The Business Impact of Online Communities: New Study and Framework

How do organizations track the impact of their online communities?  How do they measure expenditures, revenue, and cost savings?  How do they link the community to competitive advantage?

To get answers to these critical questions, we partnered with Higher Logic and The Conference Board to conduct a survey of nearly 300 marketing and community leaders.  Today, we’re pleased to share the results and our analysis in a new Leader Networks study: The Business Impact of Online Communities.

Community Impact Framework helps community leaders measure value

The survey confirmed what we’ve seen first hand:  Online communities deliver significant business benefits – but community leaders struggle to measure value in business terms.

To overcome this challenge, we took the top community success measures survey respondents told us they are tracking and codified them into a Community Impact Framework.

For the first time, the Community Impact Framework gives marketing and community leaders a set of measures and metrics/KPIs that they can use to track and prove the business impact of their community – using vocabulary and methods that resonate with financial and business stakeholders.

This framework provides both a real-world look at how community leaders are currently tracking community impact – while demonstrating that metrics (of all kinds) must align with and support business goals to be relevant.

Just as Globally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) provide the framework for financial accounting, the Community Impact Framework offers an initial set of standards for measuring community value.  With this framework in hand, marketers and community leaders can move toward linking online communities and competitive advantage.

For more information about the Community Impact Framework, and to see the results and analysis of the survey, download the full report:  The Business Impact of Online Communities.

Join us for a webinar exploring the study findings in depth on February 22nd. Sign up HERE.

Share your thoughts and insights on the findings by using #CmtyImpact on Twitter.