Summary: 2009 Tribalization of Business Study

Evaluatiing the perceived benefits of online communities

October 23, 2009 - Jordan Willms

Beeline Labs, Deloitte's Media & Tech practice, and the Society New Communications Research, recently released their 2009 Tribalization of Business Study which "evaluates the perceived benefits of online communities and identifies how enterprises believe they may better leverage them." In non-corporate speak the study is really all about using online tools for user engagement. Survey respondents included over 400 companies, including Fortune 100 organizations. The underlying tone of the study is that organizations are still under utilizing social media, and not unleashing its full potential.

Key Takeaways

• 32% of respondent organizations are measuring non-actives on their website. Called "lurkers", these non-active users derive a significant amount of value from the engagement of active users.
• 39% of respondents indicates they were increasing the amount of full time staff charged with managing online communities.
• The biggest challenges to creating a successful community are getting users to Join (24%), Stage engaged (30%), and keep returning (21%). In addition, few organizations are taking the necessary steps to overcome these challengers.
• When developing a new community, 58% of respondents indicated they considered partnering with existing communities, complementary vendors and end users.
• A significant disconnect exists between community goals (generate word of mouth, brand awareness and customer loyalty) and how success is being measured.
• The most popular key performance indicators for measuring success are: number of active users (34%) and frequency of posting/commenting (32%)
• The top objectives of online communities are as follows:
  • Increased word of mouth (38%)
  • Increased customer loyalty (34%)
  • Increased brand awareness (30%)
  • Increased idea generation / innovation (29%)
  • Increased customer support (23%)

No surprises here. Marketing continues to be the primary driver for online communities. The study does postulate that this "marketing driver" results in creating gaps between community goals and organizations capabilities to full leverage these communities.

For the full 28 page flip book, please down the Tribalization study PDF