Meeting Business Needs by Meeting Social Needs in Small Communities: Why Size Matters

Meeting Business Needs by Meeting Social Needs in Small Communities Why Size Matters POSITION PAPER | 2007 This paper draws on the social science literature to present hypotheses about why smaller online communities fulfill individuals’ range of social needs, and in doing so, are more effective than large communities for gaining breakthrough customer insights and building long term relationships with customers Communispace Corporation © 2007. All rights reserved. Why Size Matters | 2 Introduction Social networking—in all its manifestations—is all the rage. For marketers, it is creating new channels for disseminating messages and increasing engagement with customers. However, not much attention has been devoted to why people select and participate in different forms of social media and what social (as well as practical) needs these venues meet. Aside from a vague sense of needing to be part of a growing phenomenon, marketers need to ask themselves what they are trying to accomplish. Is it to increase visibility? To make more of a connection? To gain insight into consumer behavior? To effectively consider social media strategies, you must ask why people frequent various networks, and then ask how to best interact with the right people in the right kind of social networking context. Long before Facebook (even before Friendster!), many authors wrote about human motivation and social needs1. And with the advent of the entirely new disciplines of cyberspace sociology2 and Internet psychology, scholars and practitioners are turning their attention to the question of how social networks, and online communities in particular, are meeting our social needs. As we have demonstrated in previous research, small (300 – 500 people) private, branded, and invitation -only communities outperform large public communities on an array of both quantitative and qualitative metrics (including participation rates, words per post, contributions per member, and actionability of insights)3. In this paper we’ll explore why, providing a framework for mapping some basic social needs to various types of social networks and illustrating how different user needs are met by different forms. Then we’ll focus on one of business’ highest priorities—that of creating enduring customer relationships that yield deep insight and advocacy—and discuss why private online communities are so powerful in achieving this objective. Social Needs in an Age of Social Media While a reliance on others has always been essential for human life, the digital age has actually increased the demand and potential for interconnection and relationship4. Social media now provide the means for networking across more boundaries and on a scale that is historically unprecedented. The technologies that have fueled this culture of connection have also provided new ways for individuals, groups, organizations and whole communities to actively and iteratively construct identity, obtain higher status, and generate relationships with countless others. Construct identity … obtain higher status … —these are not phrases typically used by executives in formulating or evaluating their social marketing strategies. But they do describe some of what drives consumers to specific social networking tools and sites, and should inform the strategies of companies seeking to create an emotional connection with those consumers. 1 E.g., Abraham Maslow, Motivation and Personality (NY: Harper & Row, 1954); David C. McClelland, The Achieving Society (NY: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1961). 2 Peter Kollock, “The Economy of Online Cooperation: Gifts and Public Goods in Cyberspace.” In M. Smith & P. Kollock (Eds.), Communities in Cyberspace, (London: Routledge, 1999): 219-237. 3 M. Austin, M. Jennings, J. W. Schlack, and K. Lerman, “Size Matters: When Insight is the Goal, Small Communities Deliver Big Results” (Communispace whitepaper, 2007). 4 Kenneth J. Gergen, The Saturated Self: Dilemmas of Identity in Contemporary Life, (NY: Basic Books, 2000) Communispace Corporation © 2007. All rights reserved. Why Size Matters | 3 For the purposes of this paper we define community as any group of people who share common interests, interact with one another and form ongoing, reciprocal relationships over time. While this definition is broad enough to include many social networks currently available to consumers and companies, it emphasizes the fundamental qualifier of relationship which is a critical factor when a company’s goal in sponsoring a community is insight, co-innovation or advocacy. From Sense of Self to Sense of Community Building on the work of social scientist R.S. Weiss5 and others, we’ve arrived at a refined set of social needs that are specifically manifested and met through participation in social networking in various forms: 1. Communication of self and personal identity: Developmental psychologists have long recognized identity formation as the milestone heralding the onset of adulthood6; yet it is also true that identity shifts and evolves over the lifespan7 and is often expressed differently in different contexts as we communicate “who we are” to others. Online social networks provide people everywhere with the ultimate tool for defining and redefining their selves. For example, by announcing on my MySpace page that I’m a musician or an athlete, I not only broadcast my chosen identity, but make it more likely that I’ll actually engage more in those activities (or at least attract the attention of other musicians or athletes). 2. Status and self-esteem: The need for autonomy, recognition and achievement8 are critical for our sense of self worth, and also socially derived. Throughout our lives we rely on others for feedback on our performance and to benchmark our own accomplishments. This need for doing “well” in the eyes of (and in relation to) others drives much of our behavior in the world. This activity would be meaningless if it occurred within a vacuum; communities allow us to develop and manage a virtual “reputation,” and broadcasting the lists of “friends” on landing pages or the growing number of links to our blogs or views of our video reassures us and tells others that we have some measure of status in the world9. 3. Assistance and opportunity to help others: We also have a need to both seek and provide assistance to others. Asking for help is sometimes simply a necessity (even for men, in fact, even for men who have GPS systems!). And providing help satisfies not only our more altruistic impulses, but makes us feel like experts and helps to ensure that we will be more likely to get assistance when we need it. Interestingly, the phenomenon of providing mutual assistance with minimal if any pre-existing relationship—in a transactional way with total strangers—is one that has been uniquely enabled by the Internet. 4. Affiliation: Historically, tribal affiliations extended our individual identities to provide us with a sense of collective identity. We were born into, and most likely remained with, a family or clan of “people like me.” But increasingly, family or tribal affiliations (which were often bounded and reinforced by geographic proximity) are being supplanted by cultural ones of our choosing. Online communities have provided people the means to find, create and connect with others who share our particular tastes and sensibilities, our political orientation, our sexual orientation, or whatever 5 Robert. S. Weiss, “The Povisions of Social Relationships”. In Z. Rubin (Ed.), Doing Unto Others, (New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1974): 17-26. 6 E.g., Erik H. Erikson, Identity: Youth and Crisis (NY: W. W. Norton & Company, 1968). 7 E.g., Kenneth J. Gergen, The Saturated Self: Dilemmas of Identity in Contemporary Life, (NY: Basic Books, 2000); Robert Kegan, The Evolving Self: Problems and Process in Human Development, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982). 8 E.g., Abraham Maslow, Motivation and Personality (NY: Harper & Row, 1954); David C. McClelland, The Achieving Society (NY: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1961). 9 Peter Kollock and Marc Smith, “Communities in Cyberspace.” In M. Smith & P. Kollock (Eds.), Communities in Cyberspace,(London: Routledge, 1999): 3-24. Communispace Corporation © 2007. All rights reserved. Why Size Matters | 4 other public artifacts of identity we wish to express. And in so doing, they provide us with a means of developing and expressing a collective identity. 5. Sense of community: Our affiliations with particular groups (online communities, the corporations that employ us, memberships in professional or political organizations, etc.) do not always provide us with a genuine sense of community, however. Community, more so than other social needs, implies mutual obligation and is dependent upon enduring, reciprocal relationships with others. For example, the need to give and get assistance can be satisfied in a single transaction, such as asking directions to the Radiohead concert. And a need for affiliation can be satisfied by wearing a tee-shirt or hairstyle that expresses a collective identity (e.g. Goth, Surfer, Preppie, etc.). But communities are, in many respects, the domain in which our needs for affiliation, recognition, and mutual assistance come together at a higher level. The Internet has enabled us to choose and rechooos with great ease how and with whom to belong. Community is powerful (and somewhat rare) because it does require consistency and dedication—longer term commitment in an era where transience and anonymity are commonplace and even expected10. We engage in community because we need there to be others to whom our existence matters, and for that to occur, there must be a sense of mutual obligation, reciprocity, and relationship over time. Social Needs Are Increasingly Met Online Recent research suggests that we are turning more and more to the Internet to meet these social needs. Whether it’s to expand our social circle11, maintain our offline connections12, safely share personal—and even intimate—information13, or build virtual spaces for support and learning14, studies tell a similar story: We are seeking out relationships online to achieve a range of personal and interpersonal objectives. If companies wish to take part in this activity—by forming relationships with consumers or by playing a more centeral role in the lives of their customers by helping facilitate these relationships—then it is necessary to understand why people frequent various Internet sites and what they are looking for when they get there. One way companies can understand consumer social needs—and how they are currently being met through online interaction—is to examine their underlying relational prerequisites. While all social needs are met via our connections with others, some needs require enduring and close relationships to be truly satisfied. The Connection Continuum: One Way to Understand Relationship and Social Needs 10 Robert Kegan, The Evolving Self: Problems and Process in Human Development, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982). 11 Horrigan, J., “Online Communities: Networks that Nurture Long-Distance Relationships and Local Ties,” (Pew Internet & American Life Project, 2001). 12 Katelyn Y. A. McKenna, Amie S. Green, and Marcia E. J. Gleason, “Relationship formation on the Internet: What’s the Big Attraction?” Journal of Social Issues, 58 (2002): 9-31. 13 John A. Bargh, Katelyn Y. A. McKenna, and Grainne M. Fitsimons, “Can You See the Real Me? Activation and Expression of the ‘True Self’ on the Internet,” Journal of Social Issues, 58 (2002): 33-48. 14 Barry Wellman and Milena Gulia, “Virtual Communities as Communities: Net Surfers Don't Ride Alone,” In M. Smith & P. Kollock (Eds.), Communities in Cyberspace, (London: Routledge, 1999): 167-194. Low connection High connection Social Needs Expressing Identity Affiliation Status & Self-esteem Giving & Getting Help Sense of Community Communispace Corporation © 2007. All rights reserved. Why Size Matters | 5 Profile and Landing Pages Are Formats for Expressing Our Sense of Self and Identities Profile-driven social networking sites—indeed, any that allow participants to present themselves (as opposed to simply read, rate, and/or respond to closed-ended questions), give members the opportunity to express their sense of self/personal identity. This need is fulfilled when users write about their thoughts on blog sites such as Gather, post pictures on Flikr, post video on YouTube, tag and publicly post links to the sites that are meaningful to them, and create profiles on Facebook. These kinds of personal expressions actively create and project images of self and identity to friends and strangers as this content is viewed and even rated. For example, in the following MySpace profile (shown here with the author’s permission), interests (surfing), blurbs (“I was born … in 1975, the same year that the Boss released Born to Run …” “[I] spend most of my free time looking for waves and contemplating various abstractions such as existential authenticity and symbolic interactionism”), and lists of friends and favorite music all combine to present a clear, well-defined portrait of who MJ is and how he wants to be perceived. Communispace Corporation © 2007. All rights reserved. Why Size Matters | 6 Some Networks Fuel and Support Our Need for Status and Self-esteem Profile-driven social networking communities like MySpace and Facebook also fuel the need for status and self-esteem. While some users protect their privacy and intentionally keep their social networks small, others derive self-esteem from knowing that their blogs are read, their songs listened to, and their videos watched. And some pride themselves on the number of “friends” they collect regardless of whether those people are genuine acquaintances or politicians, marketers, and other disparate players seeking visibility in the eyes of those they seek to befriend. Status and recognition are also achieved on networking sites such as FlyerTalk (by granting power to the high-participating or other subsets of member), Gather (by awarding points based on accumulating page views and highest ratings), and Eons, a boomers’ social networking site on which members are nominated for “badges” by other members as well as awarded them by site managers. On Gather, members gain status by accumulating blog page views and high ratings of their content. On Eons, members acquire badges through peer nominations and site manager assignments. On FlyerTalk, status is acquired and displayed in multiple ways, including Frequent Flier program tier, number of posts, and special privileges awarded to particularly active members.Communispace Corporation © 2007. All rights reserved. Why Size Matters | 7 Opinion and Rating Sites Allow People to Seek and Give Advice Opinion and rating sites like E-pinions, TripAdvisor or yelp (or the many technical support forums propagated by MicroSoft, Dell, and others) all fulfill the need to offer assistance and receive help from others. In these kinds of communities members both seek and provide advice. For example, we can see from the following Audiophile.com screenshot how members seek information on a range of very specific and targeted questions (such as the best transmission line for a Hartley 18 woofer) and successfully get advice and assistance by trusted peers and fellow experts. Because these kinds of networks exist to help people seek out and provide advice, participation levels at these types of sites tend to be high, though generally more transactional than relationship-based. This also explains why frequenters of these communities are so emotional in their sense of outrage and betrayal when stories surface about executives or advertisers or paid shills posing as “ordinary consumers” and posting selfserrvin content there. Communispace Corporation © 2007. All rights reserved. Why Size Matters | 8 Public Forums Organized around Common Interests Satisfy Our Need for Affiliation The need for affiliation is satisfied through public forums and groups that come together around shared passions (such as blues music), shared needs (such as the needs of parents whose children have autism), or shared identity (such as Lord of the Rings fanatics). In all of these examples, online consumers who may or may not have a personal relationship with one another are nonetheless deriving benefit as, aided by search engines, they find sites housing conversations that they can easily relate to, join, and feel validated by, as everyone there is, at least in some respects, “just like me.” Communispace Corporation © 2007. All rights reserved. Why Size Matters | 9 Some Kinds of Social Networks Meet Our Need for Sense of Community Longstanding, organic public online forums like Slashdot (a code and best practice-sharing site for Linux developers) or SparkPeople (a public weight-loss site) meet the need for a sense of community. So do the kinds of private, “intentional” communities provided by Communispace and others, in which consumers or customers come together not only to advise, support, and inform one another around issues of mutual interest and concern, but to enter into that personal, long-term, advisory relationship with the sponsoring company or brand: “This type of community provides a much nicer, emotionally safer environment to learn about the products, to hear others opinions and best practices, as well as to hear their struggles which often mirror my own. Sometimes unexpected or uncommon answers in the dialogues made me see issues in a different light which helped. Participating in the community dramatically increased my willingness to use [product name] when it hits the market and to advise others about it so they can try it too.” Member of Communispace weight-loss community Whether sharing tips for Java-based software development or challenges and successes around weight loss, members of SlashDot and SparkPeople are engaged in recurring knowledge sharing, mutual support, and dialogue. They are expressing identity and affiliation, requesting and providing assistance, and connecting with one another in an ongoing way. Communispace Corporation © 2007. All rights reserved. Why Size Matters | 10 We recognize that marketers have many needs and that visibility is often the goal. But when the goal is insight, those social networks likely to offer the greatest return on investment are ones that maximize the companyconssume relationship across the full spectrum of social needs. The example above, which was drawn from a private, branded community of 300 overweight women, illustrates the impact on a brand’s ability to garner both insight and loyalty when it openly sponsors and participates in the community. This sense of community is critical for gaining deep consumer insight. Mapping Social Needs to Social Networks Expressing Identity Status & Selfesttee Giving & Getting help Affiliation and Belonging Sense of community Blogs 􀀹 􀀹 􀀹 Video and content sharing and tagging sites (e.g. YouTube, deli,cio.us) 􀀹 Self-forming Groups (e.g. Yahoo groups, Google groups) 􀀹 􀀹 Profile-driven social networks (e.g. MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn) 􀀹 􀀹 􀀹 Rating and review sites (e.g. e-pinions, TripAdvisor) 􀀹 􀀹 Purpose-driven social networks (e.g. SparkPeople, Slashdot, Communispace) 􀀹 􀀹 􀀹 􀀹 􀀹 Small Private Communities Satisfy the Full Spectrum of Social Needs Companies are starting to realize the value of community in generating deep insight or knowledge of the needs and behaviors of their customers. Our experience illustrates that marketers must create connections and build relationships with people online to generate actionable and meaningful insight. It is through relationship building that companies can play a central role in meeting the social needs of their customers—providing the means for identity construction, creating forums for sharing advice and finding support, offering membership and sense of belonging and so on. And it is by virtue of these company-customer relationships that marketers gain entrée into conversations revealing consumers’ unmet needs, private hopes, wishes and concerns15. We recognize that marketers have many needs and that visibility is often the goal. And while companies have opportunities to connect with consumers through many different types of social networks, when the goal is insight, those likely to offer the greatest return on investment are networks that maximize the companyconssume relationship across the full spectrum of social needs. 15 M. Jennings & J. W. Schlack, “From Research to Relationship: Using Communities to Gain Entrée into Customer Conversations” (Communispace whitepaper, 2006). Communispace Corporation © 2007. All rights reserved. Why Size Matters | 11 “We asked and we heard, and when You asked, I know I felt heard.” Member of Communispace consumer electronics community In particular, companies benefit from investing in small, private communities because they are: – Purpose-driven, because members are there for a shared purpose, typically to help each other and the sponsoring brand, and that collective purpose is the center of gravity. This is in contrast to profile-driven social networks like MySpace or Facebook, where the individual is the center of gravity and connections between people propagate slowly and organically based on who knows whom. – Concentrated, because all conversation is visible to the sponsoring company, and the company can probe, follow-up, and iterate. This is in contrast to the more diffuse conversations in social networking sites and on large public message boards, where conversations are occurring in small clusters or across hundreds of “boards,” and the sponsoring brand cannot possibly participate in all of them. – Intentional, because it’s a given that members have something in common beyond both happening to know the same person (as is the case in organic, profile-driven social networks like Facebook or MySpace). In fact, in Communispace communities, where members are recruited to very specific client criteria, not only is the social glue among members typically very strong, but the sponsoring company’s knowledge of who those members are is more complete and reliable. Fulfilling Consumers’ Social Needs to Fulfill Business Goals In order to create insight, companies must increase their connections with customers by meeting the full range of social needs. And what makes communities in which the sponsoring brand plays an ongoing, reciprocity-based role particularly powerful is that they satisfy yet another basic social need: reassurance of worth and value. At the end of the day, we are social beings, and as such, all but the most self-contained and transcendent of us needs to be reassured of our worth and value; we seek confirmation that what we say and do matters to others and has an impact on the world around us. When corporate sponsors of online communities engage with their customers, demonstrate listening, and refine their products and services accordingly, they are meeting this sixth need, creating a deeper emotional bond than usually exists between companies and customers, which in turn results in greater advocacy and loyalty16. 16 K. Lerman & M. Austin, “What Companies Gain from Listening: The Effect of Community Membership on Members’ Attitudes and Behavior in Relation to the Sponsoring Company” (Communispace whitepaper, 2006). Communispace Corporation © 2007. All rights reserved. Why Size Matters | 12 Communispace Communispace Corporation, headquartered in Watertown, Massachusetts, is a leading social networking firm that specializes in creating online communities used by major corporations to build long-term relationships with customers. The company builds, manages and facilitates private branded communities that deliver the voice of the customer and enable businesses to generate continuous insights, drive faster innovation, and build loyalty. Founded in 1999, Communispace has created more than 275 online customer communities for industry leaders including: Kraft, Hewlett-Packard, Charles Schwab, Hallmark, Unilever, GlaxoSmithKline, Hilton Hotels, Cox Enterprises, and many more. For more information visit: www.communispace.com Authors Julie Wittes Schlack – jwschlack@communispace.com Michael Jennings – mjennings@communispace.com Manila Austin – maustin@communispace.com THIS PAPER IS ONE IN A SERIES OF PROPRIETARY COMMUNISPACE EXPLORATIONS COMPARING SMALL AND LARGE COMMUNITIES ON AN ARRAY OF QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE METRICS: – Size Matters: When Insight is the Goal, Small Communities Deliver Big Results – The Fifth ‘P’ of Marketing: Participation – From Research to Relationship: Using Communities to Gain Entrée into Customer Conversations