Maria Sipka

Our own Maria Sipka (CEO and founder of Linqia.com) recently held a workshop at the Lift10 Conference in Geneva. Lift10 drew 1000 participants to explore the most overlooked aspect of innovation: people. As people (or users) ultimately define the success of all technological and entrepreneurial projects, Lift10 gave speakers and workshop hosts the stage to share their unique insight into creating a successful and innovative social media presence.

Maria's own workshop, The heart of the conversation: challenges brands face to edge their way into this sacred space; gave participants the opportunity to dissect the very nature of social networks and the motivation behind them. She revealed that brands must begin to understand the reciprocal relationship they need to engage in within these social networks in order to connect with the influential consumers they have at their fingertips.

Here I have included an insert from Maria's own blog at http://blog.linqia.com

27.8% of time spent online is in online communities. Virgin territory for brands?

From the 1.7 billion people online, 4.4% of time is spent searching and 27.8% is spent in online communities. What's astonishing about these figures, is that where people spend time online, with the exception of online communities, is decreasing rapidly. And yet, the billions of advertising dollars are injected into search.

Mark Zuckerberg put his finger on it. He recently said "Communities already exist. Instead, think about how you can help that community do what it wants to do."

So what exactly does a community want to do? Simple. Every community wants to maximise the quality of experience of as many members as possible. This could be achieved through vibrant, active discussions, compelling and engaging content, sponsorships and partnerships with access to exclusive offerings, opportunities to get to know other members. The list goes on.

Recently at the Lift2010 conference in Geneva, 37 curious people gained insights into how brands can successfully participate in multiple online communities that may not necessarily be their own. This is virgin territory and whilst brands are sold on the concept, they lack the 'how'.

The presentation and video explore:
• Evolution of online communities
• Approaches brands have taken to engage with online communities
• Opportunities and challenges brands face when engaging with online communities

LIFT10 - Brands and Online Communities from netinfluenceChannel on Vimeo.

Our team attended the Next09 conference in Hamburg this week and rated this event as amongst the best in Europe. With over 1,300 participants, 100+ speakers and moderators and a host of innovative sponsors and partners, the event exceeded our expectations. We were invited to present to a group of more than 200 people on the topic of 'Collaborative Communities' focusing on the role of an online community within the sales process/ cycle of a company. One of our key missions is to increase the % of vibrant, active and engaging online communities drawing on the wealth of knowledge and experience our team has accumulated over many years. Whilst the majority of online communities and groups have been created by individual users on Facebook, Ning, MySpace, XING, LinkedIN and Bebo, companies and brands are also playing and positioning themselves in this powerful social media channel. P & G have built more than 2.000 communities (e.g. Being Girl ) over the past 7 years whilst Nestle has only a handful. Also companies have realised that they cannot afford to turn a blind eye to the power of online communities and groups. The fact is, there are 80 million communities and groups online. Most of them existing within 2,000+ Social Networks. 250 million people are registered and active in at least one online community or group. During the presentation Maria shared the 6 essential ingredients for launching and maintaining a vibrant, active and profitable online community. Her specialty and focus is on monetization and identifying value drivers to ensure the end users experience is a positive one. Following the presentation, feedback and comments again proved that companies are still in the early days of exploring the possibility of integrating social media and online communities. There's uncertainty around where to start, what type of resources are needed internally and externally, the cost to setup and manage, which technologies to use and how to deal with the level of transparency the web has lead people to expect. Step by step and with your help we are trying to find more an more answers to these questions!