WSJ Business Technology recently took a look at Deloitte’s recent study published on why online communities fail. According to the Deloitte study, many businesses are focusing on what online communities can do for them and the technology to support it, not the members the online space is built for. Of the communities studied, 35% have less than 100 members. Less than 25% of the communities studied have 1,000 members. An astounding 6% of the companies studied spent over $1 million on their projects.

So why is it that so many of the online communities are failing?

1) Many of the companies are getting to involved on the technological perks spending their budget there instead of reaching out to potential community members and finding out what they want from a community2

2) Lack of experience with online communities’ leads to misguided decisions. Of the companies studied, 30% had one person who was working part time with the communities.

3) It’s very hard to measure the success of an online community. The primarily objectives of the business with communities was to create word of mouth and establish loyalty from their customers. This is very hard to judge when normal online measurements are judged by the click-tos.

Have you fallen into one of the pitfalls listed above? How would you work with your online community to resolve the issue?