ITtoolbox, Profitable Online Community, Shares Lessons Learned on Its Eighth Anniversary.SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- ITtoolbox, the online community enabling professional IT knowledge sharing, today celebrates its eighth anniversary and shares lessons learned while building and operating a profitable online community. ITtoolbox has operated as a profitable business since 1999, building a base of more than 500 advertising clients including Microsoft, IBM (International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY, www.ibm.com) The world's largest computer company. IBM's product lines include the S/390 mainframes (zSeries), AS/400 midrange business systems (iSeries), RS/6000 workstations and servers (pSeries), Intel-based servers (xSeries) , Oracle, HP, Dell, and Intel. By adhering ADHERING. Cleaving to, or joining; as, adhering to the enemies of the United States. 2. The constitution of the United States, art. 3, s 3, defines treason against the United States, to consist only in levying war against them or in adhering to their enemies, to lessons learned from years of experience, the 50-employee company is on pace to increase revenue by 50% in 2006. The blog blog, short for web log, an online, regularly updated journal or newsletter that is readily accessible to the general public by virtue of being posted on a website. program it operates has grown 300% in the last year, reaching more than 720,000 unique visits in the second quarter, and the ITtoolbox Groups program reached new heights of activity as community members exchanged 40 million e-mails in July. The one-year-old, community-edited IT reference guide at ITtoolbox Wiki became one of the most visited parts of the ITtoolbox network. "The ITtoolbox community has grown organically for eight years and now helps more than 1.5 million unique professionals share knowledge each month," remarked Dan Morrison Not to be confused with Denny Morrison. Dan, Daniel, or Danny Morrison is the name of several persons:
As online communities are increasingly being analyzed an·a·lyze tr.v. an·a·lyzed, an·a·lyz·ing, an·a·lyz·es 1. To examine methodically by separating into parts and studying their interrelations. 2. Chemistry To make a chemical analysis of. 3. for their disruptive disruptive /dis·rup·tive/ (-tiv) 1. bursting apart; rending. 2. causing confusion or disorder. media and advertising capabilities, ITtoolbox shares lessons learned from eight years of experimentation, innovation, and success. Lessons Learned -- Building an Online Community --Quality of content: Users will create quality content if doing so helps them meet their needs and if the community platform facilitates it. --Moderation: For moderation to be successful, it must further the goals of the community without restricting user passion or ownership. Moderation must be tailored by function, membership, and collaborative tool, i.e., discussion groups should be moderated differently from blogs or a wiki. --SEO: Online communities drive search engine optimization Designing a Web site so that search engines easily find the pages and index them. The goal is to have your page be in the top 10 results of a search. Optimization includes the choice of words used in the text paragraphs and the placement of those words on the page, both visible and hidden , since community-generated content provides volumes of hooks to attract new users through search engines. --Competition: Being first to market with your online community trumps trump 1 n. 1. Games a. A suit in card games that outranks all other suits for the duration of a hand. Often used in the plural. b. A card of such a suit. c. A trump card. 2. added features. --Originality: Online communities are unique and cannot be carbon-copied. Community members will shape the community. --Innovation: Online communities are young and innovation is accelerating. Don't build a community on top of one tool -- continually incorporate new tools and techniques into your online community to help it better meet the needs of its users and advertisers. --Employees: There is not a large market of experienced online community builders. Creating a successful community has no predefined model and will require creative thinking and problem-solving. Lessons Learned -- Creating Advertising Value Through an Online Community --Incorporate standard ad formats: Generate consistent, scalable revenue with advertising that fits into the pre-exiting buying process. Offer standard formats like flash, banners, and e-mail campaigns and ensure they perform as well as campaigns on traditional media sites. --Performance is paramount: To sell advertising, demonstrate performance. Communities create high volumes of granular granular /gran·u·lar/ (gran´u-lar) made up of or marked by presence of granules or grains. gran·u·lar adj. 1. Composed or appearing to be composed of granules or grains. 2. content, allowing for a level of targeting that can drive superior performance while adding value to the user. --Advertising must add value to the user: Successful advertisements in an environment of user empowerment em·pow·er tr.v. em·pow·ered, em·pow·er·ing, em·pow·ers 1. To invest with power, especially legal power or official authority. See Synonyms at authorize. 2. are more than simple promotions. They must have value for users so they engage with it and invite it into their experience. --Offer unique opportunities: Campaigns can be enhanced by innovative programs that capitalize on Cap´i`tal`ize on` v. t. 1. To turn (an opportunity) to one's advantage; to take advantage of (a situation); to profit from; as, to capitalize on an opponent's mistakes s>. the unique characteristics of a particular online community. Seek opportunities that can scale with the community's growth and take advantage of its differences from editorial media, such as sponsored content creation in Wiki, sponsored podcasts, contests for the community, etc. Additional information about ITtoolbox, including a company timeline
Timeline may refer to:
About ITtoolbox ITtoolbox is an online community, enabling peers to share professional knowledge about information technology. Since 1998, ITtoolbox has helped professionals make IT decisions and stay current in the rapidly changing IT market through peer collaboration. The ITtoolbox platform incorporates blogs, discussion groups, and a wiki, facilitating targeted community interaction in which IT advertisers can participate through a proprietary contextual matching system. This combination of community and advertising value has made ITtoolbox a leading destination for professionals and a leader in online advertising, performing for more than 500 clients including Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, Dell, and HP. http://www.ITtoolbox.com |
|
||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion