[WIP] Establish Phase

Now its time to combine all those insights to some actionable steps to build your community from scratch:

Establish Phase

1. Take care of business background aspects (Building a business case)

   Assemble executive sponsors

• YOu have to get executive buy in, for businesses that are unfamilliar with online communities in particular, be prepared to convince everyone at the top levels the value that an online community can deliver.

• Executive involvement has much to do with how well communities influence revenue.

• Pilot projects offer a safe learning environment to help the organization get comfortable and build competencies around community.

1. Identify business needs

Identify business needs

Identify audience needs and core member needs

Map business and audience needs to community featuers

form identity: find potential members who fit the community identity you envision.

Define success and create measurement frameworks

Prepare a budget

Preparing a budget for an online community, business case as with any forecast about the future is just intelligent well informed guesswork.

YOur budget should include both the cost and revenue sides of the ledger. You will probably be able to forecast costs with greater confidence than revenues.