Internet business rant: The Wall Street Journal online community

November 1, 12:02 PMInternet Business ExaminerPhyllis Zimbler Miller

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What's going on?
istock

I’ve been a subscriber of the print Wall Street Journal for more years than I care to admit, and for the last few years I have annually paid extra to also have an online subscription.

Thus I was a little peeved to discover by accident on Thursday evening that the Journal supposedly has an online community meant to encourage conversation such as on Twitter and other social networking sites.

I say peeved because I had, apparently, signed up for the community months ago. At the time I thought I had signed up just for the ability to leave comments on Journal online articles.

Now I decided to explore the Journal community, and, as I did so, I got more and more frustrated. One example: I kept getting caught in a loop that returned me to a starting point rather than where I wanted to be.

I took the time to write to the Journal feedback email address provided, and the next day got a response that my email had been forwarded to “upper management.” That’s the end of that I said to myself.

Then my husband showed me a large ad on page B6 of the Thursday Journal that I had previously missed. The ad, headlined “SOCIAL NETWORKING NOW MEANS BUSINESS,” encouraged people to “Join the Journal Community.” (FYI – A photo of a globe took up almost one-half of the ad with small type for the ad body copy, which used “advise” when it meant “advice.”)

After reading the ad, I am convinced that the Journal upper management does not have a clue about effective online communities. In fact, the wording of the ad demonstrated incomprehension of how the Journal online community could be unique.

No wonder many, many profiles in the Journal community don’t even have a photo along with almost no information. The Journal online community is an underdeveloped asset that isn’t demonstrating its value to potential participants.

An online community is not created just because a prestigious newspaper announces it has one. An online community is created through a strategic plan to appeal to people who would benefit most from that community with an outreach program to educate these people how to benefit from participation.

The Wall Street Journal may be my daily print newspaper since time immemorial BUT it has a long way to go to truly understand the world of online communities and how they can be used for effective business networking.

P.S. Learn about the well-developed social networking community Twitter from the information package "What You Should Know About Using Twitter Effectively and Strategically"

© 2009 Miller Mosaic, LLC

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