Do you know how to switch private community vendors without upsetting your customer or management? Online community software is a staple of modern customer and member engagement strategies. However, over time, your strategies evolve, your community grows, and your online community software vendor goes through changes too. Each week, dozens of organizations want to change or upgrade their private social networking software, but don’t want to lose any of the activity data and engagement they have worked hard to generate. To help businesses and membership organizations learn how to make this transition smoothly, Socious has developed a new educational webinar. View the full webinar-on-demand at: http://web.socious.com/webinar-how-to-switch-online-community-platforms

1. HOW TO SWITCH ONLINE COMMUNITY PLATFORMS
WITHOUT LOSING YOUR MIND OR YOUR JOB

2.  Tech Check
 Ask Questions in the Q&A Panel
 We ARE Recording!
 Twitter: @SociousSoftware
HOUSEKEEPING

3. FEATURED SPEAKERS
Catherine Davidge
Association for Molecular
Pathology (AMP)
Paul Schneider
Socious

4. TODAY’S DISCUSSION
1. The Keys to Successfully Changing Your
Online Community Platform
2. Answers to the Most Frequently Asked
Process Questions
3. Questions You Must Ask Your Old & New
Online Community Software Providers

5. WHY DO
ORGANIZATIONS
CHANGE ONLINE
COMMUNITY
SOFTWARE?

6. AN ONLINE COMMUNITY STORY

7. WHY FOLLOW A PROCESS

8. KEYS TO A SUCCESSFUL
SWITCH

9. UNDERSTAND WHY YOU ARE
MAKING THE SWITCH

10. UNDERSTAND WHY YOU ARE
MAKING THE SWITCH
Make a clear case.
Survey and interview customers or
members.

11. UNDERSTAND WHY YOU ARE
MAKING THE SWITCH
Get stakeholder
buy-in and let them
serve as
champions.
PRO
TIP

12. UNDERSTAND HOW
YOU WILL RECEIVE
YOUR DATA FROM
YOUR OLD
COMMUNITY

13. UNDERSTAND HOW
YOU WILL RECEIVE
YOUR DATA FROM
YOUR OLD
COMMUNITY
How to avoid losing historical activity
data.
How to import existing community
data into your new platform.

14. UNDERSTAND HOW YOU WILL RECEIVE YOUR
DATA FROM YOUR OLD COMMUNITY
Identify data
migration experts
either internally or
externally.
PRO
TIP

15. YOUR SECOND CHANCE TO MAKE A FIRST IMPRESSION

16. YOUR SECOND CHANCE TO MAKE A FIRST IMPRESSION
This is an opportunity for a smarter
online community rollout.
Take the time to make a plan.

17. YOUR SECOND CHANCE TO MAKE A
FIRST IMPRESSION
Involve the
stakeholder
champions.
PRO
TIP

18. DON’T FORGET
THE TRAINING

19. DON’T FORGET
THE TRAINING
How to retain community
members during a community
platform change.
Take advantage of webinars.

20. MAKE IT FUN FOR
YOUR COMMUNITY
MEMBERS TO
RE-ENGAGE

21. MAKE IT FUN FOR
YOUR COMMUNITY
MEMBERS TO
RE-ENGAGE
Get your community excited.
How to creating sustainable online
community.

22. GUIDANCE ON THE MOST
FREQUENTLY ASKED
QUESTIONS

23. MOST FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
What is the best way to evaluate
other online community
platforms, so I don’t end up in the
same boat again?

24. MOST FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
What is the first step in a
transition?

25. MOST FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
When should I tell my current
provider we are leaving?

26. MOST FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Should there be a cost to transfer
our existing data to the new
system?

27. MOST FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
What types of data will I be able
to transfer?

28. MOST FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
What format should my data be
in?

29. MOST FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Will I lose data in the transition?

30. MOST FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
What are tips for communicating
with the two vendors in this
transition?

31. MOST FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
How do I let my members know
we are switching to a new
system?

32. MOST FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
When should I let my members
know we are switching systems?

33. IMPORTANT QUESTIONS
TO ASK YOUR NEW AND
OLD VENDORS

34. ASK YOUR OUTGOING
COMMUNITY PROVIDER
Who will be our
contact as we make
this transition?
#1

35. ASK YOUR OUTGOING
COMMUNITY PROVIDER
What format are
you prepared to
give us our data in?
#2

36. ASK YOUR OUTGOING
COMMUNITY PROVIDER
Will you give us two
loads (a test load &
the actual load) or
just one?
#3

37. ASK YOUR OUTGOING
COMMUNITY PROVIDER
How much lead
time will you need
for us to get the
data on the date
required?
#4

38. ASK YOUR OUTGOING
COMMUNITY PROVIDER
Will there be a cost
for the extraction
of our data or do
we need to pay
future months
payments upfront
to get our
community data?
#5

39. QUESTIONS TO ASK YOUR NEW
ONLINE COMMUNITY PROVIDER

40. ASK YOUR NEW COMMUNITY
PROVIDER
What is the lead
time you need to
do the final load?
#1

41. ASK YOUR NEW COMMUNITY
PROVIDER
What formats can
you work with to
import our data?
#2

42. ASK YOUR NEW COMMUNITY
PROVIDER
What data can be
imported?#3

43. ASK YOUR NEW COMMUNITY
PROVIDER
How much
experience do you
have importing
data from other
systems?
#4

44. ASK YOUR NEW COMMUNITY
PROVIDER
Since we don’t want
to go through this
again, can we add
the following clause
to our contract?
#5

45. ASK YOUR NEW COMMUNITY
PROVIDER
“The data that is shared in the system (blogs, discussions,
files, member data, graphics created by Customer) will
always remain the property of the Customer. At no time
does ABC Company have rights to this data for its own use
other than to administer it through the site. If the Customer
should terminate this agreement, ABC Company will work
with Subscriber to give the data back in an acceptable
format to the customer.”

46. TAKEAWAYS
MANAGING CHANGE
FEATURE SELECTION
DATA CONVERSION
TRAINING

47. QUESTIONS
Catherine Davidge
Association for Molecular
Pathology (AMP)
www.amp.org
Paul Schneider
Socious
@SociousSoftware