Communities can play a key role in creating a safe environment which allows participants to fully engage openly and honestly in a truly flexible setting; and regardless of scale or length of study they enable clients to observe customer interaction. The role of online communities within research is increasingly important. Delivering a successful community doesn’t simply happen. Here are just a few top tips to help you on your way.

1. Running successful online
communities
Gemma Stafford, Senior Research Executive
SPA Future Thinking
Our top 7 ½ tips for running an online community
Gemma Stafford
Senior Research Executive

2. The role of online communities within research
is increasingly important.
Delivering a successful community doesn’t
simply happen. Here are just a few top tips to
help you on your way:
The 3P’s; plan, plan and err, plan some more
Clients and researchers alike tend to assume
that if you create a forum, recruit a load of
people and chuck a load of questions at them,
everything will be fine. Perhaps, but if you want
to do things well and deliver great research for
your client then this couldn’t be further from the
truth.
It’s vital to have a detailed and agreed plan
in place that covers each challenge (copy,
stimulus, and moderator probes, media
expectations), a project name, as well as
an incentive structure prior to setup and
recruitment. If any of these areas are unclear
once your community is live you’ll be the first to
hear about it!
It’s vital to have a detailed and agreed
plan in place that covers each challenge
(Copy, Stimulus, Moderator probes, Media
expectations) a project name as well as
an incentive structure prior to setup and
recruitment.
If any of these areas are unclear once your
community is live you’ll be the first to hear
about it!
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Communities can play a key role in creating a safe environment which
allows participants to fully engage openly and honestly in a truly flexible
setting; and regardless of scale or length of study they enable clients to
observe customer interaction.
• The 3P’s; plan, plan and err, plan
some more
• Challenge creation; think it through!
• Community members, not
respondents
• Wear more than one hat
• Have a presence, but don’t dominate
• Make use of media and online
creative tools
• Celebrate good times, come on!
Running successful online
communities
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3. Challenge creation; think it through!
This can be time consuming, but it’s invaluable to
the success of your project. Before you even start
creating the community we recommend working in
a team and sitting down to brain-storm and identify
challenging and fun ways to meet your objectives.
Employ gamification techniques to help present
members with challenges, as opposed to a list of
tasks. For example, rather than ‘Tell us what your
relationship with vodka is’, try something a bit more
out-there such as ‘Imagine your dear friend vodka
has sadly passed away and it falls to you to write
their eulogy’. You’ll still get to the key category
associations, but also a few good stories, some
great verbatims and content to share with your
client.
Also, don’t be afraid to have a sense of humour as this shows that someone has spent time taking
care to create these challenges. My favourite challenge name to date was a shopping task named
‘Aisle be there for you’. Silly yes, but the high response rate spoke for itself.
Community members, not respondents
It’s important to distinguish between community members and respondents. You can and should
expect more from community members as they are responsible for shaping the project; through
discussion with other members, uploading media content and giving detailed and creative responses
to tasks.
However, the community member’s culture is your responsibility to foster from the word go. Small
things such as including a welcome video on the home page, or having a come and say hi task for
members to introduce themselves to each other and be greeted by the community manager will help
forge relationships from the start. We also find that being transparent with project objectives and
explaining what the research will be used for builds trust and dramatically increases engagement.
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4. Successful online communities
4 Wear more than one hat
We don’t mean this literally of course; we’re
referring to your role in managing client
and community member’s expectations. It’s
important, and at times difficult, to balance
client needs versus community member
engagement. There may be the need to
compromise; for example covering that
essential client question as part of a wider task,
or conversely attaching a quick five minute
poll to a more fun or challenging task. What’s
vital is to ensure that client objectives are fully
met whilst also maintaining enthusiastic and
engaged community members.
Have a presence, but don’t dominate
To take away that ‘big company’ feel, and
ensure that your community feels like an open
forum rather than a regimented zone, create
a persona for your community manager.
Just having a quick ‘about me’ blog for your
manager’s profile helps members feel they’re
speaking to a human rather than a machine.
Once this relationship is established and as
the community evolves the result should be
that community members gain confidence and
converse together naturally.
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5. Successful online communities
Make use of media and online creative tools
Another key advantage of a community is
the opportunity for members to bring their
responses to life with media. Illustrating posts
with pictures, sharing links (e.g. via YouTube),
screen shots or even recording a response to
a challenge as a video makes for great report
content and adds colour to insights. But there’s
no need to stop there, you can also point
members in the direction of creative tools.
• Wordle.net can be great for brand
associations
• GoAnimate is a fantastic site which allows
you to create your own video, complete with
voice recording software
• Pinterest is also a great way to get
respondents to “pin” images, videos and
other objects to their pinboard to build up a
visual understanding of their world
• Connecting to member’s twitter accounts
and hashtags in general enable respondents
to contribute to live feeds throughout the
research.
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It’s all very well encouraging people
to think outside the box, but be
prepared to provide a little creative
productivity of your own!
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6. Celebrate good times, come on!
It only takes five minutes yet praising the
hard work of your members is invaluable.
It’s basic, but we’ve found that simple things
such as a ‘post of the day’, ‘member of the
month’, or even awarding badges to the
profiles of contributors can go a long way. We
recently awarded the Lenny Henry badge for
a particularly funny yet insightful video post.
Rewarding contributions where respondents
go the extra mile will inspire others and lead
to higher levels of engagement across the
community, whilst also delivering greater levels
of insight for your client.
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Oh and the ½…
That’s for you to challenge us. Think of a question
that you think might be difficult to cover off on an
online community, and we’ll get back to you with
our solution!
There are so many uses for online communities;
why not find out more about how they can play a
role in generating a greater understanding of your
customers?
Contact gemma.stafford@spafuturethinking.com
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7. About the Author
SPAFuture Thinking is is dedicated to providing innovation, intelligence and inspiration through research
that identifies new opportunities, evaluates your markets and drives business growth.
With combined industry experience of over 40 years and offices in the UK and Europe, SPA Future
Thinking provide genuine research expertise and understanding across a wide range of industry sectors.
Our staff have a mix of agency and client side experience, providing you with a better understanding of
your business needs; we have the confidence to deliver not just findings but business recommendations
that deliver success.
For more information about the company please contact John Whittaker on +44 (0) 1865 336 400 or at
john.whittaker@spafuturethinking.com
www.spafuturethinking.com
Gemma Stafford
Senior Research Executive
Gemma joined SPA Future Thinking in September 2012 from online insight
specialist agency Tuned In Research, and is our resident community expert.
She has extensive experience of managing short term and longitudinal online
communities, with a goal of ensuring projects are both fun and challenging for
participants, as well as cutting to the insights clients need.
gemma.stafford@spafuturethinking.com
+44 (0) 20 7843 9777
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