Research

Online Community ROI Models and Reports

17 Mar 2008, Bill Johnston

Full Report Available for Purchase

Bill Johnston (Forum One Networks) sent approximately 500 survey invitations to online community and social media professionals in our network of executives and practitioners.

We received approximately 150 completed surveys. Participants included large software companies, large community destination sites, niche community sites, platform providers and interactive marketing and advertising firms.

In addition to the survey results, there is a tremendous amount of useful write-in data from our research. We have organized the report with an eye towards summaries, but have included all write in data in an appendix (beginning on page 45) that follows the summary section.

Highlights from the report include:

  • Community Staff (page 8): roles in the community team and breakdowns of contractor to staff;
  • Community Strategy Responsibility (page 11): breakdown of roles responsible for online community strategy;
  • Online Community Goals (page 15): the top three online community goals for surveyed organizations;
  • Measurement Tools & Techniques (page 18): a list of tools and techniques used to measure online community and social media programs;
  • Critical Metrics (page 20): a list of metrics critical to communicating ROI;
  • Reporting Data Sets (page 28): a list of data sets being included in reports;
  • Report Stakeholder Satisfaction (page 31): level of satisfaction of stakeholders receiving online community reports;
  • The Elevator Pitch (page 35): the compelling sources of value/case studies that internal community evangelists constantly use;
  • Advice (page 40): advice on community strategy development, measuring ROI, and/or reporting on ROI


Click the link below to download a complimentary summary of the full report. The summary includes limited statistics and data from the full report. Click the link above to purchase the full report.

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