Web 2.0 & Community Research: How Entertainment Weekly Created a Hybrid Community

Karen Bakos, Entertainment Weekly
Sean Holbert, KL Communications

How has Entertainment Weekly changed their online community throughout the years?

The communities were originally treated as respondents. There wasn't much engagement. After a year of the panel, the response rates were falling but respondents were growing. They added features: movie ratings, interactive polls. They were slowly stepping towards a community instead of a panel. Karen thought the panel was going to compete with the website, but then they saw the potential in creating a micro site for support.

In 2006, Entertainment Weekly need a panel who understood the EW brand and community. They created Backstage with Entertainment Weekly Advisory board. They had the panel to do quant research and this. Both were maintained separately. In 2009, they found a few challenges with these two communities. They had both the advisory board and the editorial panel.

They realized that they could combine the two communities. The touch points were increased with editing issues and content issues. They've created a bulletin board and are now able to view the conversations going on between the members.

A forum was created, and the advisory board was given an exclusive section. The members connected with the social networking part of this experience. There was no loss of respondants, and editors connected with the pulse, while the panels still connected with research for categories and magazines. There were more discussions, and entertainment discussions and it was a natural fit. The VIP section was very important, so transitioning them into the community was that they still had the VIP room, but could connect with more members of the entertainment communities.

EW's community is about the brand ' a fun experience. They've been able to continually improve the experience and make the panel better each year. They develop ideas and then throw it back to the panel. Everyone in the company appreciates having the resource.