A “community” website is a very powerful benefit for associations and their members - as well as for corporations for whom engagement is an important part of their retention strategy. But this is only true if the site was implemented in a way that fully integrates the community content with the rest of the website so that the member/customer experience is seamless.
The creation of community for these groups is ever more important, especially as the future of in-person events is called into question. Ever since the creation of the first social media network, SixDegrees.com in 1997 (about a decade before Facebook opened up to non-college students), the usefulness of the internet in drawing people together has been the aim of many entrepreneurs.
The resulting ubiquity of software and services that facilitate community has now made adding this benefit quite attainable and there are several available options that more or less operate similarly. They’re all built around providing a place for members to interact with each other without the moderation of a higher authority - from basic listservs (yes, they’re still in use) to simple chatrooms to the most expensive platforms that have terrific automation functionality.
However, there is still a cost, so many organizations might question the value of such an investment. The only way to answer this is to connect usage of the tool to the action you want them most to take: for most that is members renewing. This is no simple feat as it takes a modelling technique called a “Market Basket Analysis” to relate these purchases or actions.
This has been done by other associations and I performed it at one of mine as well - in my case I studied not only communities but everything else I could think of. For example: attending a national event; attending a chapter event; opening an email; clicking in an email; posting in our community; simply logging into our community. The only thing - the only thing - that moved the needle at all for retention was logging into our community. Lurking is just fine. There’s no need to post. This is consistent with what other associations have found as well.
Okay, so you’ll invest in a community - how should it be implemented. For most, the answer is “not well.”
That sounds overly glib, but here’s what most associations do: they have two different websites: One is the one they’ve always had - call it a “marketing” website - with “Who we are” and “What we do” and “How to join” type information. The other is the community. It has the chatroom, member directory, and much of the password protected content. It probably also has a specific URL - community.organization.org or connect.society.org. The problem is, members know the URL and go to the original site. And then they have to hunt around for the community they want!
The right way to implement (or reimplement) these sites is to integrate the personalized community content throughout the original site.
Any SLIDER or HERO STORY area should be used for the top things people expect to find when they visit the site. WHO WE ARE and WHAT WE DO should be more “evergreen” content - but both should be replaced by personalized content when a member is logged in. EVENTS should be brought to the home page and dynamically generated and personalized by geography. Other content - job listings, forums, topical information and industry news can also be personalized.
Personalization opportunities are almost endless: geography/chapter; interests and profession; membership cycle, event attendance and registration, demographic information; membership lifecycle; past behavior (clicks) - pretty much anything that can be known about a member can be used to personalize their experience to make it more relevant to them.
There is no doubt much work behind the scenes needed to make this happen - multiple job listings modules and tagging of content - but there’s always a work-around. And the payoff will be higher retention, higher revenue and a healthier membership.
