Managing (?) Online Communities

Last Monday’s session of ITTECHSTARTUP in IE Business School saw another interesting guest invited by Prof  Enrique Dans. Pedro Jareño is the founder of Minube, the first spanish social travel network. In Minube, users can get inspiration for their next trips from others travellers’ experiences, plan their trips, compare flights and hotels and also share their own experiences. It provides end to end services for the new traveller. Beside other responsibilities, Pedro Jareño also handles marketing and communication at the Minube.

The central topic of the session was “organizing online communities”. Pedro followed several activities in different directions in order to promote his website. The initial task for any startup is to identify potential community leaders. Bloggers who share the interest around the product of the startup can be an interesting start. A personal contact to each of potential community leader can play an important role. The startup should value the potential community leaders, and encourage them to contribute to the community. Recognizing the community members at different levels is beautiful way of encouraging them. Recognition may play a key role to make members feel special. The most important message from the session was that one should not try to manage the community. One should listen to the community, and let the startup move along the lines of what communities want it to do. You cannot manage the community.

In case of startups within bigger enterprises as well, creating online communities do play important role. Even though the larger enterprise may have a its online presence, it may be important for the entrepreneur to have community around its offerings. A division may need to align its overall communication with the larger organisation. But, that may be all the relation existing with parent enterprise. The startup within the bigger organisation should also identify the community leaders who share interest, and are open to cheer for the specific offering of the startup. The entrepreneur individual within enterprise should consider encouraging and recognizing the community members. However, last point is about community can be manged by the startups or not. I believe that there can be difference between independent traditional startups,, and startups within larger enterprises. An independent traditional startup is in process of finding its niche, and its generally happy to take help from community in finding that niche. As long as there is enough customer support, it makes sense for the traditional startup to listen to its community and change its business strategy. However, for startups within larger enterprises, the product portfolio generally fits into the larger strategy of the bigger enterprise. That makes it important for managers to be very actively involved in the community, and not just listen to the same. Many a times, it is possible that community is not able to perceive the correct image of the offering. Entrepreneurs within the enterprise can use resources to ensure that enough info is pushed to the community, so that they are able to see the picture in the correct light. An entrepreneur within a larger organization should, therefore, maintain a balance between listening to community to modify its growth plans and contributing to the community to maintain the long-term strategic direction of the larger enterprise