Planning Communities in NewsGator Social Sites

At Perficient, most of our customers are looking for a SharePoint interface that provides functionality familiar to users who live their lives on Facebook, LinkedIn, and the like.  While a number of independent software vendors offer these packages, we work very closely with NewsGator to deliver the feature set that our clients need.
It’s not enough to say “we want our intranet to work like Facebook”, but that’s usually where organizations start, and no wonder—Facebook is intuitive, easy to use, and more or less ubiquitous these days.  Of course, businesses who say they want their own Facebook behind the firewall are a lot like people my age who say they like Radiohead—everyone wants to do it, but not many of them really know why.
Happily, a good many forward-thinking companies have already seized the opportunity to deploy a solution like NewsGator’s Social Sites to achieve their ends.  Once they’ve had some time to work with us and really build out their vision, it typically boils down to desiring some variation of these three key points.  Customers want to:

• Create Engaging Communities
• Find Experts
• Capture Knowledge

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I’d like to talk a bit —well, write, really— about these points today.
NewsGator’s Social Sites comes packed with a great many tools beyond the basic microblogging that first addicts… er, I mean attracts, attracts a user.  If we can all agree that the standard Facebook/Twitter “status” or “news feed” is what pulls people into the social framework, then we have a common starting point.
But what gives an organization the ability to capture essential knowledge, getting it out of the users’ minds and turning it into a corporate asset?  How does a news feed make that knowledge findable and traceable?  How does it associate that knowledge to a contributor and build up a body of expertise for that contributor over time?
In short, it doesn’t.
This is where Newsgator really shines.  Through a feature called the Community, they’ve created an engaging and interactive environment where knowledge is not only shared, but socialized and made findable.  It’s essentially what you get when you mix a traditional SharePoint Team Site with Facebook commentary, Twitter-style hashtagging and the powerful Search capabilities inherent to SharePoint.
I’m not here to sell you on Communities, though—if you want to learn more you can check it out here.  What I want to do is leave you with a bit of wisdom on how to launch Communities, because if you don’t do it right, it’s just like any tool.  Use it, or watch it become shelfware.
So, assuming that we’ve worked with a partner to design an intuitive user experience that draws users in and engages them with the platform, how do we make sure they stay?  Easy.  We need to design Communities that will actually appeal to the users.  We can do that with three simple success criteria.  Before you roll out the NewsGator environment, make sure that every Community adheres to these three simple rules:

1. It has an immediate business driver that makes community content valuable
2. It’s got audience appeal—either broad to everyone OR a specific, high-value targeted group
3. You can find a Community Manager with a vested interest in the Community’s success, and a facility with and/or interest in technology

Immediate Business Drivers
This is where you want to associate the social collaboration features of the Community to a particular team or group that could use them to meet its end goal more effectively.
Maybe you want the marketing team to create better messaging for their product?  Perhaps there’s an interdisciplinary steering committee that needs to work together across organizational and/or geographical boundaries?  Maybe the HR team, a hiring manager and some experienced players in role need a place to discuss candidates for the open requisition?  What about just having a place to discuss the best lunch options in the neighborhood near the office?
All of these are valid business drivers to spin up a social Community.  People will use it, because it helps them either get their primary job done or accomplish some other essential task.
Audience Appeal
A Community can only succeed if it has a designated audience.  You should only be launching Communities that have a definite audience—don’t rely on “If you build it, they will come”.  That might have worked for the Field of Dreams, but unlike Shoeless Joe, your users have regular jobs.
Say rather, “if you build it especially for these guys, and it gives them something they needed, they will come.”  Target the Community to a specific audience—the Strategy and Planning Committee, the Product Team, a Project team, even the Motorcycle Club.  It gives them a place to discuss the topics that are vital to them and their specific team objectives.
Conversely, target the general audience with Communities that will appeal to everyone.  Consider Health and Fitness Initiatives, company-wide Volunteer Opportunities, or feedback on the changes to Benefits.  These are topics that will attract a wide audience and engender either two-way communication, feedback or both.
Community Managers
The Community Manager role is essential to a successful NewsGator deployment.  These are people who take a few minutes a week to keep content and discussions fresh, add a hashtag where it might be needed, and generally moderate the Community environment.
You’ll want to find people who are somewhat tech-savvy for these roles, but more importantly, they need to be motivated people who have a vested interest in seeing the Community succeed.  I’ve seen everyone from team managers to office administrators and a myriad of roles in between serve as successful Community Managers.  The only real qualification is a desire to make things better, and at heart that casts a pretty wide net.
If you follow these three basic tenets in launching your own initial Communities, you’ll be on the right track to success before you know it.  Good luck!
–Rich