1 Year of Community

Why Online Community on Food Network?– To enhance the foodnetwork.ca

experience– To provide a sense of ownership for

our users– To provide a place to be heard and a

place to communicate with fellow foodies

What’s an Online Community?A way of allowing users to engage

with one another and with an organization through use of interactive tools

Building an Online Community does not require “membership”

What is membership?A way to authenticate yourself on a

website by providing credentials such as a username, password and an email address. Alternatively, authentication can also take place via third party services such as facebook, twitter and openID

Why use membership on Food Network?– To provide exclusive functionality,

such as recipe saving– To allow users to easily share content

with Food Network (photo uploading)– To provide a environment to

communicate (forums and private messaging)

November

2009

December

2009

January

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MayJune July

August

Septem

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October

November

0

10000

20000

30000

40000

50000

60000

Foodnetwork.ca Members

Membership

November 23, 2010: Reached

50,000 Members!

September 2, 2010: Launched iPhone app, with

Membership

Blogs: We’ve actually been building an Online Community for 4 years!

October, 2007Bazaar Launches! Focusing on products, shopping, restaurants, markets and more

July, 2008Eating Well Launches! In response to a growing need to focus on fresh and local, we launched a new blog & site

November, 2006Food for Thought Launches! Food Network Canada’s 1st Blog

We’ve grown a dedicated group of readers, commenters and contributors

Blogs: We’ve actually been building an Online Community for 4 years!

November, 2009New Food Network site launches and blogs get a consistent look & feel and better categorization

Blogs: Then and Now

November 20, 2006First ever blog post!Audio interview with Nigella Lawson

November 20, 2010Nigella is back!Exclusive demo video and interview with foodnetwork.ca

Blogs: How Blog Content Benefits from the Online Community

Editorializing User-Generated Content connects community members to the Blog

Showcasing our talented members! Focusing on relevant conversations

Getting member

questions

answered

My Recipes: Syncing Between Web & Mobile

November, 2009 Users now able to save recipes on foodnetwork.ca

September, 2010 Ability to save recipes now available on iPhone with or without membership. Members can sync their saved list from the web to their phone

Food Network Members like to chat in

our Live Blog events

• Live Blogging tool launched in October

• All 4 events to date have had host involvement: Corbin and Anthea from Dinner Party Wars, David Adjey from The Opener, Bal Anerson from Spice Goddess, Roger Mooking from Everyday Exotic

200+Posts Per Live Blog

30+Participants Per Event

Live Blogs

Food Network Members upload top-notch Photos to the

community!

1600+User-Generated Photos

130+New Photos Per Month

Photos

Food Network Members discuss food,

TV shows, cooking methods and more in

the Forums!

5,800+Forum Threads

7,600+Forums Posts

Forums

Discussions continue on all foodnetwork.ca content via comments on our recipes,

articles, blog posts and photos

15,000+Comments

1,300+Comments per Month

Comments

Community Initiatives

Finding Talented Writers in our Community• More content from coast-to-coast and beyond• Member contributions enhance our roster of freelancers and help us cover more Canadian cities (Halifax, Ottawa, Kingston and Calgary to name a few)

Creating Ambassadors in the Community: The “Hot Pepper” • Rewarding members for contributing to the community – “Hot Peppers” receive a prize pack and a special “Hot Pepper” badge • Creating a sense of ownership and empowerment – members vote for and nominate the most worthy members

Community Initiatives

Making a Real People Connection: Putting a Face on foodnetwork.ca• Every new member is automatically friends with the foodnetwork.ca team – receiving updates from the community: new blog posts, uploads, forum posts, etc. • We create content based on feedback from the community. For example, the Starting from Scratch video series started as an initiative to get people talking about learning how to cook• Our avatars are associated with content we produce, such as blog posts