Comments on: Ten Rules for Building an Online B2B Community http://www.emediastrategist.com/blog/ten-rules-for-building-an-online-b2b-community/ Personal blog of Eric Shanfelt, Online Business Strategist Wed, 06 Jul 2011 13:57:16 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Eric http://www.emediastrategist.com/blog/ten-rules-for-building-an-online-b2b-community/comment-page-1/#comment-6378 Eric Fri, 11 May 2007 00:11:21 +0000 http://www.emediastrategist.com/blog/?p=54#comment-6378 Steve and I were talking and I guess it really is a matter of scale. To some really large publishing companies an extra $500K in revenue per year (which is doable on a forum) may not be that big of a deal. To others, it would be HUGE to add that much online revenue to their portfolio. Steve and I were talking and I guess it really is a matter of scale. To some really large publishing companies an extra $500K in revenue per year (which is doable on a forum) may not be that big of a deal. To others, it would be HUGE to add that much online revenue to their portfolio.

]]> By: Sean Adams http://www.emediastrategist.com/blog/ten-rules-for-building-an-online-b2b-community/comment-page-1/#comment-6356 Sean Adams Thu, 10 May 2007 20:44:10 +0000 http://www.emediastrategist.com/blog/?p=54#comment-6356 Good post - and for the most part I agree as well with the ten points listed. I, like Eric, disagree with the numbers 6 and 10.... I think that allowing members to read your forum, while keeping from them the ability to post and enjoy other features is actually enticing for them join, which is the point after all. And as far as #10 - forums can be extremely profitable, especially due to the low overhead it usually takes to run and grow the forum. I remember the first sponsor we nailed down for one of my forums was $1,200 - exciting.... less than 2 years later we had a dozen companies fighting over an exclsuive banner worth $50,000. Keep the forum as active as you can, keep it clean and professional and let potential advertisers know the forum exists....they will come a-knockin....with checkbook in hand. Good post – and for the most part I agree as well with the ten points listed. I, like Eric, disagree with the numbers 6 and 10…. I think that allowing members to read your forum, while keeping from them the ability to post and enjoy other features is actually enticing for them join, which is the point after all. And as far as #10 – forums can be extremely profitable, especially due to the low overhead it usually takes to run and grow the forum. I remember the first sponsor we nailed down for one of my forums was $1,200 – exciting…. less than 2 years later we had a dozen companies fighting over an exclsuive banner worth $50,000. Keep the forum as active as you can, keep it clean and professional and let potential advertisers know the forum exists….they will come a-knockin….with checkbook in hand.

]]> By: Steve MacMinn http://www.emediastrategist.com/blog/ten-rules-for-building-an-online-b2b-community/comment-page-1/#comment-6349 Steve MacMinn Thu, 10 May 2007 20:26:09 +0000 http://www.emediastrategist.com/blog/?p=54#comment-6349 Just wanted to give your readers some additional background on Globalspec and CR4. GlobalSpec (www.globalspec.com) is a multi-product internet-based information company in the engineering/industrial/technical market. We have the world’s largest parametrically searchable catalog database, SpecSearch, for helping engineers and technical professionals to find the components and services they need. The service is free to users and we provide actionable sales leads suppliers. We also publish 55 electronic newsletters in specialty engineering areas, with a total circulation of over 4 million from 1.5 million unique subscribers. We developed our community site, CR4 (cr4.globalspec.com), so that GlobalSpec could become better integrated into the technical professional’s daily workflow. Our goal was to increase brand recognition and repeat usage among our user community. CR4 features: • Questions and discussion on a wide range of technical topics. • Blogs – User blogs, and blogs on our newsletter content. • Engineering News from over 300 news sources. GlobalSpec launched CR4 in April of 2005. After investigating various community site models, we decided to go with the Slashdot model (www.slashdot.com). Slashdot is organized somewhat like a newspaper. There are various topical sections, and new or popular posts to the various sections are promoted to the front page, giving them visibility to the community as a whole. CR4 launched in 2005 using a slightly modified version of the open source Slash software. We knew it wouldn’t be our final platform, but it allowed us to get out the door fast and begin learning. After running on the Slash platform for almost a year, we began development of our own software that would be customized for the needs of CR4. We re-launched on the new platform in September of 2006. Growth of the CR4 community has been exponential since launch. We presently have almost 60,000 subscribers to our daily newsletter, and during the work week the site often hosts several hundred simultaneous users. Community members post over 900 “stories” (questions or news) and 10,000 comments per month, and that number is growing quickly. One feature we integrated into the new platform was the capability to host blogs. The site presently hosts over 20 user blogs on topics such as “The future of Energy,” “Electronic Test Equipment,” and “Relativity and Cosmology.” To keep some focus to the site and prevent abandonment, we invite users to contact us if they wish to start a blog. We try to determine how committed they are to keeping the blog updated, and how relevant the topic is to the community. We also have blogs tied to our various engineering newsletters, where users can discuss the newsletter stories. The site is presently running at about 2000 blog entries/month on various engineering-related topics. Just wanted to give your readers some additional background on Globalspec and CR4.

GlobalSpec (www.globalspec.com) is a multi-product internet-based information company in the engineering/industrial/technical market. We have the world’s largest parametrically searchable catalog database, SpecSearch, for helping engineers and technical professionals to find the components and services they need. The service is free to users and we provide actionable sales leads suppliers. We also publish 55 electronic newsletters in specialty engineering areas, with a total circulation of over 4 million from 1.5 million unique subscribers.

We developed our community site, CR4 (cr4.globalspec.com), so that GlobalSpec could become better integrated into the technical professional’s daily workflow. Our goal was to increase brand recognition and repeat usage among our user community. CR4 features:

• Questions and discussion on a wide range of technical topics.
• Blogs – User blogs, and blogs on our newsletter content.
• Engineering News from over 300 news sources.

GlobalSpec launched CR4 in April of 2005. After investigating various community site models, we decided to go with the Slashdot model (www.slashdot.com). Slashdot is organized somewhat like a newspaper. There are various topical sections, and new or popular posts to the various sections are promoted to the front page, giving them visibility to the community as a whole.

CR4 launched in 2005 using a slightly modified version of the open source Slash software. We knew it wouldn’t be our final platform, but it allowed us to get out the door fast and begin learning. After running on the Slash platform for almost a year, we began development of our own software that would be customized for the needs of CR4. We re-launched on the new platform in September of 2006.

Growth of the CR4 community has been exponential since launch. We presently have almost 60,000 subscribers to our daily newsletter, and during the work week the site often hosts several hundred simultaneous users. Community members post over 900 “stories” (questions or news) and 10,000 comments per month, and that number is growing quickly.

One feature we integrated into the new platform was the capability to host blogs. The site presently hosts over 20 user blogs on topics such as “The future of Energy,” “Electronic Test Equipment,” and “Relativity and Cosmology.” To keep some focus to the site and prevent abandonment, we invite users to contact us if they wish to start a blog. We try to determine how committed they are to keeping the blog updated, and how relevant the topic is to the community. We also have blogs tied to our various engineering newsletters, where users can discuss the newsletter stories. The site is presently running at about 2000 blog entries/month on various engineering-related topics.

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