Launching Your Community

© Xeequa Corp. 2009

Launching Your Online Business Community Quick start guide for sponsored online communities

Five easy steps to successfully launch your online community in 16 minutes.

Xeequa Corp. 228 Hamilton Ave.

Palo Alto, CA, 94301 (650) 384-0057

www.xeequa.com

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Just in case: [email protected]

© Xeequa Corp. 2009 2 White Paper

BE WHERE YOUR CUSTOMERS ARE Since the early days of trade, successful business people have followed their customers. Today, customers search for products and solutions by: reading blogs, joining forums, chatting online and communicate with peers, business friends and like-minded people in social networks and other places on the so called social web. Successful businesses need to be in the same places, more so it means to offer a place where their customers can meet each other and converse in a professio0nal manner – a branded online community.

Executive Summary Social media is part technology, part method for modern humans to interact locally and globally. It is a tool that helps everyone to become more successful in achieving our personal and our business goals. Branded online communities enable us to be individual business contributors and better represent the interests of the group, whether that group is a business, a local organization, or a group of similar end-user customers. When launching your business community, remember: 1. Launch your community with confidence (don’t make it a “pilot”)

and send invitations to all your customers immediately. 2. Make your objectives clear to customers and explain their

benefits. 3. ALWAYS think about resources needed to make customers

successful advocates of your company. NEVER think in terms of resources you need to allocate to administrate your online community.

4. Don’t try to stop customers who say negative things about your business. Embrace their complaints and take action. (They may criticize you elsewhere and you don’t even know.)

5. Focus on the customers who want to build a better business relationship with you. Work to understand how your online community can facilitate that conversation.

Remember, your online business community is not an IT project that needs administration, data input and system integration. It is a service you provide to your customers primarily to help THEM be successful.



Community Quick Start: YOUR COMMUNITY Your sponsor has provided you with a complete and customizable community to help you provide a better business experience to your customers. This community is YOUR property. Only you can decide who can join your community and who can provide content. You can even disconnect from your sponsor at any time and continue to use the community at your own leisure. YOU CAN MAKE CHANGES ANY TIME.

This online community is a “Software as a Service”. Your sponsor HAS NO ACCESS to your customers / members unless you invite your sponsor to join your community.

FIVE STEPS TO COMMUNITY LAUNCH (It takes only 16 Minutes)

1. Complete your company profile (your about) and upload your company logo. >> SETTINGS

2. Complete your personal profile and upload a photo. >> SETTINGS | MY PROFILE

3. Invite your team members (sample is attached). >> SETTINGS | SET MEMBERS | INVITE OTHERS

4. Create a welcome blog post (optional / see examples). >> COMMUNITY | COMMUNITY CENTER | BLOG | ADD

5. Invite your customers (sample attached). >> SETTINGS | UPLOAD | UPLOAD CSV | PROCESS ALL



Step by Step Details: Depending on your experience level with online applications these steps will take about 16 Minutes. If you have trouble with performing any of the activities, feel free to send an email to [email protected] or request help from one of our independent consulting firms.

1. Complete your company profile (your “about”) and upload your company logo.

You will want your community members to identify you as a business. Therefore you should present yourself in the same professional way you do with your website, business card or letter head.

Under the community settings tab you are able to upload your own company banner image to make the community look more like your own website. There are advanced options available to subscription customers, but we suggest you get more familiar with the basic system before you buy a subscription.

Click on SETTINGS You see the community profile.

Fill in all the fields with company information.

Upload your logo. (larger red circle) The available real-estate for your logo is 180 x 80 pixels and it must be a JPG file.

Click the DESCRIPTION tab and write a short description about your company.

It takes 3 minutes if you have a logo handy and just cut and paste your normal “about from your website.



2. Complete your personal profile and upload a photo

A community is all about people and the social interaction between them. So help your community members know more about you. Providing a recent photo of yourself is not only good business practice but is a matter of politeness in the Web 2.0 world.

Go to MYPROFILE under SETTINGS and enter your key data. Upload your photo.

You may want to also click on the networking tab of the same page and add your social network links like your Linkedin profile, Facebook profile, Twitter account, etc.

It takes 1 minutes if you have a photo handy



3. Invite your team members and explain the objectives of the community

The first group of people invited to your community should be your entire team: company employees, partners, and very close business associates.

Let your team know about the advantages of building an active online community. You may use the list of reasons in the appendix (“Why engage in an online business community?”).

You may send them a heads up email (see template in the appendix “Inviting Teammates.”).

Under SETTINGS go to SET MEMBERS and then click the INVITE OTHERS tab. At first you will see an empty list because you haven’t created a network yet. Just click the ADD/INVITE to add your team members to the community one at a time.

If you have a CSV file of your team, click on UPLOAD instead of SET MEMBERS and upload all team members into the community at the same time.

It takes 4 minutes if you take our invitation examples

What happens in the background: Each invited person will get a welcome message and a generated password to enter your community. They may change that password after they log in the first time. Your community automatically creates an account for people who are invited so they don’t have to go through a registration process.



4. Create a welcome blog post

Even though your sponsor will provide you with content, we suggest that you post a personal welcome note on your blog. And of course you and your team members can add additional blog posts and content to the community at any given time – it is YOUR VERY OWN online business community. (See the “Blog Welcome” example in the Appendix.)

Please go to COMMUNITY. Click on COMMUNITY CENTER if you are not already there.

Select the blog tab and click on the blue add sign to add your own blog post.

It takes 2 Minute if you cut and paste the example.

4a. Other content you may add later on Again, your sponsor is helping you with content such as blog posts, latest industry news, events and other information. But at any time you can of course add your own content. Your online business community is fully equipped with:

- Blog

- Discussion Forum

- Event overview

- Video library

- Knowledge base

- And other nice features.

Remember “User Provided Content” is key to a community. You provide the community as a service to your customers so THEY can exchange ideas, share tips and tricks and so much more.



5. Invite all your customer into your closed community

One thing is counterintuitive when it comes to a community launch: You may think it’s better to start with a few and then add more after you are sure everything is perfect. That’s like inviting only two people to a mega event and then adding more after they arrived. This is the biggest mistake community managers can make.

Successful communities start with all connections possible. Keep in mind it is all about THEM and not about YOU. Your community members want to meet a LOT of people not just a few that you handpicked. (Small groups of people can email each other and don’t need a community.)

So start with confidence and invite all your contacts (See “Inviting Customers to your Community” in the appendix.)

Just export your contacts from Outlook into a CSV format and upload it into your community. If you want to export your customer list from a CRM system, you can either format the list based on the templates we provide or simply send us the list and we will upload it for you.

To upload the list: Please go to SETTINGS and click on UPLOAD.

You will see an empty dispatcher. Click on upload CSV in the upper right hand corner.

Upload your list and you will be guided back to the dispatcher where you can now see the uploaded records.

Click on PROCESS ALL RECORDS AT ONCE

It takes about 6 minutes if you export your contacts from outlook and upload them into your community.

What happens in the background: After you click on submit, your customers will get a formal invitation to join your community, including their initial password. Invited customers do not have to go through a registration process. The community system creates an account for them as they enter the first time with the provided password.



APPENDIX

Templates Here are several templates for use in building your community. We recommend that you do not mix these community templates with product promotions, sales activities, or vendor marketing activities. Your community is about socializing and helping about your customers - not about selling. Adjust the templates to whatever makes sense to you and your ecosystem.

Team Info email Purpose: Help your entire team to commit and understand the importance of your online community for your business.

Target audience: Internal team members Usage: Introducing the new community to your team via email or presentation

Dear team,

Today, when we look for any new product or service, most of us search the internet, read blogs, see what people in forums have to say, get input from people in their social networks, and leverage other resources on the Internet to get educated about those products or services. Many of our customers do the same. Like us, they want to get impressions from their peers.

To better support our customers and create a new / further maintain our leadership position, we decided to create an online business community for our clients, new prospects, and business partners. The community will help customers meet other customers and share information. Specifically, we created our own branded business community with the following objectives:

- Create a better way for us to listen to our customers and prospects - Make it easier for our customers to work with us (and help us better meet their needs) - Create a trustworthy environment where prospective customers can talk to our current

customers about their experiences (references) - Develop a sense of advocacy where customers can invite new prospects and help us be

more successful with them - Create a competitive advantage as a successful community leader

Despite the risk that some customers may offer negative comments , we trust the research indicating that the majority will be much more interested in building good business relationships.

You will receive an invitation to join the community soon. When you do, please following the registration process. This is a new era for us and we all need to work together to make the new community a positive and beneficial experience for our customers.



Team Invitation email

Purpose: Make sure that team members and their content are well-represented within your community before customers join. Target audience: Internal team members Usage: Email inviting team to join the community

Dear team, We are very excited to launch our online business community on –DATE--. As discussed earlier, we are building this community to foster our relationships with customers, to create a stronger bond between our customers , and to provide a platform where customers can invite their peers so we can get new customers. A successful and active community is an important part of our strategy.

The community is up and running now. We now need you to join first before we open it up to our customers. You will receive an email invitation soon. Please login with your email address as your User ID and the password that comes in the email invitation. Go to SETTINGS and MYPROFILE and complete your profile and upload a picture. Take a look at the pre-loaded content and add whatever you think is useful and important. Post messages wherever you can. This is your way to provide information that can be used by others in the community.

That’s all for now. We’ll keep you posted and hope you become active in the community right away.

Blog welcome note Purpose: Provide a warm welcome and make new members feel home. Target audience: Visitors to your community Usage: Content in the blog Welcome to our online business community launch. This community is open and all members can post and add content. We are eager to learn, so let us know what you think. While communities, blogs, forums and other social media tools aren’t new, we have taken the step of providing all these tools in one place. It is also a new way for us to bring our customers and industry leaders closer together. And in the spirit of true community thinking, we encourage everyone to blog here, to ask questions in the discussion forum, answer questions from other members, post interesting videos, and do whatever you can to help each other be successful.



Customer invitation email Purpose: Helping your customers understand what you are trying to achieve and what they should do when they receive the community login Target audience: Your entire ecosystem (customers, prospects, contacts…) Usage: Email prior to the actual community invitation Dear <name>

As we get busier and busier, it gets harder and harder to find the time to communicate. However, if we stop communicating, then we are not doing everything we can to help you achieve your business objectives. We must all use new tools and technologies to stay in contact.

Next week we are introducing an online business community to make it easier and faster for us to communicate -- and more importantly to allow all of our customers to communicate with each other. You will be invited to join that community.

Our goal in developing this community is to create a better business experience for everyone. We want to make it easier for you to learn from us and vice versa and to help our community solve problems by sharing expertise, experience, and resources. In the end we can all help each other be more successful.

You will receive an email invitation soon. Please login with your email address as your User ID and the password that comes in the email invitation. Go to SETTINGS and MYPROFILE and complete your profile and upload a picture. Take a look at the pre-loaded content and add whatever you think is useful and important. Post some messages if you want. This is your way to receive (and provide) information that can be used by others in the community.

We look forward to your comments and postings.



Customer Benefits email Purpose: Helping your customers and prospects understand THEIR benefit from participating Target audience: Your entire ecosystem (customers, prospects, contacts…) Usage: Email after you officially invited your customers and prospects

Dear <name>

Thank you so much for joining our online business community. We are very excited to have you be part of it. As social media expert Axel Schultze says: “You can get only something out if you put something in,” referring to investments in social capital. This means the more active you are, the better for everyone.

Let me reiterate the benefits we see for every participant:

- Meet other customers and expand your professional network - Learn from other customer experiences and the way they use products and services - Post questions in the discussion form to get some feedback from peers - Develop your own skills by accessing a broader range of knowledge - Find interesting or educational video clips showing ways to be more successful - Provide feedback, share expertise, and develop your reputation as expert

Plus, an active community helps us to be more successful in meeting your needs.

Please let me know your impressions. Does the community help you in achieving your business goals? We are committed to a long term investment in our community (and our customer base) and we need feedback to do it right.

….



Support If you need any help please click “Feedback” within your community on the top navigation line. This is your fastest access to our support team. Also you may send us an email to [email protected]

Need more education? Check the Social Media Academy at http://www.socialmedia-academy.com you may find interesting courses and trainings to help you and your team leveraging the remarkable opportunities of social media. Many of our partners also teach at the academy, so you may find similar courses provided by different partners.

Need some consulting support? Xeequa’s online community systems are supported by trained and experienced consultants around the world. Please check for a partner near you if you are not already supported by one of our partners.

Meet other owners? You may want to join the exclusive Xeequa Community Owners community. It is a community only for owner and community managers of Xeequa based communities. Like your own community we will connect you with other owners, share information, provide feedback and share best practices. http://owners.xeequa.com You will need to be approved before you get access. Just click on join.



About Xeequa

Xeequa is an enterprise social media software provider. The company’s Social Business Suite helps corporations to create a better business experience for their customers, prospects and partners by setting up a trustful presence in the so called social web. Xeequa helps businesses to facilitate online dialogs between customers and partners and other constituencies of their respective eco system through its branded online social media community suite. Patent pending innovations include measuring of social capital value, large scale content dissemination and new partner and alliance empowerment. Xeequa is the first social media solution that provides tools and reports needed for a corporate social media engagement.

The advertising free “software as a service” is subscription based and scales from small businesses to global enterprises. Xeequa has representation in the US, Europe, Asia and Australia. More info on www.xeequa.com or 1-650-384-0057

Launching Your Community

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