Friday 2 August 2013
How can I build and grow an online community?
So you’ve realised you need an online community for your brand or business, but you’re not quite sure how to get started? You may want a community so your users feel part of something, to create content for your site or to improve your ranking in SERPS, much like using a SEO company would.
Unfortunately, starting and growing an online community can be very difficult! But don’t worry, I’ve put together a list of pointers that will help you start and then grow a budding online community.
Start narrow!
Never try to cater to the needs of all your potential users or customers at once. Always try to build a community out of a small aspect of your business or organisation. What you’ll need to achieve is something called ‘critical-mass’ (the point at which your community grows by itself). Once this has been achieved in your target area, this momentum will spill over into other aspects of your site.
For example, people are most likely to ‘bond’ with individuals in which they have plenty in common with. They join a chess club because they like chess, but three of the fifteen members of this club may also enjoy playing poker - and they bond over that shared interest too. Take care of your targeted area, and your community will take care of the rest!
This is true of even the biggest online communities. Back in the early days of Facebook it was limited to Harvard University students, and then eventually to other universities, and then to the wider world.
Likewise early Twitter was entirely tech-orientated, but subsequently expanded to the all-encompassing platform which we know today.
It’s the platform, stupid. Right? WRONG.
Another common mistake is to focus on the platform. In reality the ‘look’ of your website can have little bearing on community activity and growth. Forums are some of the most budding communities on the web, but most forums are not visually attractive at all! Design-wise it’s important to cater to your user’s needs.
But it’s vital for the community to have a great platform, with dozens of new features right? - Wrong again.
Let’s take Twitter as an example. In reality Twitter is a pretty basic platform with a whole stack of irritating limitations! Photos are often only displayed as links, and then there’s the 140 character limit. It’s not highly-visual, unlike something like Pinterest and it doesn’t give you as much SEO-juice as say sharing something on Google Plus, or publishing your content on a blog or website and using a dedicated SEO company would.
So why is Twitter so popular? It’s because of the community, not the platform. We’ve all joined Twitter because of the people on there and the ability to connect with your favourite celebrities, sport stars and influencers in your field. Not because of the functionality of the site. The pull of community is greater than the platform itself.
The last website I worked for completely re-designed the site in order to make it a far more functional, social and better-looking place. However, none of the community leaders wanted this change, and the shiny, great-looking website lost it’s feel of community, which in turn resulted in tumbling profits.
Recruitment
So you know you have to start narrow, and you know that platform is not as important as is often thought. So how do you get people to join your community?
This is often the hardest part of community management. The trick is simple: be human, don’t be a business. Get yourself out there on as many social media platforms as possible and try to become an authority in your targeted area.
Stick to your targeted field and get involved with discussions whilst making plenty of contacts. The key here is to build up trust between you and the users you’re looking to recruit. Once the trust element is there, you can invite them along to join your community.
Another great method of recruitment is organising events, either online or offline. But remember the focus should always be on the community and the people you want to recruit. Never ram your business ideas down the throats of people, organise Google hangouts, or suggest meeting up for a drink in your local area.
Remember, people join communities to connect with people!
Building and growing an online community is a daunting task, but if you stick to the above pointers you should find yourself immersed in a budding online community. Good luck!
Thursday 1 August 2013
Social Media: Crank Up The Volume!
‘Throw as much s**t at the wall to see what sticks.’
I’m not sure who first coined the above phrase, but I doubt it was a famous Roman Emperor or ancient philosopher. It certainly lacks eloquence but it doesn't necessarily lack relevance, especially in the realm of social media.
Obviously i’m not talking literally here (I won’t be held responsible for any new ‘wallpaper’) but i’m talking about the volume of posting. Getting as much relevant content out there is one of the most fundamental aspects of being a social media manager.
But why is volume important? And won’t it start to annoy people who follow you?
High volume of posting is extremely important because of two modern developments:
- The rise of ‘stream’ media. Nowadays we all consume vast quantities of content through online streams. Due to the nature of streams, the more relevant content you post to social streams, the more likely it’ll get seen.
- Attention spans. Over the last ten years the average human attention span dropped from twelve, to five minutes. It’s certainly not a coincidence that this statistic coincides with the rise of 24/7 stream media.
So, a high volume of relevant and high-quality content is more likely to get engagement. You need to be ever-present in order to increase the activity on your posts.
The uncertainty of Social Media.
The great (but also frustrating) aspect of social media is its unpredictable nature. As a social media manager, every post is essentially a gamble - you never know how successful each of your posts will be. In order to increase the amount of interaction each of your posts gets in this unpredictable world, it’s important not to put all your eggs in one basket or rely on a small number of posts.
For example, a colleague of mine, who is doing some social media work for a company, was advised by the company to only post to Facebook twice a week because they are scared of ‘littering’ news-feeds and therefore worried that this will cause people to ‘unlike’ them.
This is possibly one of the worst social media strategies I’ve ever heard. If you’re only posting two updates a week, you may as well not even bother at all! People follow you because they want to hear from you, they wanted to be updated, and they want to know what is going on.
Even if those two posts a week are genuinely high-quality and relevant content, the reality is most people won’t even see them because they’ll be lost in the ever-lasting stream of online content! Which takes me back to the main point of this article - the only way to get noticed is to increase the volume of relevant content you publish... unless your Justin Bieber of course.
Wednesday 5 June 2013
The ROI of Community
Everyone talks about the ROI (or return on investment) of community management as if it were something that's only worth proving in the boardroom or to investors.
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My theory on successful community building is that ROI is a term that needs to be applied to the community in question too.
As well as catering to the investor or community sponsor's need for tangible metrics that justify putting money behind community building efforts, I also think tangible incentive and and motivation to participate and engage needs to be communicated to the participants themselves.
In this sense, a community manager is someone who "promotes" the value of participating in a community to both sides of the equation.
I say "equation" because, just like an algebraic formula, both sides need to balance out for the whole thing to work.
I say "equation" because, just like an algebraic formula, both sides need to balance out for the whole thing to work.
Also remember that the ROI you are promoting to investors and the one you are creating excitement about to your community don't necessarily need to be related.
For example, a publisher of content that's looking to monetize posts that community members create can be "sold" on a very specific ROI - like, the revenue that a page of content generates over a specific time period (or something like that).
But I believe community managers should offer their community the same kind of validation too. In the example above, maybe the incentive for community members to create content is something like self-promotion, boosting their status and online profile in a professional field, or
Every time a member engages with your community, uses your platform, or gets involved - they are investing time and effort (at the very least), and sometimes they'll invest things like money, content, or other tangibles.
To promote and encourage this behaviour, I believe it's a community managers responsibility to outline in very clear terms what participation will pay back.
One great example of this is Hootsuite's Diplomat program:
Once a member of the Hootsuite community reaches out and applies to be a "super-member" (or 'Diplomat' in this case) by organising Hootsuite events and promoting the brand, they are sent a bullet-pointed list of perks or benefits that contributors to the Hootsuite community will be able to access:
I think the lesson to learn from Hootsuite's approach is also a little less obvious.
Yes, they are identifying perks to participation - but the key is that these benefits are specifically targeted at a certain type of individual. They know who they want to partake in this scheme, and these rewards are designed to cater for them.
The advantages all suggest that Hootsuite's diplomat program is intended for people in a certain professional field.
And that's where you will really see success - when you can identify a specific type of community member who's contributions will be of value to your business, but who's needs and goals you can also realistically meet and cater for.
But I believe community managers should offer their community the same kind of validation too. In the example above, maybe the incentive for community members to create content is something like self-promotion, boosting their status and online profile in a professional field, or
Every time a member engages with your community, uses your platform, or gets involved - they are investing time and effort (at the very least), and sometimes they'll invest things like money, content, or other tangibles.
To promote and encourage this behaviour, I believe it's a community managers responsibility to outline in very clear terms what participation will pay back.
One great example of this is Hootsuite's Diplomat program:
Once a member of the Hootsuite community reaches out and applies to be a "super-member" (or 'Diplomat' in this case) by organising Hootsuite events and promoting the brand, they are sent a bullet-pointed list of perks or benefits that contributors to the Hootsuite community will be able to access:
Rewards:
- Hootsuite University access
- Badges
- Recognition
- Become internet famous
- Free treats and Hootsuite "swag"
- Network, build/resources/street cred for your business
- Access to features
I think the lesson to learn from Hootsuite's approach is also a little less obvious.
Yes, they are identifying perks to participation - but the key is that these benefits are specifically targeted at a certain type of individual. They know who they want to partake in this scheme, and these rewards are designed to cater for them.
The advantages all suggest that Hootsuite's diplomat program is intended for people in a certain professional field.
And that's where you will really see success - when you can identify a specific type of community member who's contributions will be of value to your business, but who's needs and goals you can also realistically meet and cater for.
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