motoraddicts - niche online social networking for passionates
Post on 17-Oct-2014
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DESCRIPTION
Covers the rationale behind the project and some lessons from the first year of operation; presented at the Blogs and Social Media Forum, London, 2007.TRANSCRIPT
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Community Building For Passionates
Some Lessons from a Web 2.0
Community Marketing Project
Lee Bryant, June 2007, www.headshift.com
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Passion + need --> use cases
• Tap into human need
• Amplify passion
• Start with real use cases
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The Idea
• Don’t market passionates, let them tell you what they want
• Experiment in Social Networking
• Create the ‘best petrolhead community website’
• Content focussed: the (user’s) car is the star
• Allow members to share their passion, pictures and video
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What does the site do ? BLOGS
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What does the site do ? COMMENT & DISCUSSION
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What does the site do ? GROUPS
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Castrol PCO HQ
Swindon, UKHeadshift
London, UK
Castrol Project Manager
Istanbul, Turkey
BP Tech Marketing
New Jersey, USA
Castrol Marketing
New Jersey, USA
Important PCO
Sydney, AustImportant PCO
Cape Town, SA
Who was Behind the Build?
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Working Together
The Motoraddicts project wiki allowed an international team to:
• Participate in discussionsand research
• Collaborate and developideas and documents
• Comment on designs
and early concepts
• Monitor development issues
as they are raised
• Involve a wide and diversegroup in decision making
• Overcome time differences
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The Road to Launch - 1. Market Research
Comprehensive market research was undertaken with target group including :
• Ethnographic Research
• Mood boards
• Interviews
• Concept tests
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• Defined technical features
• Created an independent site identity that worked
• Built v1 (Beta)
• Tested by conventional usability labs in both US/UK
The Road to Launch - 2. Develop Concepts
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• Early champions (mix of Castrol employees and external PCO Passionates) started an ‘Insiders’ blog
to discuss concepts and ideas
• Group shown Beta Version for feedback
• Provided access to Beta Version for 2 months in order to populate with relevant content
The Road to Launch - 3. Beta Test
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First Iterations - Version 1.1
Shaping for the Audience:
• Community Over Branding
• Content over Look and Feel
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First Iterations - Version 1.2
• Increase Visual Representation of Conversational Activity
• Improve External Feeds / Integration
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Motoraddicts Today - Version 1.3
• Design Dramatisation
• Time for Video
• Hosting Groups from the
Real World : Car Clubs
• Introduce Brand
Ambassadors to the Passionates
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Motoraddicts Today and Tomorrow
Continue with constant monitoring andruthless pruning - if it is not loved, it goes
• Foster Engagement
• Increase Richness and Reach
• Motoraddicts as a Platform
• Tailrank and ‘Digg-like’ features
• Other public social features (e.g. wiki)
• Embracing Innovation: The World of Widgets
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• Much debate on legal and brand issues
• What do you do when the community’s values are not in line with your brand values?
• We have gone for a very un-branded approach
• Light touch moderation driven by community
members, supported by a ‘daily sweep’ by contracted moderation company as a safety net
Key Issues: Moderation
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• Constant balancing act between aspirational ‘editorial’ content and user content
• Editorial partners (Haymarket) are very close to
the ‘scene’ - encouraged to behave as content ambassadors and set topics and tone
• Challenge of keeping content on topic and avoid super users dominating at the expense of others
Key Issues: Content
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Key Issues: Group Culture
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Key Issues: Dealing with Passionate Super Users
Number of photos > = 1 EXC Mr X (2000)
Mr X
• Member X dominated site - over 50% of user content
• Balancing benefits of regular
contribution with community domination
• Introduced ‘Carotica’ to site which has become widespread
• Has now left the community
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• Member Y insisted profile include video of the 9/11 terrorist attack in Manhattan and also the US Flag
• Advised that we would prefer him to contribute
content that reflected aims of site - cars
• Balance between moderation cost and ensuring integrity
and relevance of user community
Key Issues: Sensitive user issues
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• Balance between a finished and unfinished design
• Finished enough to attract users
• Sufficiently unpolished to encourage amateur content contribution
• Lessons learnt from Myspace et al
Key Issues: Design Challenges
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Key Issues: from Virtual to Real World and back again
Motoraddicts has landed in the real world...
• Motoraddicts stalls at key events - member sign up, speak to expert contributors
• Branding on sponsored cars
• Recruitment of brand ambassadors - Funk
Master Flex, Top Drivers
And is widening its virtual world net...
• Soon to appear in a video game near you
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• Achieved targets set for 2006;on course for 2007
• BUT ... site has not reached critical mass
yet, so we need to accelerate its tipping point to achieve real success
• Success is not just about numbers, but also lessons learned and experience of this new way of working
Key Issues: Performance
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• Social networking with passionates is more desirable than marketing to passionates
• Social tools can help grow a project outwards in
concentric circles from its initial core group
• Community is hard to build and easy to break
• Balancing active and passive user groups is tricky
• There is still a role for editorial and facilitation
• Rapid iteration is better than perfect concepts
• If it doubt, let the users decide
Learnings
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For more information, please contact us here:
http://www.headshift.com
Many thanks to the following Flickr photos made available under a Creative Commons license:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/katphotos/518524823/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/the-jedi/490259826/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/jvk/141843359/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/burningpaper/45614192/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/raeallen/82013539/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/nico/749582/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/grosminet/281852516/http://www.flickr.com/photos/lwr/199510603/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/jazza5629/492980965/ Regardless of the CC license, if any photographer objects to the inclusion of their material then we shall happily remove it
Thanks For Listening!