Guest Author: Joe Rominiecki, Associations Now
The latest study from The Community Roundtable digs into calculating the return on investment for online communities. The model it offers, focusing on the value of questions answered, could be what associations are looking for.
In English, ROI is business-speak for “return on investment,” and we pronounce it as an acronym: R-O-I. But, for anyone who has tried to calculate ROI for anything but the most simple of business functions, the French pronunciation of roi (at least as it sounds to American ears) might be a lot more fitting: “wha?”
In other words, ROI can be tricky. Associations face no shortage of challenges in tracking the ROI of their myriad programs and services, and perhaps just the latest head-scratcher is figuring the ROI of an online member community platform—a technology endeavor that comes with a pretty big I.
The 2016 edition of The Community Roundtable’s “State of Community Management” report digs deep into the question of measuring value in online communities. While the study encompasses communities at both for-profit companies (external users groups, internal staff communities, or both) and nonprofits, the findings offer useful insights for associations with member community platforms, as they have in past years.
