More interaction sounds nice, but what’s it really worth to your business?
This case study, presented at LavaCon 2014, shows how TechTarget leverages user-generated content to meet business goals and increase traffic, registrations and leads while also providing an improved user experience across 80 sites. In addition to exploring specific tactics, this presentation also covers strategies for wrangling development resources and getting the buy-in of the employees who make it all work.
Building Business Value From Community Participation
1. From Comments to Content:
Building Real Value from
Community Participation
A case study romantic comedy
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Ben Rubenstein
2. The plot
A B2B tech media company has been unlucky with
commenting integration in the past
A new way of thinking could create a real
relationship, but…
Can resource and workflow challenges be overcome
so everyone can find community love, actually?
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3. The cast
Community Team
Editorial
Development C-Suite
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4. Once upon a time…there was lonely content
Pre-2011: No comment function on editorial content.
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5. Once upon a time…there was lonely content
“Our users don’t
care about that.”
OR
“They can go over
to the community
for that.”
(<10% crossover b/w
editorial and
community sites)
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7. The dating circuit
Anonymous
comments
Difficult to interact
Minimal moderation
Limited value
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8. The dating circuit
Disqus
Improved ease
of use
No integration
No registration
value
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9. The dating circuit
Fly-in polls
Closed questions
only
Responses
combined with
general comments
Quantity>quality
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10. The dating circuit
Trying to track down a comment or moderate a
thread? Good luck…
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11. The challenge: A real relationship
Create a positive
experience for users
Make it easy for all
involved to manage
and interact
Make comments
useful and valuable
for the entire
business
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12. What is love?
Better understanding of
target audience
Audience engagement
with brand/employees
Traffic increase
Content production
increase
Membership increase
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13. The meet-cute: Stumbling into a solution
Comment
‘repository’ driven
by existing
community site
Interaction points
support content
through links
Editors and
contributors
incentivized to
participate
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14. Getting to know you…
Users create a community profile/username to
interact
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15. Getting to know you…
All content gets automatically generated discussion
page w/ synced comments
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16. Getting to know you…
Editorially created discussion questions create
second entrance point, interaction opportunity
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17. Getting to know you…
Automated comment notifications to authors, editors
+ commenters
Tag-based activity emails to subscribers
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18. Getting to know you…
Moderation via community back-end (WordPress)
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19. Getting to know you…
Content/discussions/users showcased on community
site
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20. Friends with benefits
Expected increases in:
Inbound links/search
visibility
Site registrations
Return traffic
Visibility for
contributors/editors
Interaction among
community and site
members
Data for editorial content,
marketing campaigns,
sales conversations
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21. Will it work out?
How will we mesh
separate systems
and teams?
Who handles tagging
and content updates?
Where does this fit in
the editorial
workflow?
Will users get it?
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22. Circle of friends (and frenemies)
Internal user
feedback identifies:
Early adopters,
supporters,
skeptics
Potential workflow
issues
Topic-based
challenges
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23. Meet the parents
Making the case for
development
resources:
What’s the goal?
What’s the
business benefit?
What’s the
alternative?
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25. Consummation
All my hard work
has paid
off…we’re getting
a new
commenting
system!!
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26. It gets complicated
Success means everyone participates
Create discussion questions
Monitor and respond to comments
Make user interaction a priority
Wait, this
isn’t just
going to
be easy?
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29. The grand overture
3 rules for successful communication:
Speak the language
Keep it simple (and positive)
Know what you’re asking for
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30. The grand overture
“Beautiful Aurelia, I’ve come here with a view of asking
you to marriage me. I know I seems an insane person,
because I hardly knows you, but sometimes things are so
transparency, they don’t need evidential proof. And I will
inhabit here, or you can inhabit with me in England. Of
course I don’t expecting you to be as foolish as me, and of
course I prediction you say ‘no’… but it’s Christmas and I
just wanted to check.”
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31. Our strategy
Meet face-to-face with
everyone impacted
Broadcast success
stories and highlight
early adopters
Stay visible with
regular communication
Do the gruntwork to
prove out value
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33. Communication efforts
Infographic, emails,
meetings
Examples of success
stories
Communicate to
contributors
Communicate to sales
(vendor relationships)
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35. Making it official
Discussion questions
part of the editorial
workflow (300+ created
each month)
All editors (and many
contributors) have
profiles
Community
registrations tracked
Daily notifications sent
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37. The numbers are in…
6000 comments/responses over first 10 months
(12K over previous 3 years)
4000+ new-to-network registrations
20% CTR on comment notifications
Community participants view 3 times as many
pages, stay 5 times as long on sites as average
visitor
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38. ‘Til death do us part…
‘Honey do’ list:
Testing/feature
optimization
Full integration of
community into network
– profiles, pages,
experience
Continued workflow
discussions
Increased community
content/moderation
Full integration, tracking
and communication of
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39. Lasting impact
Changed the
internal perception
about community
and content lifecycle
Entered new
editorial, sales +
marketing
conversations
Set the stage for
increased
resources, new
roles
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