If creating online communities isn’t the hottest topic in marketing (B2C or B2B) right now, I don’t know what is. So, it was no surprise to me that the Google B2B Summit session on this topic was one of the best attended. In fact, it was SRO.

Affably emceed by Mike Miller, a manager of online sales and operations at Google, the afternoon breakout program featured three very knowledgable community operators: Bruce Bergwall, senior director of business development, GlobalSpec; Dan Morrison, co-founder and CEO, ITtoolbox; and Justin Kestelyn, senior director, Oracle Technology Network and developer programs, Oracle.Here are brief summaries of what each panelist had to say about his respective community:

ITtoolbox—Ten years old, acquired in 2007 by the Corporate Executive Board and recently named one of 20 companies to watch by Outsell, ITtoolbox  is on a roll. With 1.35 million registered members, 3 million annual unique visitors and 2 million annual posts, this online community, one of the first in the B2B world, is clearly living up to its mission: to help IT pros do their jobs better by enabling them to tap into the relevant knowledge of their peers—what Morrison called “the most useful, valuable expertise in the IT marketplace.” Morrison made an interesting point—that user-generated B2B community content, in contrast to much B2C community content, is “reusable” and “persists over time.” Morrison’s key challenges now are (a) getting IT pros to share even more of that knowledge and (a) delivering more value to marketing partners through enhanced, granular targeting.

Oracle Technology Network— Also 10 years old, OTN is an equally robust online community, although Kestelyn was quick to say “there is no such thing as a [pure] online community” since OTN has life offline, too. OTN’s 5 million users are largely developers, architects and database administrators, and they held 700,000 discussions on OTN last year. Calling OTN “an “influencer machine,” Kestelyn monitors OTN activity to help identify and build stronger relationships with influencers who hopefully eventually will become Oracle evangelists, “who do most of the marketing for us.” OTN also is a “lead machine,” with downloads of any kinds treated as leads, a number of which turn into customers and revenue.

GlobalSpec’s CR4—Developed 10 years ago by a group of GE design engineers, GlobalSpec is a vertical search engine that serves the knowledge and specifying needs of design engineers in a broad swath of industries. For example, over the years it has accumulated a database of an astonishing 200 million specifications. GlobalSpec today has 4.5 million registered users, offers up a host of newsletters (which generate downloads and, thus, leads, for its marketing partners) and recently added a community section called CR4: The Engineer’s Place for News and Discussion, named for a well-remembered GE facility conference room. Since its launch, CR4 is now getting 10,000 visits and 600 posts a day. Bergwall said he is “sometimes amazed at the amount of time that engineers spend” in the community, noting that the average time spent in CR4 is 45-50 minutes vs. 8-10 minutes for the main site.

What’s in “communities” for marketers?—It’s understandable why engineers and IT pros spend considerable time in these communities, but why would B2B marketers invest in these communities? All three panelists said or implied that their key differentiator over industry magazines and other content sources is, as Bergwall put it, the “profound” value of their mountains of unique user-generated content. ITtoolbox’s Morrison noted they are adding the ability to conduct focus groups and that “a lot more is coming.” OTN’s Kestelyn agreed, saying “Community is becoming the brand” and noting that, increasingly, professionals spending time in OTN and other communities are “looking to each other, not the brand,” with in his case Oracle being the brand.

Will all communities succeed?—Absolutely not. We’re in a time of massive experimentation with communities, and some industries and sectors may be better suited for communities than others. For example, one panelist noted a Deloitte study finding that some 35% of online communities have fewer than 75 people. (Our own community…this blog you’re reading…has just short of 80 registered users, although it was designed primarily to be an agency community.) Does that mean smaller ones are useless or a waste of time? Not necessarily, although they’re certainly not likely to experience network or “monetization” effects.

What are mistakes to avoid?—The biggest mistake all three panelists said community operators can make is to become overly reliant on technology. Other things do more to ensure success. GlobalSpec’s Bergwall said CR4 really started to blossom when they began to focus on conversations going on in the community. He also said reaching out to several hundred associations to engage their members in the community helped greatly. “Less technology, more manpower,” he noted. ITtoolbox’s Morrison said operating a community must be a core competency or it might not be done well. It has to have a meaningful purpose, he added, and you must have a structure in place to enable users “who are doing real-time ROI calculations in their minds” to perceive value and want to come back. You also need to have processes, such as moderating, in place, he added, although Kestelyn noted you need to “nurture from a distance” because if you try to answer every question, “you smother” the community.

What do you have to spend on outside marketing?—GlobalSpec’s Bergwall said, “We have not spent one dollar on outside marketing.” OTN’s Kestelyn concurred, saying the growth of OTN has happened entirely organically. While my notes don’t contain an answer from ITtoolbox’s Morrison, he did say that once his community hit critical mass—he estimated at about 1,000 registered users—growth became much easier. He also noted that, over the years, ITtoolbox has “really become a bunch of micro-communities,” which I suspect the others would say of their communities, too.

Are C-level executives spending time in communities?—Just as the C-level is generally not found on LinkedIn, they’re clearly not significant users of online communities, either, the panelists said or implied, nor are they the primary targets for most (for now). Nonetheless, as one panelist pointed out, C-level execs are doing searches and, if those searches take them to online community content, they are indirectly (at least) finding their way to communities. Whether they’re then posting is another question (highly unlikely right now). ITtoolbox’s Morrison pointed out that his own firm’s ownership by the Corporate Executive Board suggests that as boards of directors become more educated about communities, C-level execs may well start spending more time with communities—especially if and as C-level communities, industry specific or not, come into being. Imagine the power of a robust C-level online community, offering anonymity as needed? Pipe dream? Ten years from now, probably a big business for someone.

What do you do about or to control negative postings?—OTN’s Kestelyn said “you just have to be authentic,” adding “We use criticism as an opportunity to engage. Nine out of 10 times when we respond, we get a positive return response.” The one time you don’t, he said, means you’re probably not dealing with a “credible” person. ITtoolbox’s Morrison noted he finds that the community tends to police itself, so that negative posters or whiners are viewed as reducing value for everyone else, and community members tend to “get all over these people” to get out. GlobalSpec’s Bergwall said they’ve had the same experience—that professional decorum generally reigns.

What about ROI?—OTN’s Kestelyn reminded the group that, for Oracle, the ROI is in “manufacturing evangelists.” Oracle executives fundamentally understand and value this kind of ROI, even if they can’t measure it, he said. Oracle also measures the community by the number of registrations that come from downloads—all considered leads. “Nobody’s figured out how to draw a direct line to revenue,” he added, noting, “We have no other choice [but to produce these communities], as we did with Web sites in the 1990s.” ITtoolbox’s Morrison said ROI depends on the community’s objectives. Reducing time—time to find resources—is one benefit. Another—reducing support costs—generates good ROI and is itself a great reason to launch a community. But, he acknowledged, measuring community ROI is still fuzzy for some people. We need better measures, he said, built around the value of two-way conversations—possibly measures of sentiment, the number of connections a brand has, the number of postings, etc. For GlobalSpec’s Bergwall, ROI for its marketing partners is all about lead generation, so his focus is on “hyper-qualification of leads.”

Who owns the content?—Interesting question and one, judging from the answers, communities have to think seriously about, especially as user-generated content increasingly accumulates and becomes a more and more valuable asset (not just to communities, but very likely to individual users, too). Already focused on the issue, GlobalSpec’s Bergwall said all user-generated content is the property of CR4 and that “we try to make that abundantly clear” to everyone. Agreeing, ITtoolbox’s Morrison noted, “The value is the organization of the content and the conversations that surround it.” OTN’s Kestelyn said that while they want to see their content appear everywhere—on SEO, in syndication—”we have copyrighted ownership.” My take: litigants on both sides of this issue—along with new-media law firms—are going to have field day on this question in coming years, especially if and as “user profiles”—literally a record of everything a user has asked, said or done anywhere on the Internet—come into being, become “portable” and come to be viewed as defining and differentiating aspects of individual identity. But for now, community building is in the early “land grab” stages, and these legal questions won’t come to a head for a while yet.