Building a Thriving Community Ecosystem: The Five Essential Elements

What is an ecosystem?

In nature, an ecosystem is defined as “a system formed by the interaction of a community of organisms with their environment.” In today’s culture of the Web, an online ecosystem is essentially the same thing – the organic result of the interactions that occur between the members of a community and the environment that they live in. It cannot be defined in and of itself but only as the sum of its thousand moving parts. For brands that exist in today’s culture of the Web, there is no higher echelon of marketing than establishing your own community ecosystem. Why? Well, it’s one thing to interact with your customers and fans in an ecosystem that someone else has built (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, etc.). However, because you didn’t build the ecosystem, you’re limited to one-off interactions that are structured according to the framework defined by the architects of that community (140 characters, anyone?). On the other hand, however, when you’re the one that builds the sandbox, it’s your party. Your website becomes the place where members of your tribe choose to hang out, to debate, to share and to be inspired by their peers – who, incidentally, are other members of your tribe. Most importantly, their identity as a member of this community is inextricably linked to your brand. It’s a marketer’s wildest dream come true. The process of building a thriving ecosystem is no small feat. Here are the five essential elements that you must have if you want to create a real, organic online community that simultaneously exists for and is a product of your tribe:

Earth: The foundation

Before you can build an ecosystem, you have to lay the foundation. But where do you begin? In our series on understanding and marketing to tribes, we established that tribes form around a shared passion for a specific idea, lifestyle or movement. Therefore, for your ecosystem to thrive, there must be a common thread that draws people in and binds them to the community and its members so that they identify themselves as part of your tribe. Your goal is not to build the next Facebook. People don’t need just another broad-based social network where they can set up a profile and post their thoughts. That already exists in any number of places where they already do those things. What people are yearning for is to be among and connect with other people who share their passions. When you build a community around that passion, they’ll come there knowing it’s a place where they can satisfy that need to belong, where they’ll be among others who speak the same language and where they’re free to obsess over something with like-minded people who won’t mind if they talk ad nauseum about that one particular thing that really stokes their fire. So how do you find that common thread? Think about your customers. What do they love? What excites them? What challenges do they face day in and day out? What do they worry about? How can you tap into those things? The answer to those questions is the foundation for your ecosystem. By identifying the common passion that unites your tribe, you can begin to build a community where great interactions will thrive. Even if your brand only ever lives at the periphery of those interactions, that’s okay. Remember, too, that among those who populate your ecosystem there will be individuals who are already your customer, might someday be your customer or may never be your customer, and that’s okay, too. The fact that you exist at the root of all of it will yield greater rewards than you could ever imagine.

Air: Sharing

The ability to interact with other members in meaningful ways is as critical to the life of an ecosystem as the air we breathe; in its absence, the community suffocates. An ecosystem is not a blog with comments. While commenters may well respond to one another on occasion, these interactions are limited in scope to the content to which they are attached. There’s nowhere else for these commenters to go to keep the conversation going or to talk about a different subject entirely. An ecosystem is not a message board where people come to get help or resolve a problem. Once that problem is solved, they move on and never come back; they don’t identify themselves with or feel any lasting ties to the community. An ecosystem is a place where people can share the things matter to them in ways that are meaningful to them. It starts with being able to establish a profile – one that’s more than simply a name and a photo. You need to give people the ability to define who they are in the context of that community and its foundation. Then they need outlets to share their own ideas, photos and videos and to interact with others around that shared content. It’s this level of highly personalized sharing that forges deep, persistent bonds among members of a community. NASCAR driver Ryan Newman’s Fan Club site is built around keeping its members engaged and active by giving them many different ways to share and interact. They can post their own videos, build photo albums, join the conversation on community message boards and even chat with other members in real time. Again, keep in mind that all the sharing that takes place in your ecosystem may have very little to do with your products or services. And that’s exactly what you want because a community that will thrive over the long haul is one that exists to serve its members, not your brand and your business. As long as you’re the one providing the arena where these exchanges are taking place, you’ll benefit immeasurably from constant exposure and engagement.

Water: Leadership

Good tribe leadership is the water that helps a fledgling ecosystem grow and keeps an established ecosystem strong and thriving. The task of providing good leadership is actually more challenging than it may at first seem. In the traditional world of marketing, everything was centered around presenting a carefully cultivated message and never allowing the customer to see any cracks in the perfectly polished veneer of a brand’s image. But that approach doesn’t work in the world of the online ecosystem. You must be comfortable walking among the members of your community and interacting with them on a human level. You must be willing to drop the corporate mask and be authentic. Think of your role as the leader of your community as being the host of a party. It’s not your job to dominate every conversation or to restrict what your friends are and are not allowed to talk about. It is your job to provide good fodder for discussion, to fill in the gaps when you sense a lull in the conversation and to help everyone feel at home and included.

Fire: Rewards

The members of your ecosystem that make the wittiest comments, spark the healthiest debates or share the most interesting content are the ones that keep the community vibrant. So how do you motivate them to keep doing what they do best? In today’s fame-obsessed culture, everyone wants their 15 minutes of notoriety, and everyone wants to feel like a celebrity in their own circles. People are driven by the opportunity to be elevated to a position of higher esteem among their peers. Therefore, if you want to stoke the fires of participation in your ecosystem, recognition is the name of the game. Give the members of your community ways to participate that are all about them, and then reward them for that participation. Distinctions such as “photo of the day” or “most viewed video” reward the creator by putting him or her in the spotlight. Call them out from the crowd, and you'll feed their craving for more recognition. The key to establishing an effective reward system is knowing what motivates the members of your community. For example, because racing fans thrive on competition, the Ryan Newman Fan Club community is built around a points system. Members who start discussions or who post photos and videos can earn points – or votes – from other members that put them in the running for a spot on the fan club’s leaderboard. Points are tallied throughout the racing season, with prizes awarded to the top performer each month as well as the top overall points earner for the season.

Aether: The essence

Aristotle defined aether as the quintessence – the immutable substance that makes up the heavens and stars. When it comes to online ecosystems, the aether is the intangible element – the sine qua non – that makes being a member of your community something to be desired. Think about the most popular nightclub in town. Why do people go there? It’s not just to listen to music. It’s not just to drink a martini. It’s not just to hang out with their friends. They could do all of those things in any number of places. There’s something in the atmosphere – an indefinable quality – that propels them to go to that one club rather than any of the dozens of others in the same vicinity. Perhaps it’s that when they go there, they’re surrounded by people just like them. Or perhaps they’re surrounded by people that they aspire to be like. Maybe it’s the bragging rights that come with being “seen” in the place that everyone’s buzzing about. Your ecosystem needs the same thing. There has to be some sense of status or value attached to being able to claim membership in your tribe. This is the one element of your ecosystem that you have the least control over. You simply can’t manufacture the essence, nor can you make a proclamation that this is what makes your community special. In fact, the essence can only emerge when it’s allowed to develop organically. When you see members of your community sharing inside jokes, developing their own language, even making plans to meet up offline – that’s when you’ll know you have the essence. The best thing you can do when you recognize it is to subtly encourage those members or activities that you see happening around it so that it continues to flourish.

It’s your sandbox.

The prospect of building your own community ecosystem is certainly daunting. There’s much at stake and many unknowns that you must contend with. In sharp contrast to the world of traditional marketing, there’s a distinct lack of control. An ecosystem can only thrive when allowed to develop and grow naturally and on its own timeline. As soon as you start to restrict or interfere too much, it will wither on the vine. Entering the realm of ecosystem building requires a leap of faith. However, just as building the trust that your customers have in your brand is paramount to the growth of your business, putting trust in your customers is essential to the growth of your ecosystem. If you can relinquish the need for control and truly let the members of your community take ownership of it, you’ll be amazed at the results that unfold. Interactions will become vibrant and nuanced, natural leaders will emerge and the community will truly take on a life of its own. And in today’s marketplace, there is no more powerful force for business growth than a large and engaged community that’s homed around your brand.

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Spring Cleaning for Your Website: Six Simple Steps to Clean Out the Cobwebs and Boost Performance

As winter finally releases its icy grip and spring sweeps in with its sunny days and warm breezes, we all feel the urge to refresh our homes, from scrubbing the floors and windows to touching up paint and washing down siding.

Just as the cold months of winter can take a toll on your house, they can also have an effect on your website. From the busyness of the holiday rush to year-end tax planning and new-year forecasting, by the time spring arrives, your site may well be showing the signs of neglect as a result of your preoccupation with other areas of your business.

But as they say, there’s no time like the present, so why not take up your virtual broom and clear out the cobwebs? Here are six quick fixes you can implement today to give your site a boost in performance that will benefit your business for months to come:

1. Publish a new press release or blog article.

If the date on the last new piece of content published to your site was six months ago or more, that’s a glaring red flag to visitors that your site has gone stale and there’s no fresh information for them to find there. But in just a few hours’ time, you can eliminate that red flag by updating your company news section and publishing some interesting new content to your blog.

2. Update the copyright statement.

While you may not have given a second thought to the copyright statement on your site since it launched, don’t underestimate the impact this seemingly small detail can have on visitors’ perception of your site.

If your copyright statement is a year or two out of date, this is a glaring sign that indicates to a new visitor (whether accurate or not), that this site hasn’t been touched in ages. And, following that logic, they’ll question why they should bother to delve further into your site if you can’t even be bothered keep it current.

Bringing your copyright statement up to date won’t take more than a few minutes, but it will make a big difference in convincing visitors that the site is current.

3. Change the home page image.

In the world of website design, large, visually rich images are en vogue these days. This trend, however, is a bit of a double-edged sword. While these large images make a strong first impression, for repeat visitors, they can cause design fatigue and lose their impact altogether.

Don’t worry, though. You don’t need a complete redesign to breathe new life into your site. Simply replacing the primary image on the home page can make your site feel rejuvenated and prompt visitors to view its content with fresh eyes.

4. Visit the site on a mobile device.

How well does your site work on a mobile device? Better yet, when was the last time you actually tried to use your site on a phone or on a tablet?

Many website owners do not visit their own sites on mobile devices with any regularity – but your customers certainly do. In fact, industry experts predict that over 50 percent of all web traffic will come from mobile devices by 2015 (yes, folks, that’s next year!). Is your site ready to handle this influx of mobile traffic and provide a consistently good experience across a wide range of devices and screen sizes?

The only way to be sure is to visit your site on a few different mobile devices to get a feel for what your customers see. If it’s hard to navigate from one page to the next, if the text is difficult to read or if certain content elements (such as videos) don’t work at all, now is the time to start making plans for how you will adapt and evolve your site in order to accommodate this rapidly growing percentage of mobile visitors.

5. Install Google Analytics.

Do you know how many visitors are coming to your site each month? Do you know how long they stay on the site and how many pages they view before they leave? Do you know which pages are being visited most often?

This information and much more can be found simply by adding analytics software to your site. While there are a number of different options available, Google Analytics is an industry standard tool that is both free to install and intuitive to use. You can even set up automated reports so that you receive a consistent stream of data on your site’s performance and the traffic it is generating for your business.

Setting up a Google Analytics account and installing it on your site is a quick and easy process, but it does require adding some code to your site, so it’s best to seek the assistance of your web developer in the initial set-up. Once it’s up and running, however, you’ll have a wealth of useful information at your fingertips at the cost of $0.

6. Run a performance test.

How quickly does your site load for your visitors? Website performance is one of the most often overlooked aspects of a site’s success when, in fact, a site that loads quickly not only provides a better user experience for your customers, it can also help boost your site’s search engine rankings.

Pingdom offers a free website speed test that will give you invaluable information on how quickly your site loads, how large it is, how its performance stacks up against other sites and which elements of your page are the largest (and thereby have the greatest impact on load time). Based on the results of this test, you may be able to identify certain items, such as large images or videos, that could be compressed or eliminated entirely to give your site’s performance a much-needed shot in the arm.

Each of these six steps will take just a few minutes or, at most, a few hours of time to implement, but if you seize the day and do them now, you’ll reap the benefits for months to come of a site that’s fast, up-to-date and easily accessible to users regardless of device or screen size.

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