There are real differences between online communities, social networks and social networking. Understanding these and developing the right strategy appropriate for your organisation is crucial to achieving a successful outcome and will save time and money down the line. 

The business case will form a useful framework for all decisions relating to the implementation and execution of your online community. The starting point is to understand what motivates your customers. We will help you see through the eyes of your customer, to walk in their shoes and to understand what would drive them to your online community and most importantly, why they would continue to participate in it after the first visit.

Sift will take you on a journey of proven, facilitated workshops, tailored to your needs, that will provide you with a understanding of the intended participants, the content likely to entice them and the structure this content will form. Critically we help you to be realistic about the resources you need to make an online community successful and what you might expect in terms of a return on investment.

The main areas we cover are:

• Change management - how does your infrastructure need to change to support this?
• Designing with usability, user needs and your brand in mind
• Accessibility - both from a technical and editorial perspective
• The differences between online communities, social and professional networking
• How to make your content findable with taxonomies that talk the right language
• Information architecture
• Search engine optimisation
• Usability, prototype creation and focus group testing
• Technical consultancy relating to integration and implementation
• Effective and low risk launch strategies