Building an online community
Online communities are one of the most popular ways to get connected with people and businesses that all share certain things in common. Building an online community is a very difficult and very time consuming task, and one which is constant, you can’t just begin an online community and expect it to flourish, you need to put in some very hard work. If you feel you are up to the challenge here are some steps that might help you on your way:-
1. Do you have the time needed to devote to building your online community? In order to answer this question you need to know that you will have to constantly watch it, spend countless hours re-coding various parts of the site if someone hacks into it and most importantly do you want to especially if you don’t see any real results for months?
2. Do you have a good idea and plenty of good ideas for content? If you are unclear about your aims and goals you will find it difficult to build an online community that people will want to be a part of.
3. Make sure that the rules and guidelines for you community are as clear and reasonable as possible and stick to them! Make sure that you set the example for others to follow and if you see any comments or behaviours that you feel is not adhering to the ethics of the site do something about it.
4. If someone does make a mistake point it out to them privately, you don’t want to engage in a public dressing down of someone if it is their first mistake – use your judgement and you will gain the respect of the community members.
5. Have somewhere that members of the site can talk about the site. It is a good idea to have this somewhere prominent on the site so that visitors can read it and join in. It also gives you a clear insight into what members think of the site which is always important.
6. Try and get friends involved – do you know someone who would make a great moderator? If so ask them to help you, that way you will get people who have you best interests helping you to run the site.
7. Make a point of highlighting certain members when they contribute something that you and other visitors to the site love. That way you will be encouraging more people to do the same. How you decide to do this is up to you, you might like to have a points system and have weekly stats or how about their profile pic being on the homepage for a week?
8. Have fun – whilst you will have to spend plenty of hours performing mind numbing tasks to get your community up and running you should still make it enjoyable. If it becomes a labour of love you might start to loathe it and not give it the time and attention it deserves, so keep a sense of humour and remember that all good things come to those who wait.
Tags: Online community, Small businesses