create small committees for private collaboration

National Apartment AssociationAdditional site notables:• Migrated from primary NAA site from SharePoint 2010

• Migrated 63k member community and content from third-party, SaaS website

• 10 Web sites (and counting) managed from one Drupal install/doc root

• Single signon + multiple pts of integration w/ enterprise CRM called iMIS

• Site-wide content approval workflow

• Dedicated mobile layout

• Hosted and supported by Acquia for true scalability and performance

Another community example:

NAA: From the Community Manager• Importance of a social community

• Community impact on the NAA

• Summary of changes in user activity post launch

• Impact of Drupal Commons on interaction with users and overall site management

• Additional thoughts