Impact Interactions Strengthens the NetApp Online Community

NetApp launched its first online community in March 2008 to build better relationships with customers, partners, prospects, and other stakeholders. Initially, the community was well received, but NetApp’s community team looked to Impact Interactions to accelerate their results. Working with prominent technology companies such as Cisco, SAP, Intel, and HP has given Impact Interactions the knowledge and understanding needed to guarantee that NetApp avoid many of the pitfalls that newer online community teams make.

“Our initial assessment of NetApp’s online community determined that their community team was using many of the correct tactics for building a successful community,” said Mike Rowland, President of Impact Interactions. “But with our strong experience in B2B community creation, management, and measurement we were able to provide an enhanced roadmap for NetApp based upon proven B2B best practices.”

Working together with experienced consultants like Impact Interactions can give an organization that is new to online community a significant advantage over competitors who either take on the task alone or avoid it altogether. These advantages include a shorter development stage; generating realistic, measurable objectives; and avoiding costly mistakes. Many communities don’t understand how to increase conversion and engagement rates or how to generate useful metrics reports for analysis, which Impact Interactions can help with significantly.

The advantages of using an outside consultant aren’t limited to those who have yet to launch a community. The fresh perspective and experience they provide can benefit a community at any point in the lifecycle. This is partly because public information is still scarce on the development and management strategies needed to make communities a successful endeavor. Furthermore, most of the research and information that is available about online communities is based around business-to-consumer (B2C) communities. The strategy and techniques used for B2C communities is often times very different than what should be used to make business-to-business (B2B) communities successful.

This is an important concept to grasp when developing a community. “A lot of times I hear people say that they want the community to be like Facebook or MySpace, but what they don’t realize is that social networks and B2C communities have a totally different purpose and a totally different audience than B2B communities. The strategy and management techniques used for these professional communities need to reflect these differences,” said Mike Rowland, President of Impact Interactions.

For additional information regarding online community consulting or moderation services, contact Mike Rowland or visit http://www.impactinteractions.com/.