Community Surfing

What You Can Learn from Communities You Don’t Own

April 5, 2007

Whether or not you have your own customer community, your customers are likely interacting with others in one or more external communities that span your industry or sector. “Community Surfing” is observing and learning from these communities that you don’t own. They contain a wealth of customer-created information that can be a source of insights and information, provide a glimpse into industry and market trends, and give you ideas you can use in your own customer community. And they can act as mirrors that show—warts and all—how customers view your company and use your products and services.

NETTING IT OUT

Not every business runs its own customer community. But your customers are likely interacting somewhere on the Web in an online community… in an external community. “Community Surfing” is observing and learning from these external communities that you don’t own.

Often these external communities span an entire industry (for example, the Edmunds Car-Space community, covering the consumer automotive industry). But they may also focus on the products and services of a single company (such as the BusinessObjects Board, a community “not affiliated or endorsed by Business Objects SA”).

In either case, these communities contain a wealth of customer-created information that can be a source of insights and information, provide a glimpse into industry and market trends, and give you ideas you can use in your own customer community (if you have one). Community surfing is about learning from these communities and bringing that business knowledge into your organization.

INTRODUCTION
What Community Surfing Is

Whether or not you run your own community, you should be keeping an eye on those online communities that span your industry, where your customers (and potential customers) spend their time connecting and interacting with others. “Community surfing” is observing and learning from these external communities that you don’t own.

These communities can act as mirrors that show—warts and all—how customers view your company and use your products and services. External communities can also be a source of insights and innovation, provide a glimpse into industry and market trends, and give you ideas for improving your own customer community.

Even if you use a monitoring service for reputation and brand management, and for press and PR tracking, you also should be community surfing. Community surfing is more about learning than identifying and dealing with PR fires.

Table A presents a small selection of external communities and the industries or companies (some external communities are company-specific) they serve. Illustration 1 displays the home pages for three of these communities. Note that some are consumer communities, while others serve business customers...