Online Communities : 3 Engagement Models

1. Online Communities: 3 Engagement Models • Professional Collaboration • Goal: Helping professionals solve longer-term issues that involve your products/services. • Methods: Forums, private groups, Participation in studies/polls; articles; educational webinars, resource centers. • Typical community hosts: Firms whose customers/partners/employees need to share information to thrive (e.g. business services, consulting, medical, legal, manufacturing, complex software). • Shop Talk • Goal: Helping prospective and current customers, partners, developers troubleshoot transactional problems with your products/services. • Methods: Discussion forums, documentation, training videos, crowd-sourced ideation, project enhancement requests. • Typical community hosts: Product companies and their distribution partners whose users help each other resolve technical questions. • Information Dissemination • Goal: Keeping audiences informed on your products/services and how to use them. • Methods: Company-written blogs with comments; using Twitter and other social media tools to share information. • Typical community hosts: Regulated industries, topics where engagement is likely to be controlled. Consumer goods where knowledge-exchange is unlikely to occur.