2020 Predictions for Online Community
COVID-19 Amplifies Need for Online Communities
Even before the pandemic, online communities were a growing part of enterprise’s digital arsenal. With the onset of the pandemic, they have become essential.
What are the latest trends in online community?
Although online communities have been around since the early days of dial-up bulletin boards, their usage by corporations and other organizations is a relatively new practice.
Vanilla, a leading creators of online forum software and other products, has put together a yearly roundup of predictions from leading online community experts to help organizations make sense of trends that are happening in this space. I have been honored to be asked for my opinions for the past two years.
This year’s 2020 predictions included the following big topics:
Chapter 1: Community Goes Green
Chapter 2: The Rise of Tribalism in Community
Chapter 3: The Rise of Internal Communities
Chapter 4: CX and the Customer-Centric Design
Chapter 5: Privacy and Data Management
Chapter 6: Automation and AI
Chapter 7: Personalization and Customization
Chapter 8: Better ROI Attribution to Community
Chapter 10: Rise of the Branded Community Over Social Media
Chapter 11: Community Integration into the Total Organization Ecosystem
Each of the experts interviewed was asked what they felt was the biggest trend they see happening in the next year. For me, it was the topic of Chapter 11, the integration of online communities into the digital ecosystem of organizations.
I have seen a greater emphasis in the past year on internal communities and finding ways to better assimilate these collaboration workspaces into the overall digital strategy of an organization.
It’s a substantial eBook weighing in at 90 pages with insights to match. I invite you to download the eBook (it’s free) and learn more.
COVID-19 Update
Since the publication of the 2020 e-book in the early part of the year before COVID struck, the role of the online community has only become more prominent.
With pandemics forcing workforces formerly accustomed to in-person meetings offices with desks in close proximity into remote worker situations, leaders have been forced to more seriously consider how to connect a distributed workforce.
Online communities and digital workplaces implementations have taken off in the second half of 2020. Organizations that had previously been dragging their feet have come to make platforms that enable digital-first collaboration and connection possible a top priority.
At the same time, the platform vendors that provide online communities are being forced to address capacity issues and demands for more sophisticated and integrated technology solutions. Companies are demanding faster implementations, better integration capabilities, and new functionality incorporating artificial intelligence, chatbots, IoT capabilities, video conferencing, live streaming, and more.
That being said, the online community as a digital platform has been around for a long while and already has some advanced options. It was simply never fully embraced by enterprises. But those same enterprises are now rethinking the option.
