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Community Software Buyer's Guide Community software buyer’s guide Community software buyer’s guide You’ve recently been tasked with finding a community platform, and we know it’s a tough decision. This multi-step process can take a tedious amount of time and effort. There’s great community software out there. But the key is to find the one that best fits your organization and end-users. This guide will speed up your decision-making process and help you evaluate community software with the right criteria. 2 open social buying guide First things first: what’s a community platform? Before diving into the nitty-gritty, what’s a community platform and how is it beneficial for your organization? Organizations are becoming more decentralized and client-centric. A successful community that encourages knowledge-sharing and customer connection can lead to a competitive advantage, which is why more organizations are committing internal resources to online communities. A community is a ‘homebase’ for your members to meet digitally, share content, and achieve common goals. Communities are the next best thing for organizations for three primary reasons: ● Cultivate innovation: when people are brought together, unexpected ideas and solutions are generated through co-creation and crowdsourcing. ● Members at the forefront: provide members with the space to collaborate and receive instantaneous feedback and insight into products, topics, or issues. ● Save time and money: Instead of using a variety of tools (Slack, Gmail, Google Docs, we can go on), use one space to achieve specific organizational goals. Software vendors, in response to a rise in demand, are generating and evolving more and more community solutions. That’s why we want to provide you with a useful evaluation framework consisting of eight questions. These questions will help you select the best online community software platform for your needs. 3 open social buying guide “A lot of people think a community tool will create a community; but the community has to come first, then the tool second.” Table of Chris McCann, CEO of Greylock Partners contents 1. Question 1: Your goals 5 2. Question 2: Software models 7 3. Question 3: Vendor viability 11 4. Question 4: Platform capabilities 14 5. Question 5: Extensions 17 6. Question 6: Integrations 20 7. Question 7: Security 22 8. Question 8: Budget 25 9. Making your decision 27 10. About Open Social 29 11. Sources 32 4 open social buying guide Question 1 Your goals question 1 your goals What are your community goals and audience? The journey begins with you. Is your organization’s goal to improve internal processes or generate knowledge? In order to start a successful community, you must specify your community audience and community goals. These must always be at the forefront of your buying process. Are your end-users looking for answers to questions, fellowship, or opportunities to contribute? Here’s an example: if your community audience volunteers, your community goal is to provide them with capabilities to work together in groups and organize offline events. Are you evaluating a platform for an already established community? Not everyone is looking for a first platform. As the market matures, organizations move their platform to different vendors. For the most part, the evaluation criteria remain the same as buying a new platform. Except, you’ll already have a good sense of your goals and requirements if you already have a community. This helps greatly to make a good decision. 6 open social buying guide Question 2 Software models question 2 software models What type of platform do you need? You need to evaluate how much time you have, how much budget, and how tech-savvy your team is to choose the right type of community platform. Here are three common characteristics that help you determine the type of model or platform you need (keep in mind that these characteristics can overlap). 1 Build vs. Buy The open source model requires you to build and manage your own platform. You download the latest version of the software and configure it yourself. This is great if you want full control, and aren’t afraid to dive into the software by yourself! If you’d rather not do it yourself, you can buy a packaged software that’s ready to go (often referred to as Software as a Service or SaaS). You avoid the hassle of downloading and installing the software. Or even maintaining it! 8 open social buying guide question 2 software models 2 Enterprise vs. Small Business Enterprise-grade platforms are usually best suited for large communities that need customizations or integrations. This type of offer requires a large budget but includes perks such as quick support or a space for a large number of users. Some examples include Open Social Enterprise, JiveX, Lithium, or SalesForce. Small business platforms are better suited for organizations with smaller communities and smaller budgets. They often focus on a specific community aspect, like content curation or question and answer, rather than a full set of features. Some examples include Discourse, Crowded, or bbPress for WordPress. 3 Full Service vs. Do-It-Yourself The full-service model is great if you have a limited team but your budget is not an issue. The vendor usually takes care of all stages of community life, from setup and implementation to community management. The Do-It-Yourself service model means that once your software is up and running then (you guessed it), you will be managing the community itself. This can include maintenance, hosting, and management. There are many other models out there or even hybrid models of the ones we’ve mentioned above. However, determining these three aspects will help you understand the type of platform you’re looking for. 9 open social buying guide question 2 software models Software models Pros & Cons Open Source Pro: You have full control over the software. Con: You need time and a tech-savvy team. SaaS Pro: You have a hassle-free setup and are quickly ready to go. Con: Customization is often limited or not available at all. Enterprise-grade Pro: A large community that includes benefits like support, extensions, and integrations. Con: It requires a large budget. Small Business Pro: It does not require a large budget. Con: You have a limited set of features, extensions, and integrations. Full Service Pro: The vendor takes care of all services. Con: It requires a large budget. Do-It-Yourself Pro: You have full control over your own community and can adjust strategies as you grow. Con: You need time and people to manage your own community. 10 open social buying guide Question 3 Vendor viability question 3 vendor viability What are the product and vendor viability? When you buy packaged software, it’s helpful to know whether you can trust the product and company to be successful - in other words, their viability. Vendor Viability Community software should be supported by a financially strong company with a good customer base. We recommend looking at the following company characteristics: Company history: How long has the company been around? It is a startup or is it supported by an existing business? How long has it been profitable? It’s best to ask for a business one or two-pager, if they have it. Customer base: It’s not just the size of the customer base that matters, but also the quality. See who their customers are and how they are using the platform. Finances: It’s not always easy to find this information (you can always ask) but we suggest checking whether the company is privately or publicly held, who the investors are, and if its profitable. 12 open social buying guide question 3 vendor viability Product Viability The community software should be reliable in terms of quality, security, and background. We recommend looking at the following product characteristics. If you can’t find the information you are looking for, don’t hesitate to ask the vendor for the information. They are often happy to supply a company or product overview. Installed base: the number of installed systems in use tells you how well a system is supported and whether a platform supports real communities that are vibrant and have grown over time. Target markets: is the product targeted at specific horizontal or vertical markets? If your company does not fall within one of these targets, then your needs may not be completely addressed. Product plans: Software is usually always in development. It pays off to ask what the roadmap for new features and functions looks like for the next 6 months. It tells you about functionality you may be missing and whether the product is continually innovating. 13 open social buying guide Question 4 Platform capabilities question 4 platform capabilities Does it have the platform capabilities you need? Features, features, features. When looking at software, the list of features can seem endless. How can you possibly narrow it down? We advise looking at the capabilities and behaviors that your community needs to be successful instead (think: sharing content, learning new content, perfecting skills, etc.). These can then be turned into technical requirements. All this comes down to is: does the community software offer the usability you need for your end-users to be successful? We recommend making a list of non-negotiable characteristics that are key to your community and the features needed to enable them. 15 open social buying guide question 4 platform capabilities Here are some non-negotiable characteristics we believe are necessary for a successful online community. Communication channels Forums, chats, blogs, or private messaging, etc. Collaboration methods File sharing, wikis, discussions, ideation, etc.
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