Closing a Community

All good things come to an end, even long-term communities. When you are done with your research and want to prepare to close your community, there are a few easy tips to keep in mind for closing preparations.

Make sure that just as you worked hard on community engagement and creating a positive experience for members during the duration of the community, you also want to ensure closing the community is easy and clear to members. The key to successful community closure is maintaining good communications of what is going to happen and when.

Informing Members:

• Notify members at least 2-4 weeks before closing. The close date is when you stop doing activities on the platform and/or your community license expires. 
  • Post tile with closing information
  • Send email with closing information
• Give members enough time after the close date to redeem their incentives; we typically allow 1 month for members to cash out incentives.
  • At the close date, no more research will be conducted. At this time all activities have to be closed and incentives posted. The close notification tile is the only homepage item remaining open. 
  • 2 weeks and, potentially, 1 week before deadline for incentive cash out, send a reminder to members. 
  • At the end of the 1 month, all members are archived, and the community URL will be redirected (either to a website specified by you or icmib.com). This step will be performed by your account manager.
  • Once the redirect is set, the community cannot be accessed anymore. This includes the members, yourself, and your internal stakeholder.

Coordination with icmib Account Manager:

• Make sure you keep your account manager posted on timing and your closing steps. Your account team has specific suggestions for your community and members.
• After the community close date/end of license, you will have access to all data collected on the community for 1 month. This allows you to conduct any final data review and/or downloads of the data.
• While you have access to full functionality of the platform, no new activities or research tasks are included in your use of the platform. You may continue to analyze your data and download reports.