A few nights ago I attended an excellent seminar on Online Communities initiated by the Knowledge Management Forum in Sydney. It was an excellent night with a great mix of knowledge managers, librarians, social media strategists and market researchers.

The night kicked off with three excellent speakers. VP of Community Relations for Wikia Inc, Angela Beesley . The next speaker was the Community Relations Manager for WorldNomads an online travel company. The final speaker was Strategy Director for McCanns Sydney, Mark Pollard. While each of the speakers managed diverse online communities there were some key takeouts from the night that were similar:

• Welcoming each member into the community
• Embracing the organic nature of the community
• The need to still take some control or leadership of the community
• Importance in keeping community members engaged
• The serendipity of technology - and rapid advance of apps.

While the majority of speakers were involved in online branded communities different to the Market Research Online Communities that I manage (bespoke communities set up for clients) the takeouts applied albiet in a slightly different way and context:

• Welcoming Members. This naturally still applies.  We welcome every member into the online community that we have created. Whether they are there for a simple two hour discussion or an in-depth monthly forum each member needs to be welcomed in. In addition, it is important to ensure you notice each new members 'first post' and commend them for joining the discussion.  
• Embracing Organic nature of communities. This also applies. While we start the discussion off with questions regarding the subject matter, invariably participants also help shape the discussions and often future questions which lead to those market research 'nuggets' of gold. The platform allows us to have a more two-way dialogue rather than simple question and answer formats. 
• Leadership. We have a strict code of conduct for those entering the site and participants understand their responsibilities when they participate in the discussion. We certainly don't tolerate unacceptable behaviour and members are told they must respect 'difference' of opinion which invariably occurs in moderated online discussions. Professional moderation of the group is a must.  
• Engaging your members. This is critical. An engaged online participant will not only enjoy the experience but discussions will be much richer. We have functionality within our online community platform that includes the ability for moderators and participants to upload photos and videos to help illustrate discussions - all ensuring richer insights for our clients. 
• Technology. We certainly agree with this takeout. Market Research has come a long way since face-to-face surveys then the development of CATI and then online surveys. Even a few years ago we couldn't have imagined that social networks would become a mainstay and the interactive facebook style platform (ours developed in-house) would be an ideal way of communicating in a more interactive and non-geographically bound way with our participants.