2006 ECommerce Incubator

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2006 E-Commerce Incubator Reaction to Experience
Online Communities ChicagoClassicalMusic.org
Sponsored by
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www.chicagoclassicalmusic.org

• Demographics of Internet Users
• Use the internet
• Total Adults 73
• Women 71
• Men 74
• Age
• 18-29 88
• 30-49 84
• 50-64 71
• 65 32
• Source Pew Internet American Life Project,
  July 19, 2006 http//www.pewinternet.org/trends/In
  ternet_Activities_7.19.06.htm

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www.chicagoclassicalmusic.org

• Blog Creation/Readership
• Thirty-nine percent of internet users, or about
  57 million American adults, read blogs up from
  17 percent who said they read blogs in February
  2004.
• Eight percent of internet users, or about 12
  million American adults, keep a blog.
  
• Source Pew Internet American Life Project,
  July 19, 2006 http//www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/186
  /report_display.asp

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www.chicagoclassicalmusic.org

• Initial Overall strategic direction and
  measurable outcome
  
• Build an interactive online community for
  classical music lovers. Because arts
  participation is a social, relational experience,
  this interactive community will connect patrons
  with like-minded individuals and deepen the
  engagement with the participating organizations.
  This is a six month pilot to test the marketplace
  and strategies within the context of the Engage
  Now study.

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www.chicagoclassicalmusic.org
www.chicagoclassicalmusic.org
Founding Sponsor Groups

• Grant Park Music Festival
• Music of the Baroque
• Ravinia Festival
• WFMT Radio.
• Added three more Cedille Records, Chicago a
  cappella, Chicago Philharmonic

• Chicago Chamber Musicians
• Chicago Opera Theatre
• Chicago Sinfonietta
• Chicago Symphony Orchestra
• Elgin Symphony Orchestra

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Reaction to Experience Online Communities

• Purpose
• Engaging classical music enthusiasts
• Sharing their experiences with others to deepen
  engagement
  
• Broadening their knowledge of the Chicago music
  providers
  
• Benefits of collaboration among 9 sponsors

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www.chicagoclassicalmusic.org

• Challenges
• Large sponsor group to coordinate
• Limitations of Open Source (Drupal) application
• Limited funding
• Limited staff time at most organizations
• Classical music is a relatively small market
  segment
  
• Many patrons are not used to blogs
• Difficult to measure impact in 6 months
• Difficulty with governance and operational
  issues
  
• Bloggers were risk-averse

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www.chicagoclassicalmusic.org

• Driving Traffic to CCM
• Technorati
• According to Technorati, a blog search engine
  that organizes blog entries by topic and ranks
  blogs based on the number of incoming links,
  Chicago Classical Music is ranked 65,877 with 131
  incoming links from 40 other blogs (as of Sept.
  12, 2006).
• A profile page for CCM was developed early on
  that included a description of the website and 20
  key words (tags) describing the content.
  Technorati visitors who search those tags for
  example, classical music -- will find CCM blog
  entries.
• Source Technorati
• http//www.technorati.com/search/www.chicagoclassi
  calmusic.org
  
• Technorati says its tracking more than 53.8
  million blogs (as of Sept. 12), but the true
  number of blogs that update at least weekly and
  are currently active is much, much less.

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www.chicagoclassicalmusic.org

• Driving Traffic to CCM
• Online Outreach
• Website links to CCM from sponsor groups All
  incoming links are useful links from large
  websites (like the Chicago Symphony Orchestra)
  helped boost CCMs search engine ranking even
  more
• E-mail announcements by sponsor groups to their
  members
  
• The Silverman Group, Inc.- probono PR

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www.chicagoclassicalmusic.org

• Driving Traffic to CCM
• Online Outreach
• E-mails announcements to all Chicago-area
  organizations and classical music resources
  featured on the CCM Web Links page
  
• E-mail announcements to all blogs featured on the
  CCM blogroll (Blogroll list of other blogs
  CCMs blogroll includes links to 27 classical
  music blogs)
• More than a dozen bloggers added a link to CCM
  and/or wrote entries about CCM

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www.chicagoclassicalmusic.org

• Example Sequenza21/ The Contemporary Classical
  Music
  
• Portal posted the following on its blog April 24,
  2006
  
• There's a great new classical music blog and
  online community you should check out. Chicago
  Classical Music was created by a consortium of
  Chicago-area music groups, including Ravinia,
  Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Chamber
  Musicians, Chicago Sinfonietta, Chicago Opera
  Theater, Elgin Symphony Orchestra, Music of the
  Baroque and Grant Park Music Festival. Very slick
  and well-funded site. Anybody got ideas how we
  could tap into the New York music community and
  rip off the idea?
• Source Sequenza21/ http//www.sequenza21.com/2006
  _04_23_s21archives.html

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www.chicagoclassicalmusic.org

• Example AllAboutOpera.com
• All About Opera added CCM to its Music Blog
  Digest, which features the titles of the six
  most recent blog entries posted at 14 excellent
  classical music blogs. Visitors who click on
  CCMs blog entry titles are taken directly to the
  CCM website.
• Source AllAboutOpera.com http//www.allaboutopera
  .com/opera_music_blogs.php

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www.chicagoclassicalmusic.org

• Online Features
• Daily blogs
• Forums
• Articles
• Master Event Calendar

• Scheduled Live Chats
• Ticket Swap
• Ticket Give-away
• Resource Links

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www.chicagoclassicalmusic.org

• CCM Statistics
• Registered Users 400
• Total Visits
• March 2006 (first full month) 6,984 visits
• August 2006 (last full month) 28,151 visits
• Highest Traffic To Date Aug. 8, 2006 1,508
  visits live chat with Yo-Yo Ma
  
• Source Webalizer statistics

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Home page
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Links
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Account Sign Up
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Forums
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Articles
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Event Calendar
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www.chicagoclassicalmusic.org

• Highlights
• Live Chats
• Thomas Hampson
• Wynne Delacoma
• Yo-Yo Ma
• Registered Users -
• Interested Advertisers
• Developed Marketing Relationships

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Online Communities Best Practices

• Successful online communities require
• Group that shares common interest and desire to
  interact online around that interest over time
  
• Critical mass of participants, generally in
  thousands or tens of thousands
  
• Ability for members to interact at different
  levels of participation
  
• Community management to facilitate and moderate
  interactions
  

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Online Communities How to build one

• Community Building Tips
• Understand core audience and their interest for
  participation
  
• Information, social interaction, recognition,
  professional
  
• Define business goals for sponsoring online
  community
  
• Monetize web traffic, support offline activities,
  brand loyalty, viral marketing
  

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Online Communities How to build one

• Community Building Tips
• Determine program offerings that meet sponsor and
  user objectives and that our realistic to
  audience size and interests
  
• Not all sites can support ongoing forums, chat
• Determine technology and feature requirements
• CMS, blogging, or community platform

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Online Communities How to build one

• Community Building Tips
• Understand level of effort to manage community
• Run programs, engage users, moderate and promote
  site
  
• Identify measurements for success and means to
  gather
  
• ROI framework, data requirements to measure

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Better Approach is to Start With A Blog

• Blogging Best Practices
• Focus activities to drive three keys metrics
• Increase site visits
• Increase page views per visit
• Increase revenue per page

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Creating a Successful Blog

• Driving Unique Visitors
• Provide unique, differentiable content
• Search engine optimization
• Referral (or Viral) friendly pages
• Content syndication
• Link frequently to other sites
• Secure links from other respected high traffic
  sites
  
• Promote RSS subscriptions to your site

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What That Means

• Driving Unique Visitors
• Blog early and often - 4-8 posts per day ideally
• Link to other sites (they will link back)
• Post comments on timely stories around the
  internet
  
• Link to other stories in these posts
• Email these posts around
• Allow comments and respond to commenters
• Leverage social media (Digg, Delicious, etc.)
• Can be done in one hour per day

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Creating a Successful Blog

• Increase Page Views per Visit
• Great design, navigation and layout
• Standard free templates available
• Make your web site blog
• Cross promotion of site features
• User-driven web development process
• Measure and monitor site traffic and react
  accordingly