Way back in November 2007 I wrote about five early warning signs that your forum is failing. I mentioned that one of the warning signs was seeing failed threads – new discussion topics that get no replies. Failed threads are not good for an online community – they suggest a lack of interest in the discussion topic, or even the entire community. If you are noticing an increasing number of failed threads in your community, you need to take action.

Why aren’t members responding to new discussion threads?

In a community where people feel comfortable creating new threads, every now and then you’ll find your members write about something that nobody has any interest in, makes little sense, or is just a little too controversial or ‘deep’ for other members to want to respond to.

Don’t obsess over encouraging new discussion threads – you may actually end up overwhelming your members. They may not have enough time or energy to get involved in too many discussions. Rather than placing a priority on ensuring there are lots of new discussion topics being posted each day, shift your priority to developing and extending existing discussions. I’d rather have ten discussion topics that run over five pages each than a hundred discussion topics with only one or two replies.

Although larger communities can get away with a small number of failed threads, I would argue that communities shouldn’t have any whatsoever. A failed thread creates a negative perception of the community to new visitors. Existing members may also shy away from creating new content if they see that a large number of topics don’t receive a response. Why should they put themselves on the line when there is a very real risk of them not getting a single response or ego stroke in return for their efforts?

How to reduce the number of failed threads

Failed threads are more of a problem in new online communities. You have few members, they have less loyalty to the community and don’t have much of a personal investment – they don’t have a reputation or large post count to protect. Therefore, you need to ensure that members are rewarded for their contributions. Don’t give away money or high ticket items – just give out thank yous and recognition; they are more likely to get involved if they feel appreciated.

If a new thread hasn’t received any replies after a couple of days, reply yourself. Don’t think that your contributions are worth less than those of your members. Don’t be afraid that if you take the lead, people won’t want to get involved – up to a point.

Give your members a chance!

Don’t go charging into new threads before your members get a chance to reply for themselves. If you are always taking the lead, your members will sit back and just wait for you to get involved. You need to give your members the opportunity to develop the community themselves – so give them time to reply to new discussions. If there are no responses after a few days, then by all means get involved in the discussion yourself. Thank the member for their post (ego stroke and recognition), add value to the discussion, and ask questions.

Try to work out why there have been no responses – perhaps the post was a little too controversial? If so, try to steer the discussion away from controversy. If the post is very serious and complex, try breaking it down into a few key points that will be easier for members to reply to.

What if it’s your thread?

Many community managers start their own discussion topics – especially in the early days. There’s nothing wrong with this (as long as you aren’t creating all of the content) – but how do you respond if nobody replies to threads you started?

Firstly, as when members start threads that attract no replies, try to work out why nobody has responded. Learn what works and what doesn’t. Remember – there is no harm in experimenting and trying new things. You’ll make mistakes; it’ll take time to learn about your members.

You can reply to your own threads – as before, see if you can lead the conversation elsewhere; play with your language to make the post easier to respond to, or clearer and more succinct. Don’t take this too far though – you don’t want to end up talking to yourself!

Know your members

As you learn about your members, you’ll learn who is the most likely to respond to certain discussion topics. You’ll have power members who reply to almost every post, and you’ll have the more selective posters who only respond to posts they feel are highly relevant to themselves, or related to areas they feel they have expertise in.

If your posts (or those of your members) don’t receive a reply and you know of some members that have an interest in the topic, let them know. This is especially relevant if your community is particularly large – don’t expect all your members to be able to read all the content. Sometimes they’ll need some help finding content that is relevant to them. Drop individual members a link to the discussion thread – tell them why you think it is of interest to them (keep it personal) and that you’d love to read their opinions and contribution.

You can’t force the issue

Don’t get desperate. Sometimes, members just won’t be interested in certain discussion topics but you can still encourage conversations by getting involved yourself. Learn what works, influence discussions, ego stroke and get matchmaking!

Sometimes you want to build an online community in the quickest time possible. Perhaps you have a target to reach a certain number of members. Perhaps you have a target to reach a certain number of posts. Here are some community building shortcuts for those looking to reach numeric targets.

Hire paid posters

Caveat: Most paid posters will have no interest in your community. This will shine through in their posts. You’ll likely see off-topic content which will add little value to your community. What’s more, as soon as you stop paying, you’ll lose those ‘members’. Additionally, regular members may not be happy that some people are getting paid to contribute when they aren’t.

Exchange forum posts

Caveat: Why on earth would you want to spend your time posting on someone else’s forum in exchange for them posting on yours? That person has no interest in your community’s success – they are only out for themselves. You can’t guarantee quality or value – even though you may be contributing just that to the other community. If you are going to post on a forum, post on your own forum!

Spend big on advertising

Caveat: You’ll attract traffic, and you will be able to target your demographic (to some extent). However, you won’t necessarily be targeting the right members for your community. Google doesn’t know how passionate individuals are about your brand, product or service (yet). Facebook can help you drill down by interest, but the best way of getting the right people to join your community is by encouraging your best members to get people like them (ie their friends) to join.

Hold big competitions

Caveat: People are only in it for the prize. I’ve lost count of the number of communities I have come across that ran big competitions only to become ghost towns once the competition ended. Don’t offer prizes for members that refer the most members – they’ll just sign up multiple accounts themselves. Don’t offer prizes for members that make the most posts – you’ll end up with junk.

Encourage negativity and arguments

Caveat: You’ll definitely see more activity if you have no community guidelines and encourage abuse, arguments and mudslinging. Your community will likely end up damaging your brand though, and advertisers won’t touch your site with a bargepole.

Post a link to your community everywhere you go

Caveat: Getting the word out is a good idea, but don’t drop a link everywhere you go. Some places might not attract the audience you are after. Some places may consider your link as spam. Tread carefully, act carefully and think before you link.

Send out press releases and emails as soon as your community opens

Caveat: Most press releases announcing a new online community are terrible. Don’t list the features in your online community. Instead, make sure you tell people why they want to join and what’s in it for them. Even then, you need to consider whether your online community is ready for a sudden influx of new visitors – is there enough engaging content there to encourage them to join? You’ve only got one shot at this.

Ideally, you want to email your subscriber list in chunks and only when there is enough activity already in your community to make it worth your subscribers’ time to take a look. Email them all at once and if something isn’t right, that opportunity is gone forever.

Give moderator privileges to all members who make x posts

Caveat: Your top posters would love to have moderator privileges – they probably already feel they are your most valuable members, and therefore deserve extra responsibility. If you hand out powers as soon as members reach a certain number of posts, you’ll see a flurry of activity – but you’ll likely be encouraging low quality content, and consequently low quality moderators.

Automatically register members

Caveat: So you decide all users of your site, all of your customers, or all of your subscribers automatically become members. You’ll have a huge member count overnight. The thing is, very few of those people will be active (real members) – so you’re only creating a deceptive ego stroke. Furthermore, some may resent that you signed them up for something without asking them first. Not a great first step.

Conclusion

Real online communities take time to develop. To build a genuine online community you need to choose quality over quantity (members and content), and build relationships and trust between members and with your members. That takes time.

As your online community grows, you will need help. You can’t be expected to continue building relationships with every member, reading every post and being the sole public face of the community. The time will come when you will need to recruit additional moderators or representatives. This needs to be done carefully – once you give powers to members, it can be very difficult to take them away.

Recruit carefully

Don’t make the mistake of giving additional powers to your most popular members, or your most active. Instead, choose the members that you know and trust; ones that have demonstrated their commitment and loyalty to the community; members that create the best content and display all the qualities you want your community to be associated with.

Think minimal

Don’t give out a huge number of powers and responsibilities to your moderators – indeed, you may find you don’t need to give them any at all. At Female Forum, I have a handful of community representatives that have responsibilities, but no actual moderator powers. The community is still young – I don’t want members to have the extra burden of responsibility for moderation, and I want conversations to flow freely and with minimal moving, editing or deleting of posts during this critical time.

One global moderator

Your community should have only one person with ‘global moderator’ powers – ie the ability to access and edit all areas of the community. That person should be the community manager. Yes, you can have more than one moderator (as your site grows, this will probably be a necessity) but there should only be one overall manager. Giving global powers to more than one person can lead to confusion as to who is ultimately in charge, and inconsistency when it comes to the enforcement of your community guidelines. Additionally, the more people that have access to the administrator panel, the higher the risk of security being breached.

Easy to give, hard to take away

You need to think very carefully before giving members additional powers or responsibilities. Most of your dedicated members will love having a higher status within the community and will readily accept any powers you give them. Problems can soon occur if you need to rescind those powers, or if you change your mind further down the line.

When recruiting and nurturing moderators in your community, start slowly. Begin by offering responsibilities without powers. Then, if your community needs more people with actual powers to delete or move content you can give these powers to the members that have proved themselves. Your members need to earn their additional powers and responsibilities.

One step too far

If you are reading this and have a sinking feeling in your stomach because you recognise you have too many people with the keys to your community, there is a way back. If you have assigned too many powers to individuals or groups of members, it is possible to scale them back but you need to be very tactful and diplomatic.

Once you have given powers to members, taking them away is likely to result in them feeling snubbed. You now risk having your most valuable members feeling alienated and becoming less active, less enthusiastic or even leaving the community altogether.

How to remove global moderators without alienating them

1 – Decide why you want to remove their powers

Yes, you should only have one global moderator – but if you have had more than one for years, without any problem, then is taking away their powers worth the risk of alienating and losing that member?

2 – Be honest

Communicate openly with your moderator and tell them exactly why you are removing some of their powers.

3 – Reassure

If you want your moderator to continue with reduced powers and they have a good track record, reassure them that your decision to reduce their powers has nothing to do with their abilities or commitment to the site. Focus on all the positive things they have done, tell them they are valued and tell them why they are valued.

I made the mistake of having an additional global moderator at Just Chat. Eventually, paranoia got the better of me and although the site wouldn’t be the community it is today without the contribution of this member, I needed to ensure I was the only one with access to the forum admin panel for my own peace of mind.

When I emailed this individual, the email went something like this:

Hi <NAME>

Today, I took the decision to remove your access to the admin panel of the Just Chat forums. All your other moderator privileges remain intact.

Please be aware that the reason I have removed access is nothing to do with my confidence in you or your abilities – put simply, I have become less comfortable with knowing there is one extra ‘key’ to the admin panel out there. You make a great contribution to Just Chat, and the community just wouldn’t be the same without you.

I don’t believe you have needed to use your login to the admin panel on a regular basis anyway so I doubt this will have a major impact on your ability to carry out your moderator duties.

If you wish to discuss this further, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. Again, please be reassured that my decision to remove your access has nothing to do with my confidence in your abilities, or the trust I have in you. I have made this decision solely because of my own paranoia that there is more than one login to the administrator panel out there.

Thanks for all you do.

Regards

Martin

The aftermath

Initially, the moderator in question was very unhappy with my decision. Despite my reassurances, they felt snubbed and felt that I no longer had faith in them. However, after a little more communication and reassurance I managed to keep hold of my most valuable moderator and there was now only one key to the admin panel – my own.

Of course, it would have been far better (and less risky) to have simply never given out the global moderator powers in the first place. You live and learn, though – so don’t do what I did. Give out moderator powers slowly and sparingly. It’s easy to give out powers. It’s very difficult to claw them back.

I was recently emailed by John Monroe, an editor at Federal Computer Week. He recently wrote about the problems faced by the White House when they attempted to invite public input on how to make government more transparent. Individuals and groups that want President Obama to release his birth certificate took over the Open Government Brainstorm to push their own agenda. This led to John wondering whether serious online dialogue can take place without it descending into mudslinging. I think it can.

Problems at the White House

The problem faced by the OGB was that it was too open. Prior to the hijacking of the site by the ‘birth certificate’ proponents, there were no clear submission guidelines. They have now rectified this situation somewhat, and link to them a little more prominently from the homepage.

As far as visitors were concerned, any comment they submitted would be published and consequent discussion would be permitted. When this didn’t happen, those who submitted content felt a little cheated – resulting in them continuing to resubmit their comments and encouraging others to do the same.

Over time, this situation would only ever get worse – as people felt unfairly treated, they continued to press their case and encouraged others to do the same. Eventually something had to give.

Online communities cannot moderate themselves

The reaction was to introduce a ‘Thumbs Up’ and ‘Thumbs Down’ system on OGB. This isn’t going to fix the problem, though – the groups looking to push their own agenda will simply ‘Thumb Up’ content related to their cause, and ‘Thumb Down’ everything else.

All online communities need some form of management and moderation. In this case, here is what I would recommend.

Serious discussion is possible in online communities

You can’t expect people to abide by community guidelines if they don’t know what they are. The OGB needs to make these clearer on the site. They should consider displaying them on the submission form to ensure all users are familiar with them.

Secondly, the site needs to be moderated more effectively. New ideas shouldn’t be displayed until they have been moderated – yes, this could be a huge task but the BBC manages to pre-moderate comments effectively, so it is possible.

Normally, I am not a proponent of pre-moderation – I prefer a reactive moderation policy. However, on a site with a serious agenda where the content is more sensitive than most, submissions really do need to be pre-approved before going live.

There need not be claims of censorship – as long as people know how submissions are being moderated and why. Again, this comes down to ensuring the guidelines are clear and prominently displayed.

Reputation and credibility – hard to achieve, easy to lose

Perhaps the biggest problem facing the OGB right now is that it has been completely distracted by the ‘birth certificate’ proponents pushing their own agenda. These people no longer trust the site as they feel their suggestions and comments are being censored and ignored. As the whole purpose of the OGB is to promote transparency, its credibility has been destroyed in the eyes of these people.

If the project is to move forward, it needs to address their grievances. It should engage in a private dialogue with these individuals and groups to see if a compromise can be met whereby they feel their comments and views are being recognised and respected and the administration is happy that the comments to be published are not inflammatory or against guidelines or existing legislation.

Of course, if the guidelines and moderation process were made clear from the start, this situation may have been avoided. However, the project can still move forward and get over this challenge through communication.

Five ways to encourage mature, serious discussion

Let me conclude by recommending the following for communities (or any site encouraging user generated content) looking to hold discussions of a serious or sensitive nature:

1. Have clear, prominent guidelines from day one.

2. Ensure all visitors know what the moderation process is.

3. Have a clear appeals process – how do users report their grievances? (Answer: privately).

4. If individuals or groups try to hijack the community, engage in a private dialogue and compromise.

5. Do not draw attention to individuals or special interest groups.

Openness encourages conflict

Some will always insist that open discussions (particularly those taking place online) will always degenerate into abuse or be hijacked by a minority. Without guidelines or a moderation process, this will almost certainly be the case.

Even in free societies there are rules and laws – these need to be in place in online communities, too. Just because you are promoting transparency, it doesn’t mean you can’t have rules and a moderation process. Indeed – because you are promoting transparency and honesty, clear rules and a strong moderation process are essential.

When building online communities, you can’t forget the fact that you are building relationships and dealing with human beings. Consequently, people make mistakes – yourself included!

On occasion, you may find a member writes a post that they later regret, and want it removed. How do you react when faced with this demand?

Individual circumstances

How you proceed should depend on the individual circumstances. Some online communities have a policy whereby once the content is submitted, no changes can be made at all. For others, the software may allow unlimited removal or edits until someone replies to the thread. Some communities may allow members to add, edit or remove their own content at will.

Personally, I like to reduce the amount of member controlled edits or content removal. The sole reason for this is due to the fact that very often, by the time someone decides they wish to remove a post, others have replied. This, of course, leaves you with an entirely new dilemma – if you are going to delete content others have replied to, what do you do with those replies?

In my terms of service at Just Chat, I have the following clauses:

By submitting content to this website, you are granting Just Chat a royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive right (including any moral rights) and license to use, license, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, derive revenue or other remuneration from, communicate to the public, perform and display the content (in whole or in part) worldwide and/or to incorporate it in other works in any form, media, or technology now known or later developed.

This is mainly inserted for legal reasons, however it also allows me to have the final say as to whether user submitted content can be completely removed from the community.

In reality, I prefer to always honour member requests for their content to be edited or removed. On Just Chat, members are able to edit their posts or profiles at any time, automatically. The only thing they can’t do is delete a forum post completely, once others have replied (although they can edit their post to remove all its content).

Please remove my post

When someone contacts me asking for their post to be removed, I take a look at the post in question. A member may be remorseful after posting something that breaks the community guidelines. In this case, I will most definitely honour their request for the post to be removed! In other cases, I will consider why they want the post removed.

It is very rare that members of my online communities contact me asking for one of their posts to be deleted. When they do, it’s often because they have said something that is:

1. Against the community guidelines (in which case the post will be removed)
2. Overly personal (regarding themselves or other members)
3. Overly controversial or will lead to arguments

As previously mentioned, if a post is against the guidelines it will be removed – I will also acknowledge the fact the member contacted me first and recognised their error.

If the member feels they have said something overly personal about themselves or others, I will judge each case on an individual basis. At this time, I’ll take a look at what people have written when replying. If members seem unfazed and I feel that the original poster is perhaps over-reacting, I’ll encourage them to keep the content intact. If I agree that their post is a little too personal, then I am happy to remove the post.

Controversy can be good for an online community – but it can also be bad; very, very bad. Again, you need to judge these cases individually. Some members will be a little more sensitive than others. You don’t really want to delete an opening post if it has encouraged a great discussion with lots of value (unless it’s against your site guidelines). In this case, again I would look at the situation and try to get the member to change their mind by reassuring them and congratulating them on the great conversation they have started.

Reducing abuse

Another reason why I include an ownership clause is because it prevents abusive users claiming they have the right for their content to be removed from the site. Of course, I remove abusive content – but only from public view. I keep a record of all abusive posts in case the member returns and tries to register under a different name, or they claim innocence to another staff member.

You also need to be careful about allowing members to edit information – particularly member names. Members in online communities are strongly identified by their choice of member name. If they change it without people knowing, it can create confusion. Your members have built up a lot of equity in their member names – allowing them to change them on a whim can have negative implications.

The survivors

So you decide to remove the opening post of a popular forum thread – now what? Do you delete all the replies that went with it? Ultimately, that’s your call. If the discussion was particularly popular, I would consider contacting those involved in the conversation to explain that you will be removing the opening post and it would be great if they could start a new thread to continue the discussion. You may be able to edit the opening post, remove the member name and content, and update it with a question or discussion point that is relevant to the consequent discussion. You may be able to completely remove the first post if the first reply makes enough sense to sustain the conversation – if not, try contacting the member that replied first, asking them to elaborate on their original post.

As you can see, it all gets very messy when you start deleting posts that have spawned conversations. That’s why I always recommend putting in a little extra effort to engage the member and try to get them to change their mind when they ask for their content to be removed.

Shared ownership

You want members of your online community to have a sense of shared ownership. They won’t feel like much of a stakeholder if you refuse to delete their content when they ask for that courtesy. Regardless of the scenario, if a member insists that their post is removed, I honour that request. At times I will try to change their minds, but ultimately I recognise and respect the fact that an individual who created content should really have the final say about its continued presence.

Delete all

If a member asks for ALL their posts to be removed, a different policy applies. It would be impossible to maintain the integrity of thousands of discussions if a prolific poster asks for all their content to be removed. Normally this happens when a member wishes to leave the community. In this case, I exercise the ownership rights from the terms of service, but I will offer the member the option to remove the member name associated with all their posts. That way, the member information is removed but the valuable content and discussions remain.

What’s your policy when it comes to ownership of member content in your online community?

Member count isn’t a true reflection of how successful an online community is, and good community managers know it. The fact is, not all of your ‘members’ will be active. Some will join and engage in conversations enthusiastically only to disappear weeks or months later. Others won’t say a word.

It’s another community building challenge – how to get those members who have gone AWOL to return.

Are they really gone?

Don’t be overenthusiastic. Just because someone hasn’t been seen for five days, it doesn’t mean you need to call in the search party. People have a life away from your community, and sometimes it’ll get in the way. I wouldn’t consider contacting a member until they have been gone for at least two weeks. Even then, you need to make sure there isn’t an obvious reason why they have disappeared.

Why have they left?

You need to figure out why a member has left in the first place. There is no point in trying to lure them back if there is something about your community that acts as a barrier to their participation. Perhaps they feel ignored in the community, perhaps they get bullied by other members, perhaps they forgot their password and can’t find the link to be emailed a reminder.

You can’t read minds, so you won’t always know the exact reasons why particular members left, but with a bit of digging around you may be surprised what you can find out.

What do you know about them?

Set aside some time to focus on luring back your inactive members. Work in small chunks. Write down a list of five members that you really want back in the community. Go through their posts – see what they were talking about when they were active, and the kind of responses they were getting. Find out their interests and how respected they were in the community. Put yourself in their shoes. See if there was anything about the community they were unhappy with.

Delegate

In an ideal situation, you want your members to lure other members back. It creates more of a sense of shared ownership of the community, and a message from another member will always feel more genuine than a message from the community manager.

At Female Forum, we have inactive member reps who are responsible for getting inactive members back to the community. It’s important you have clear guidelines when you delegate this responsibility – make sure members aren’t sending out generic messages, and that they aren’t spamming other members. Have a central record of who has been contacted and when, and have strict limits on the number of times an inactive member can be contacted. The limit at Female Forum is three messages over a three month period.

Get involved

Just because your members are trying to lure other members back, it doesn’t mean there is no room for you to get involved, too. Maybe you had a good relationship with one of the members that has disappeared – if so, then perhaps you are the best person to reach out to them. Make sure the message is personal and tailored to that individual.

Here’s another reason why it is essential that the community manager is personally involved in the community – imagine contacting a member with a template message asking them to come back. Unfortunately, because you weren’t involved in the community, you failed to see that they already made a very public post declaring that they were leaving, along with all the reasons why. You look like a fool, and the recipient of your message will simply be reassured that leaving the community was the right choice. The more active you are in your community, the more you will know and understand its members.

The lure

So how do you tempt members back? Reach out in a way that is relevant to that individual.

• Did they mention something about the community they didn’t like? Fix it and tell them.
• Did they not feel recognised? Figure out how to put your members in the spotlight and invite them back.
• Did they go away on holiday but didn’t return? Ask them how their trip was.
• Family or personal issues? Show you care and ask how they are doing.
• No clue why they left? Learn about them by reading their posts and engage in a conversation about their interests, or highlight specific discussions that are relevant to them.

Throwing in the towel

Sometimes you need to accept that some members are gone and won’t be coming back. Some communities will suffer from this more than others. For example, support forums will often see people register, ask a question, get the answer and then leave. The challenge in this case is to work out how to provide continued relevance and value to these members, so they will want to return (and contribute).

You can’t spam members or beg them to return. You don’t want to bribe them. All you can do is try to figure out why they left and address the issue. Even if they don’t return and get involved, they may still be passively engaged in the community. A reader still has value – you don’t want to hound them until they no longer even show up.

Goodbye – forever

Some communities actually delete members if they become dormant. At Just Chat, I delete forum accounts that haven’t been activated after seven days, and accounts that haven’t made a post three months after joining. I would never delete a member who has contributed, though – regardless of how long ago that was. After all, they have previously contributed so they may do so again. They certainly won’t if you take away their account!

If, on the other hand, you email a member and the email bounces back to you as no longer valid, it could be a reasonable indication that this member has been lost. If they have previously contributed, I still wouldn’t delete their account (they may still return, log in and update their email address), but you have to accept that their return is out of your hands.

Don’t obsess

It’s easy to become obsessed about membership numbers and active member ratios. As long as you recognise that it is worth getting more members active and you are taking steps to encourage dormant members to return, you are doing just about the best you can. You can’t force a member to come back; you can only invite and encourage. Accept the fact that you won’t get 100% of your members active 100% of the time, but you can almost certainly lure some of them back, and that alone is worth the effort.

Businesses are realising the power of online communities and the benefits they can offer. Consequently, we are seeing more brands launching communities and I doubt this trend is going to change any time soon.

Unfortunately, a lot of brand communities fail – they often launch before they are ready (no members or activity), have too many features and there is no development strategy. Even if a company has taken the sensible option of engaging a skilled community manager, the community could still be doomed from the start if management is not completely behind the community from day one.

Online communities are different

Few companies have experience in building online communities. A lot of businesses seem to think that as long as enough money is invested in the project, the resulting community will be a success. This isn’t true.

Building communities involves building relationships. You need to communicate with individual customers and many businesses don’t have much experience doing this. Brands with only a static website will probably find it very difficult to build a community by themselves as they aren’t used to communicating with their customers in the online environment.

Managers need to understand that online communities are different. They require dedicated management and unique skills.

Online communities are unpredictable

Even with the best planning and commitment, sometimes a community will still fail. People can be unpredictable – consequently, so can online communities.

The challenge here is in identifying when an online community is failing and then working hard to try to turn it into a success. Without management buy-in, the shutters may come down prematurely.

Online communities take time

Successful online communities are places where real relationships are formed. They are places where value is created for both the members and the business itself. However, the benefits for the business should come naturally – you shouldn’t start selling to your members or forcing them to use the community in a certain way.

People join online communities out of self-interest. They won’t appreciate feeling like a business asset or being told what to do. They don’t want to feel as though you see them as a dollar sign rather than a unique individual.

Yes, you can offer guidance by establishing community guidelines and by getting involved in the community in order to help shape its personality and culture, but you can’t start issuing orders or demanding certain behaviour. If you do this, your members will leave.

As a result, a real community will take time – the culture of the community will develop naturally. Members will slowly get to know others and share more information about themselves. Friendships don’t form overnight.

Without management support, there is once again a risk that the community will close prematurely. Managers need to be committed to the community building project and accept that real communities take time to develop.

How to get management buy-in for an online community

If you are a community manager, there is already a demonstration of some degree of commitment to the community building project – after all, they have hired you and not all companies do this. However, it is still important that you have the support of all managers within the business. Just one sceptic can ruin a community building project; they may not listen to the feedback you are supplying to the business from community members or even worse, they could convince other managers to ignore your advice or close down the community altogether.

You need to remind your managers of the business benefits online communities can create (lower costs, knowledge, relationships) and how the community you are building is delivering these. You need to keep them continuously updated with the community’s progress. Always communicate with your managers (especially those you feel are the most sceptical) – tell them of the great suggestions the community’s members made this week that could make their product more relevant and useful to their customers. Finally, be sure to provide them with some numbers – but only ones that are relevant. Avoid using ‘member count’ (if they insist, then provide the information but put it into context) – think post count, time spent on the site, return rate, number of pageviews.

Building an online community is hard work, and it takes time. Because you are working with people (especially people you can’t see), community building is unpredictable. There are a number of challenges and you’ll struggle to build a successful online community if you don’t have complete management buy-in and support. Consider the fact they hired you as a good first step, but make sure you have their full support and that you continue to earn that support – you don’t want to be distracted with internal matters. You don’t want to be continuously justifying the community to managers. You need to be focussed on building relationships and building the community.

Good luck!

Some people still seem to think that the more features and options they offer in their community, the easier it will be to attract members and activity. This is not true.

We need to get rid of the popular mindset that offline communities and online communities are different. They aren’t. Regardless of the medium, a community is a place where people with similar interests come together. It is all too easy to get distracted by technology and lose focus on what really matters: people. Too many options can be confusing and distracting.

The technology distraction

There are so many community platforms out there, we are spoilt for choice. There are even more plugins, extensions and modules. There is a very real risk of being distracted by all this technology and adding everything and anything you can get your hands on.

Corporate press releases that announce the launch of a new online community often prove this mistaken mentality. They’ll announce the purpose of the community (fine) and all the features it will offer (irrelevant). What they should be doing is telling us why people will want to join the community and what type of members are already there. Bells and whistles are pointless if nobody wants them or uses them.

Keeping up with the Joneses

This problem is further compounded as people see others loading their communities with features, so feel the need to do the same just to keep up. The result is a mass of websites that claim to be communities, but are anything but.

Stand out from the crowd. Cut back on the features. Strip your community website down to the bare essentials. When you find yourself thinking about adding a feature, stop and ask yourself why it’s needed. Work hard to justify the addition. Don’t ask your members if they want the feature (most will just say yes). Instead, ask them if they will use the feature, how often they will use it, and why they will use it. You’ll get much better feedback that way.

Just because your community consists solely of a forum, it doesn’t mean it can’t be successful. You only need to provide a single medium for people to communicate in. You may never need to add anything else. Less work for you, and happier members. What could be better?

Technology doesn’t encourage activity

Don’t be tricked into thinking that members demand certain features and functionality. Members aren’t really interested in the technology behind a community – they are far more interested in the people and human activity taking place there.

A huge number of features can actually reduce and discourage activity – especially when a community is new. You risk making the community overly complicated and you can end up overwhelming new visitors and existing members alike. When your community is just starting out, you will often simply be emphasising how new and quiet it is – this isn’t the best way to encourage new members to join!

Remove features that members aren’t using (you can always try reintroducing them in the future). Don’t introduce new features unless there is already evidence of demand – for example, people posting a lot of links to images may suggest demand for member photo galleries.

Be a technology sceptic. Focus on people instead.

I have been a community builder for over nine years. In this time I have learnt a lot, and I am still learning. Here are 95 things I have learnt so far:

1. You need to know why you want an online community.

2. A strong community cannot be built quickly.

3. You need to have specific goals and targets.

4. Technology doesn’t matter.

5. Planning a community should take longer than the design and coding stage.

6. Starting an online community is the most exciting stage of community building.

7. Developing and managing a successful online community is the most rewarding part of community building.

8. Dormant online communities can be turned around.

9. Ads shouldn’t distract from your content and they should never have more prominence than the community.

10. Never hide your community – it doesn’t belong behind a ‘community’ tab.

11. Make sure members are able to invite friends to your community easily.

12. Poaching members from other online communities rarely works.

13. Social bookmarking traffic is next to worthless. Don’t bother chasing it.

14. Search engine rankings do help and they do matter. Don’t get obsessed, though.

15. Paid advertising won’t always get you the right members for your community.

16. Google is fickle.

17. You will deal with more spam than you ever thought possible.

18. You need to watch what your competitors are doing.

19. Competitors will try to steal your members.

20. There is nothing wrong with stealing ideas as long as you don’t copy them.

21. Befriending your competitors is a good idea.

22. Keep your community as open as possible.

23. Don’t be fooled into thinking members will use features even if they requested those features.

24. Keep features down to a minimum.

25. Your reputation is important. Defend it.

26. Expand your community slowly.

27. Change your community rarely.

28. You don’t need expensive software.

29. You don’t need a flashy design.

30. Your community needs to be easy to use.

31. You need to go and find new members – they won’t always come to you.

32. A lot of people won’t understand what you do for a living.

33. If you don’t regularly backup, you’ll be punished.

34. One day, you will need to ban someone from your community.

35. You will be called names, and you will face abuse.

36. All online communities need to have visible (and enforced) guidelines and rules.

37. You have a responsibility to educate your members about staying safe when online.

38. You need to highlight the best content and give strong calls to action.

39. You don’t need money to build a successful online community.

40. You need to know what your visitors are doing when on your site.

41. You need to know how visitors are finding your site.

42. You need to know how visitors are interacting with your site.

43. You need to install something at least as good as Google Analytics.

44. Link exchanges can still provide some value, but don’t spend too much time on them.

45. If you encourage abuse and arguments, your community will be a hive of negativity.

46. Controversy and suspense encourages activity, but see point 45.

47. Asking questions is the single most effective way of generating activity in an online community.

48. You need to share information about yourself.

49. You need to be approachable.

50. You need to be consistent.

51. You need to be personable.

52. You need to be visible.

53. You need to be proactive.

54. You need to be involved in the community.

55. You will make mistakes.

56. Sometimes you will need to say sorry.

57. Your successes will tempt you to forget about your mistakes. Don’t.

58. Sometimes your community will disappoint you.

59. Sometimes your community will overwhelm you.

60. Sometimes your community will make you proud.

61. Sometimes you’ll feel as though your entire community is against you.

62. Never give cash to your members.

63. Competitions need to be thought out very carefully. They are rarely effective.

64. You need to act as a matchmaker by introducing members to other members.

65. Sometimes you’ll just get lucky. There’s no shame in that.

66. Sometimes you’ll be unlucky – you’ll need to work even harder.

67. You’ll make friends.

68. You’ll make enemies.

69. Sometimes you’ll want to quit.

70. Sometimes you’ll want to work 24 hours every day.

71. You need to cater to your members – not your own wants or needs.

72. Trust is critical.

73. You need to give out a lot of ego strokes and compliments.

74. You should always try to say yes.

75. Sometimes you will need to say no.

76. You can’t please everyone.

77. Some members will always complain.

78. You will feel humbled by your online community.

79. Your members will not always say things you want to hear.

80. Do not edit or delete negative comments about your brand. Respond to them openly.

81. The more you moderate or intervene, the less active your community will be.

82. You need to delegate some tasks to trusted members.

83. You should give trusted members additional responsibilities and powers.

84. Your moderators need to know exactly what is expected of them.

85. Don’t focus solely on your power members.

86. You need to work hard to get dormant members active and involved.

87. You can’t predict the future.

88. You can’t be afraid to experiment.

89. You need to be original and come up with new ideas.

90. Your community needs to be different.

91. It can be easy to forget that a real person sits behind every member name.

92. You need to be passionate about your online community.

93. A community cannot be declared a success based on member count alone.

94. Online communities need a dedicated community manager.

95. Being a community manager is one of the most rewarding jobs in the world.

I deliberately stopped short of 100. Having 100 points could imply that this list is comprehensive and covers everything. It may also suggest I have nothing more to learn. That couldn’t be further from the truth.

What have you learnt in your time as a community builder?

If you want people in your community to develop strong relationships with one another and your brand, you need to ensure you have a foundation of trust and honesty. Without these attributes, your community will struggle to succeed.

People not technology

Remember, when you build an online community you are (or at least, should be) involved primarily with people – not technology. Just because the community environment is online it doesn’t change the fact that you are bringing people together. People build relationships with other people – not technology. They need to see and trust the human element of your community. Don’t hide this, and make sure you are always honest.

Friendships and relationships

Think of the relationships you have in your life. Your best friends are the people you can trust. There is no reason why this cannot be replicated online. It’s a major accomplishment when people come to see members of your online community as friends. People stay with their friends – they want to be with them, and they want to continue getting to know them by sharing stories, ideas and opinions.

Unless your community is primarily linking existing friends (think Facebook, MySpace), every new member is a stranger. You need to turn these strangers into friends. One of the primary responsibilites of a community manager is to act as a matchmaker. To do this, you need to be trusted and respected. You’ll achieve this by being honest.

Lead with honesty

You can’t introduce members or encourage discussion if your members don’t trust you. Indeed, if they don’t trust you they probably won’t stick around. What’s more, if your members don’t trust you they may stop trusting the brand your community represents (if applicable).

The more your members talk, the more they are taking a risk – especially if they are new. You need to get them out of their shells – you want them to introduce themselves and to get to know existing members. You need your older members to welcome the new addition to the community and make them feel welcome. You need your members to share information about themselves.

Lead by example. Ensure you are trusted by:

• Sharing information about yourself
• Sticking to your promises
• Enforcing your community guidelines professionally and impartially

Bad memories

Your members are unlikely to remember every time you stick to your promises or prove you can be trusted. However, they will remember the one time you let them down. All it takes is one error on your part, and your community could end up irreparably damaged.

If you make a mistake – admit to it, and say sorry. Don’t attempt any cover ups – you’ll just be making things worse.

Community foundations

Communities are built on human relationships. Relationships based on lies, suspicion and deception are not healthy. You want to ensure your community is associated with trust and honesty if you want it to succeed. Give your members confidence that they can share information about themselves without being mocked or belittled. The more personal the information your members share, the more they are demonstrating their trust in your community’s members (and by association, you). It’s absolutely critical you don’t let them down.