community growth - Cultivating Community2024-03-29T10:04:50Zhttps://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/feed/tag/community%2BgrowthHow Many People Can You Really Look After?https://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/how-many-people-can-you-really-look-after2014-05-13T15:30:00.000Z2014-05-13T15:30:00.000ZRichard Millingtonhttps://cultivate.ning.com/community/RichardMillington<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2208372?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=400"></div><div><p>Growing a community that’s too big for you to manage is dumb. Sadly, it’s the goal of most corporate communities.</p><p>1 community manager looking after 10,000 members isn’t efficient, it’s wasteful. You’re wasting the potential of thousands of members who would participate much more if they had more people responsible for getting them engaged and involved.</p><p>Past a certain size, your community becomes unmanageable. You can’t spend as much time with members. You give each member less. In turn, each member gives less.</p><p>The remedy is more help. You convert your most dedicated into volunteers. Volunteers take on groups of members (divide by interest/friendship groups. These volunteers take responsibility for clusters of members. They ensure they don’t leave.</p><p>Figure out how many members you, personally, can take responsibility for getting involved. It’s probably not many. 50? 200? Past this number, recruit volunteers to help. Keep your community strong and concentrated. Don’t let yourself be diluted by an unmanageable level of newcomers. Don’t be tempted by bigger numbers to report to your boss.</p><p><em>Lead image via GraphicStock</em></p></div>The Problem With Community Platforms (and asking the right questions)https://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/the-problem-with-community-platforms2014-03-27T15:00:00.000Z2014-03-27T15:00:00.000ZRichard Millingtonhttps://cultivate.ning.com/community/RichardMillington<div><p><b><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.discourse.org/">Discourse</a></b> looks interesting. It looks sleek, modern, and displays most of what people need. It's also open-source. It might be a fantastic new community platform. </p>
<p>It's going to tempt a lot of people to switch platforms...and this is the problem.</p>
<p>Switching community platforms is one of the riskiest things you can do. The benefits are usually minimal and the dangers are colossal. Unless you picked a terrible platform initially, changing a platform won't help you much.</p>
<p>If you want a better community, it's rarely a new platform you need, it's a new and better approach to community management.</p>
<p>How are you <a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/concentrate-activity" target="_self">driving activity</a> and growth in that community? </p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1282092?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1282092?profile=original" width="539" class="align-center"></a></p>
<p>What are you doing to recruit members? Whom are you approaching? What are you telling them? What is their reaction? What tactics have you tried/not tried? How are you encouraging them to invite others?</p>
<p>How are you initiating and sustaining discussions? What topics have you tried? <a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/how-to-help-members-overcome-their-fear-of-participation" target="_self">Who and how are you prompting people</a> to respond to these topics? What types of discussions work best? What does your audience analysis tell you will be most interesting?</p>
<p>What <a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/14-events-you-can-organize-and-celebrate-in-your-community" target="_blank">events are you facilitating</a>? Have you scheduled regular, live, events? Are you reaching out to and inviting the top people in your community and sector to participate in these events? </p>
<p>Are you <a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/the-psychological-impact-of-interactions" target="_self">building relationships</a> with members? How are you building these relationships? What is working/not working here? </p>
<p>Have you diagnosed your community? What specifically does your data tell you is going wrong? Is it growth, activity, or <a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/creating-a-sense-of-belonging-in-your-online-community" target="_self">sense of community</a>? </p>
<p>Are you embracing the <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.feverbee.com/2012/09/community-management-framework.html">full community management framework</a>? Or are you just doing a tiny sliver of the work you should be doing. </p>
<p>Too often, we jump straight to the conclusion that the platform is the problem. That's rarely the case. It's almost certainly the activity you're doing on the platform that matters. </p>
<p>This is why new platforms have made it easier to build communities, but haven't helped us build <i>better</i> communities. </p>
<p>The answers to these questions are far more important than the platform or its features. </p></div>8 Signs Your Community Is In Troublehttps://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/8-signs-your-community-is-in-trouble2014-02-04T23:59:04.000Z2014-02-04T23:59:04.000ZRichard Millingtonhttps://cultivate.ning.com/community/RichardMillington<div><p>Your online community won't die overnight. That never happens. Most communities end with members gradually drifting away.</p>
<p>There are some clear danger signals that your community is going downhill, these are a few to watch out for:</p>
<ol>
<li><b>No new posts in 24 hours.</b> If your community goes an entire day (except Christmas) without a single interaction you’re on the brink of failure. Push the panic button. Engage heavily in one to one interactions to inject activity.</li>
<li><b>Key members have gone missing.</b> Name your top 10 members. Have any of them been posting less frequently recently? Why? Find out and adapt.<a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1282062?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1282062?profile=RESIZE_480x480" width="400" class="align-right"></a></li>
<li><b>Less members are joining.</b> Community members are transient, they get jobs, move location, start families. You need fresh blood to keep the community active. Regularly measure the number of new members joining, when it dips (or slows) take action to recruit new members.</li>
<li><b>A new rival community is rapidly gaining momentum.</b> If you see a new community in your field rapidly gaining momentum, it means you’re not providing something these members need.</li>
<li><b>Posts go unanswered.</b> The lack of conversation is a clear flag something is wrong. When posts start going unanswered, people begin to drift away.</li>
<li><b>Declining sector/topic/passion.</b> <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.uk-ct.net/">UK-CT</a> is a dying community for a video game which is over 10 years old. It’s entire audience has moved on to other games. It’s niche is dying, it didn’t stick with the players.</li>
<li><b>Lack of friendliness.</b> Whilst arguments are important, friendliness is more important. Do members seem less friendly recently? Do they lack familiarity with each other and previous community discussions? Do they know how the top members in a community are?</li>
<li><b>Boring discussions.</b> Subjective, but important. Do the discussions feel like they’re less interesting recently? Is there a poor quality of things to talk about?</li>
</ol>
<p>Keep an eye for these signals and react aggressively when you spot one. Don’t be passive, by the time you spot a signal, it might already be almost impossible to reverse the problem.</p></div>How To Persuade Employees To Join Your Company's Online Communityhttps://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/how-to-persuade-employees-to-join-your-company-s-online-community2013-10-30T17:00:00.000Z2013-10-30T17:00:00.000ZRichard Millingtonhttps://cultivate.ning.com/community/RichardMillington<div><p>Your employees probably aren’t keen to help you build a community. It’s more work for them. It’s not even in their job description. If you force them to get involved, you’re going to get the minimum effort.</p><p>So don’t force them, addict them. Here’s a few ideas to get your employees involved in building your community.</p><div style="margin-left: 2em;"><ul><li><b>Interview Them.</b> People like to feel important. Interview an employee for the community. Ask for opinions and comments on the interview. I bet your employee joins in the conversation. Then get him or her to interview someone else for the community.</li><li><b>Introduce them to fans.</b> Introduce them to fans of their work. If they work in marketing, introduce them to people that like their marketing materials.</li><li><b>Talk about them.</b> Talk about your employees in the community. No one can resist learning what people are saying about them.</li></ul></div><p><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/opensourceway/5226980494/" target="_blank"><img src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5166/5226980494_4a122c7cb5.jpg?width=500" width="500" class="align-center"/></a></p><div style="margin-left: 4em;"><ul><li><b>Community-voted employee of the month.</b> Every month let the community vote on their favourite staff members from a list. Those with 0 votes might decide it would help if people knew who they were – and what a way to improve customer service. You might also want to turn this into…</li><li><b>A popularity ladder.</b> Keep an ongoing popularity ladder. With awards for the top members, most improved etc. Copy the sports team format of fans favourite.</li><li><b>Give an employee an advice column.</b> Give employees responsibility for a 4 week advice column on one specific aspect of your product or service. Why 4 weeks? It's low pressure and won't last forever. They might just enjoy the interactions and fame.</li><li><b>Online customer complaints.</b> Be bold; build a specific place for online customer complaints. The customer community can complain against products, specific staff interactions, anything they like.</li><li><b><img src="http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4085/5096035675_fbc69eac8f_n.jpg?width=214" width="214" class="align-right"/>Ask for feedback and improvements.</b> Ask the community to give their feedback and recommendations – directly to the employee’s e-mail address.</li><li><b style="font-size: 12pt;">Ask the employees to run a competition.</b> Ask an employee to run a competition or innovation project related to their field of expertise.</li><li><b style="font-size: 12pt;">Moderation and Responsibility.</b> Give them power to moderate and responsibility for a forum/group within your community.</li><li><b style="font-size: 12pt;">Name areas of the community after them.</b> Sneaky, but name areas of the community after staff members.</li><li><b style="font-size: 12pt;">Bring it up in staff meetings.</b> Make the community report item 5) in every meeting. What’s the latest news, developments, ideas and complaints?</li><li><b style="font-size: 12pt;">20% rule.</b> Like <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/21/jobs/21pre.html?_r=0" target="_blank" style="font-size: 12pt;">Google</a>, offer a 20% rule for innovation and getting involved in your community. They don’t have to use it, but I bet they want to.</li><li><b style="font-size: 12pt;">Only let the top employees participate.</b> Now everyone wants to participate. Once you’ve reached top employee status, you can join and represent the company to the community.</li><li><b style="font-size: 12pt;">Set an employee –vs- community challenge.</b> What’s a big challenge facing your organisation? Set a challenge with your employees competing against the community. See who comes up with the best solution.</li><li><b style="font-size: 12pt;">Create profiles with ugly pictures.</b> Another sneaky idea, but effective. Create profiles for each employee – but use pictures they don’t like.</li><li><b style="font-size: 12pt;">Participatory content.</b> Start a series all your employees can be involved with. Try “Day in the life of….” It’s easy and builds relationships with members.</li></ul></div><p>Above all, look for opportunities involving responsibility, fame, and their ego over financial incentives. Being rated and judged by the community is a power motivator to keep returning.</p><p>(<i>Images: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/opensourceway/5226980494/">Student participation in open source projects (A professor's perspective)</a>, a Creative Commons <a rel="nofollow" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en">Attribution Share-Alike (2.0)</a> image from opensourceway's photostream; </i><i><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/48424574@N07/5096035675/">trophy 1 | the both and | shorts and longs | julie rybarczyk</a>, a Creative Commons <a rel="nofollow" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en">Attribution (2.0)</a> image from 48424574@N07's photostream</i>)</p></div>Designing The Perfect Newcomer To Regular Journey - Step Five: Continued Participationhttps://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/newcomer-to-regular-journey-step-five-continuing-participation2013-09-19T14:10:00.000Z2013-09-19T14:10:00.000ZRichard Millingtonhttps://cultivate.ning.com/community/RichardMillington<div><p></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">Most communities have terrible newcomer to regular conversion ratios. If you can improve this, you can rapidly increase the number of active members in your community. Most other problems you think you have in your community pale in comparison to a terrible newcomer to regular conversion process. </span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">In this five step process, you can design the perfect journey for your members from newcomer to regular. Treat these each as unique steps. You can optimize each one in turn. These steps are also numbered in the priority of importance. If you get the first step right, the rest might just take care of themselves. </span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><b><br></b> <em>Previously - <a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/newcomer-to-regular-journey-step-one-awareness" target="_self">Step One: Awareness</a>; <a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/newcomer-to-regular-journey-step-two-first-visit" target="_self">Step Two: First Visit</a>; <a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/newcomer-to-regular-journey-step-three-registration-participation" target="_self">Step Three: Registration and Participation</a>; <a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/newcomer-to-regular-journey-step-four-return-visit" target="_self">Step Four: Return Visit</a></em></span></p>
<p></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><b>Step 5) Continued Participation</b></span></p>
<p><em><span class="font-size-3"><b>Goal</b>: Socialize members, build strong relationships between participants. </span></em></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281788?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281788?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="500" class="align-center"></a>To turn a newcomer into a regular, they need to be socialized.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">They need to get to know other people in the community. They need to visit the community out of habit, not out of necessity.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">This is where sense of community elements matter. You need regular events and activities for members. You need to highlight and facilitate self-disclosure related discussions between members.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">You need to write content about members in the community (not just the established members, but newcomers too). Every member should feel like they have influence within the community. Provide opportunities for members to have ownership and influence over areas of the community. </span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">Finally, provide an informal social ladder which members can claim through increased contributions. Reach out to the most active and rapidly rising contributors for support. Feature these members more frequently. Gamification can help for established communities, but it's not essential. </span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><i>You need to move heaven and earth to ensure members interact with each other, and not just with you. Shared events, self-disclosure discussions, and content about members are the pillars. Other useful elements include creating a shared history or initiations/rituals after members have been around for a period of time.</i></span></p>
<p></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><em>To view all the Newcomer to Regular Journey steps, <a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/list/tag/newcomer+to+regular+journey" target="_self">click here</a>. </em></span></p></div>Designing The Perfect Newcomer To Regular Journey - Step Four: Return Visithttps://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/newcomer-to-regular-journey-step-four-return-visit2013-09-10T16:00:00.000Z2013-09-10T16:00:00.000ZRichard Millingtonhttps://cultivate.ning.com/community/RichardMillington<div><p><span class="font-size-3">Most communities have terrible newcomer to regular conversion ratios. If you can improve this, you can rapidly increase the number of active members in your community. Most other problems you think you have in your community pale in comparison to a terrible newcomer to regular conversion process. </span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">In this five step process, you can design the perfect journey for your members from newcomer to regular. Treat these each as unique steps. You can optimize each one in turn. These steps are also numbered in the priority of importance. If you get the first step right, the rest might just take care of themselves. </span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><b><br></b> <em>Previously - <a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/newcomer-to-regular-journey-step-one-awareness" target="_self">Step One: Awareness</a>; <a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/newcomer-to-regular-journey-step-two-first-visit" target="_self">Step Two: First Visit</a>; <a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/newcomer-to-regular-journey-step-three-registration-participation" target="_self">Step Three: Registration and Participation</a></em></span></p>
<p></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><b>Step 4) Return visit</b></span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><b>Goal</b>: Secure a second contribution.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281805?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281805?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="500" class="align-center"></a>The biggest influence upon whether a newcomer becomes a regular (after their first contribution), is the speed and quality of the response to their first message. If they don't get a response within 24 hours, they're gone. Give priority to ensuring newcomers (the people with a 1 post count) get a quick response. </span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">The quality of response also matters. The response needs not just to answer the question but to continue the debate. You want the newcomers returning to respond to further questions. This means asking a further question and encouraging the contributor to return to respond. It also means soliciting the opinions of others in the conversation. </span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">In addition, make sure your notification e-mails are opt-out by default, are short, originate from an individual, and have a clearly identifiable subject line. Don't use summary e-mails unless they're specifically requests. The click-through rates plummet with these. Make sure the body of the e-mail is very short and there is a clear call to action to click the link. Measure what works, refine the copy, length, and language. Long-winded notifications with multiple links are destined to be ignored. </span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><i>Getting the newcomer to visit a second time depends entirely upon getting a quick response to their first contribution. The speed and characteristics of this response are important, but so is the process by which contributors learn their contribution has received a response. </i></span></p>
<p></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">Next Step: Continued Participation</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">To view all the Newcomer to Regular Journey steps, <a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/list/tag/newcomer+to+regular+journey" target="_self">click here</a>. </span></p></div>Designing The Perfect Newcomer To Regular Journey - Step Three: Registration and Participationhttps://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/newcomer-to-regular-journey-step-three-registration-participation2013-09-03T16:00:00.000Z2013-09-03T16:00:00.000ZRichard Millingtonhttps://cultivate.ning.com/community/RichardMillington<div><p><span class="font-size-3">Most communities have terrible newcomer to regular conversion ratios. If you can improve this, you can rapidly increase the number of active members in your community. Most other problems you think you have in your community pale in comparison to a terrible newcomer to regular conversion process. </span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">In this five step process, you can design the perfect journey for your members from newcomer to regular. Treat these each as unique steps. You can optimize each one in turn. These steps are also numbered in the priority of importance. If you get the first step right, the rest might just take care of themselves. </span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><b><br></b> <em>Previously - <a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/newcomer-to-regular-journey-step-one-awareness" target="_self">Step One: Awareness</a>; <a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/newcomer-to-regular-journey-step-two-first-visit" target="_self">Step Two: First Visit</a></em></span></p>
<p></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><b>Step 3) Registration and Participation</b></span></p>
<p><em><span class="font-size-3"><b>Goal</b>: Get members ready to participate within 1 minute.</span></em></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281777?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281777?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="500" class="align-center"></a>Speed is the key element of this stage. Any longer than 1 minute and you lose a lot of people. The ideal journey goes like this: a member clicks on a thread they want to reply to, they click <i>reply</i>, they are taken to the registration page, they enter their name, e-mail, password and an anti-spam question (e.g. "<i>What colour is a banana?"</i>), then they're taken back to the thread to reply. </span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">Most of all, just keep it simple. </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">In practice, few platforms have optimized this. Too many ask for more information than they need. If you have a platform that can't take people back to the same page, then take them to a specific page created for newcomers that highlights an activity they can participate in straight away. </span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">If you have to use a confirmation e-mail, then edit the content of that e-mail to direct members to a community activity they can participate in. </span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">The goal at this stage isn't to persuade members to create an online identity for the community. Don't ask any questions that don't relate to the name, e-mail, and password. The goal is simply to get them through this stage and back to participating. Letting members register through FB/Twitter accounts works well too.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">Don't write personal welcomes from the community manager to every member. That's not very effective. Focus on making a difference. Either write personal messages to members that have made one contribution already and are likely to become regulars, or members that haven't made a contribution so you can put them on the right path. Be systematic. Collect data and figure out if it's working, if it's not, stop doing it. </span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><i>The registration to participation process is extremely quick. Every extra second loses a lot of members. If you reduce the time this takes and direct members toward a specific activity, the number of active participants should skyrocket. </i></span></p>
<p></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">Next Step: Return Visit</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">To view all the Newcomer to Regular Journey steps, <a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/list/tag/newcomer+to+regular+journey" target="_self">click here</a>. </span></p></div>Designing The Perfect Newcomer To Regular Journey - Step Two: First Visithttps://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/newcomer-to-regular-journey-step-two-first-visit2013-08-27T16:00:00.000Z2013-08-27T16:00:00.000ZRichard Millingtonhttps://cultivate.ning.com/community/RichardMillington<div><p><span class="font-size-3">Most communities have terrible newcomer to regular conversion ratios. If you can improve this, you can rapidly increase the number of active members in your community. Most other problems you think you have in your community pale in comparison to a terrible newcomer to regular conversion process. </span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">In this five step process, you can design the perfect journey for your members from newcomer to regular. Treat these each as unique steps. You can optimize each one in turn. These steps are also numbered in the priority of importance. If you get the first step right, the rest might just take care of themselves. </span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><b><br></b> <em>Previously - <a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/newcomer-to-regular-journey-step-one-awareness" target="_self">Step One: Awareness</a></em></span></p>
<p></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><b>Step 2) First Visit</b></span></p>
<p><em><span class="font-size-3"><b>Goal</b>: Ensure members find something to participate in.<a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/360810?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/360810?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="500" class="align-center"></a></span></em></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">In the first visit, members need to see something they want to participate in. Too frequently we focus upon getting members to read. That's easy. Getting them to participate is more difficult.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">Once members visit you know to show them the latest activity taking place within the community. This means ensuring you always have popular, interesting, discussions at the top of the page. You need to use sticky threads to achieve this. Don't waste space on large graphics or hide the community behind a community tab.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">If you're really clever, you can show a different page to newcomers than you do regulars. The single goal at this stage is to help visitors find an activity they can participate in. Keep the latest and most popular activity above the fold on the landing page of the community.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><i>Prospective members should be able to find a discussion or activity they want to participate in within the first 30 seconds of visiting your community</i>. <i>If they don't, you're either attracting the wrong people, poorly positioned your interesting discussions/activities, or don't have interesting discussions/activities taking place</i>. </span></p>
<p></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">Next Step: Registration and Participation</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">To view all the Newcomer to Regular Journey steps, <a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/list/tag/newcomer+to+regular+journey" target="_self">click here</a>. </span></p></div>Designing The Perfect Newcomer To Regular Journey - Step One: Awarenesshttps://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/newcomer-to-regular-journey-step-one-awareness2013-08-20T16:00:00.000Z2013-08-20T16:00:00.000ZRichard Millingtonhttps://cultivate.ning.com/community/RichardMillington<div><p><span class="font-size-3">Most communities have terrible newcomer to regular conversion ratios. If you can improve this, you can rapidly increase the number of active members in your community. Most other problems you think you have in your community pale in comparison to a terrible newcomer to regular conversion process. </span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">In this five step process, you can design the perfect journey for your members from newcomer to regular. Treat these each as unique steps. You can optimize each one in turn. These steps are also numbered in the priority of importance. If you get the first step right, the rest might just take care of themselves. </span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><b>Step 1) Awareness</b></span></p>
<p><em><span class="font-size-3"><b>Goal:</b> Motivate members to participate in a specific activity within the community</span></em></p>
<p><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281771?profile=RESIZE_480x480" width="450" class="align-center"></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">This step usually gets ignored. How do people hear about your community? Do you wait for people to join or approach them? The biggest influence upon someone’s likelihood of becoming a regular participant is their level of interest in the topic.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">This means two things. First, you need to make sure you have a <i>tight</i> (very focused) community concept. A community for social media professionals working at humanitarian organizations in Geneva has a better focus than a broad social media community. If in doubt, tighten the concept. </span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">Second, you need to reach out to members with the strongest level of interest in the topic. Don't wait for members to join, proactively seek them out. Identify people that have taken actions in the past (such as blogging, Tweeting, participating in comments of blogs, LinkedIn, Facebook groups) that have shown they have an above average level of interest in the topic. </span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">What you tell these prospective members is important. Don't invite these members to join. Don't tell prospective members that there is a new community. People don't care about this.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">Tell them about activities taking place within the community. For example, invite prospects to participate in an interesting discussion, an event or activity, or to contribute an opinion/column in response to a previous contribution.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><i>You want them to be in the <strong>participant mindset</strong> before they even reach the community platform</i>. </span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">Next Step: First Visit </span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><span>To view all the Newcomer to Regular Journey steps, </span><a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/list/tag/newcomer+to+regular+journey" target="_self">click here</a><span>. </span></span></p></div>The Online Community Lifecycle - Stage Four: Mitosishttps://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/the-online-community-lifecycle-stage-four-mitosis2013-08-06T16:00:00.000Z2013-08-06T16:00:00.000ZRichard Millingtonhttps://cultivate.ning.com/community/RichardMillington<div><p>A couple of years ago Feverbee introduced something we had been working on for years, our <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.feverbee.com/2012/01/introducing-the-map-a-proven-process-for-developing-successful-online-communities.html">online community lifecycle</a>. The lifecycle was based upon <a rel="nofollow" href="http://isl.cgu.edu/publicationpdf/16_ACM_CSUR_2006-0042_Online_Communities_Iriberri_and_Leroy_temp_online.pdf">Iriberri and Leroy's initial work</a> and our own research and experience.</p>
<p>It was the sum of everything we had learnt about communities until then. <strong> If there is one single thing every community manager should know about communities, the lifecycle is it</strong>. Using the lifecycle you can identify exactly where you are now and where you need to go next. In this series of posts, we're going to explain the full online community lifecycle. </p>
<p>If you take the time to read this series and <a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/the-online-community-lifecycle-video" target="_self">watch the webinar</a>, it will completely change how you approach your community. You will be more informed about communities than most community professionals you meet. Better still, <em>you will be able to explain to your organization exactly what you need to do next and why. </em></p>
<p><b>The Online Community Lifecycle</b> </p>
<p>The lifecycle consists of four stages, 1) inception, 2) establishment, 3) maturity, and 4) mitosis. </p>
<p>The names are less important than the activities that you need to perform at each stage. </p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281812?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281812?profile=RESIZE_480x480" width="450" class="align-center"></a><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281860?profile=original" target="_self"><br></a> </p>
<p><i>* The sense of community is a score derived from the results of surveys.</i></p>
<p>The tasks you perform in the inception stage of the online community lifecycle will be significantly different from those you undertake in the maturity phase. You shouldn’t be doing the same job from one year to the next. Your role evolves with the community.</p>
<p>We've covered <a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/the-online-community-lifecycle-stage-one-inception" target="_self">inception</a>, <a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/the-online-community-lifecycle-stage-two-establishment" target="_self">establishment</a>, and <a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/the-online-community-lifecycle-stage-three-maturity" target="_self">maturity</a>, so now it's time for the final stage: mitosis.</p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><b>Stage 4: Mitosis</b></span></p>
<p>The mitosis phase of the online community lifecycle begins when the community is almost entirely self-sustaining and continues indefinitely (with a view to the community reforming around greater focused sub-groups).</p>
<p>Not all communities progress to this phase. For example, my friend Susan runs Park Slope Parents, a community for a few thousand parents in the Park Slope area of Brooklyn, New York. Her community is highly active, but will never grow so big it needs to split into multiple sub-groups. It has a much smaller potential audience than a larger community like Mumsnet. Mumsnet targets parents throughout the UK, Park Slope Parents is just for a relatively small area in New York. Mumsnet has a potential audience in the millions, Park Slope Parents has a potential audience of a few thousand (see <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.feverbee.com/2012/07/tfas.html">total feasible audience size</a>). Susan has seen this community through to the <a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/the-online-community-lifecycle-stage-three-maturity" target="_self">maturity phase of the lifecycle</a>. She’s maximized the potential of that community. Therefore, it won't enter the mitosis stage of the lifecycle. If your prospective target audience is bigger than this, the mitosis phase of the lifecycle is more important.</p>
<p>Not all communities advance to mitosis. The message history for Park Slope parents shows a plateau since 2007 without any significant decline. If you have a large potential audience (or a large existing community), when the plateau has been reached you need to shift your role again from optimizing to facilitating multiple, smaller, online communities. The objective of this phase is to sustain and increase the level of both activity and sense of community.</p>
<p><b>Growth</b></p>
<p>During this phase of the lifecycle, the growth to the community as a whole should remain consistent, but the growth to the smaller sub-groups should be growing as per the <a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/the-online-community-lifecycle-stage-one-inception" target="_self">inception</a> stage. This means, initially, the co-founders of the sub-group will invite new members; these will usually be through existing contacts made in the community.</p>
<p>You may also have to stimulate this growth by mentioning new groups through content/discussions, and by hosting events and activities for these groups. <em>Each of these sub-groups should endeavour to achieve a critical mass within the first three months of existence.</em> You will need to train people to manage these groups and provide support when necessary.</p>
<p><b>Activity</b></p>
<p>The overall level of activity to the community should increase as members reform around stronger common interests (social circles, niche interests within the topic). Each group should be smaller, but more members will have the opportunity to be involved. In the short-term, there may be a brief dip in activity as members gradually move from the broad topic into a niche group based around their activities. You need to focus on identifying the potential sub-groups at this stage. This means identifying the topics or interests which have continually arisen within the community, then creating a group specifically for these individuals. This group might be a forum category or any other place within the community platform where people can interact.</p>
<p>In <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.scienceforums.net/">ScienceForums</a>, members each have several sub-groups they participate in. The broad topic ‘science’ has been artfully broken into highly active sub-groups.</p>
<p>Alternatively, you may identify social groups that have developed within the community and build areas within the platform just for close groups of friends. These groups might be elders, newcomers, those that have attended particular events (events especially are a good place for members to bond). You might want to look at your original audience overview here to identify clusters of people that share the same demographic, habitual, or psychographics traits. These are ideal categories for developing sub-groups. </p>
<p><b>Sense of community</b></p>
<p>The sense of community at this stage will dip before rising considerably. Past a certain stage, it’s impossible for all members to feel a sense of connection with everyone. Breaking the community into smaller sub-groups helps sustain these connections. Fewer people are more active in the community. You should spend considerable time helping boost the sense of community in each of these groups. It is therefore important not to launch multiple groups at a single time, but to gradually increase the number of groups in the community.</p>
<p><b>Mitosis-phase tasks</b></p>
<p>During this phase of the community lifecycle, the community manager balances the role of sustaining a healthy community in the maturity phase with developing self-sustaining groups.</p>
<p>Note with the tasks below, as per the previous phases, there is a gradual shift from the maturity level tasks to the mitosis level tasks. This should not be an abrupt change. It may be possible not to split the entire community into sub-groups, just elements/people within the community.</p>
<ol>
<li>Identify and create sub-groups.</li>
<li>Train and manage leaders of sub-groups.</li>
<li>Promote and support sub-groups.</li>
</ol>
<p>Whilst the number of mitosis task feels light, it is a highly repetitive process. This means, for instance, the amount of managing of sub-group leaders will steadily increase throughout the lifespan of the community (perhaps until you’re managing the people that manage the sub-group leaders).</p>
<p><b><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281894?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281894?profile=RESIZE_480x480" width="350" class="align-right"></a>Signs of development</b></p>
<p>As the community advances into the mitosis phase of the community lifecycle, an increasing number of successful niche groups/topics should begin to be visible within the community. These should be independently run with only small assistance from you. Over time, these sub-groups should be organizing regular events, maintaining a regular content schedule, and become relatively self-sustaining, close-knit, entities within the community.</p>
<p><b>Potential dangers</b></p>
<p>As I mentioned earlier, it is common for community managers to let their community become too big and too active without proper structure. Beyond a certain level of activity and a certain number of members it becomes difficult for all members to believe they can influence the community. <em>Past a certain number of active members in a community, it becomes impossible for a high level of familiarity to persist.</em> Members will know fewer and fewer of the participating members. Therefore, the overall sense of community in the community begins to decrease. This often leads to less ownership over the community and eventually a lower number of participating members.</p>
<p>This is similar for the level of activity in a community. Once a community becomes too active, it becomes difficult for members to stay abreast of what’s new and what’s popular in the community. It becomes difficult to follow the overall narrative of the community. This is often referred to as ‘<i>information overload</i>’. A member that is used to catching up on 10 missed messages feels less motivation to catch up on 50, or 500 messages. It becomes harder to find the messages that will be of most relevant to that individual.</p>
<p>If you fail to use your data to recognise these situations, it can result in the number of members gradually declining to a small group who retain a limited sense of community with one another.</p>
<p>Another potential danger at this stage is top-down community planning. Instead of reacting to interests which have risen naturally within the community, those that have clearly gained a high level of participation, the community attempts a top-down approach to try and facilitate multiple groups at once. This approach is not suited to community development. First, creating multiple groups rapidly dissipates activity within the community. This can cause a sharp, uncontrolled, drop in the level of activity. Second, it can fail to develop <em>any</em> group to critical mass. Sub-groups need to be nurtured to advance past the inception stage. It’s important to develop these individually before making a huge change at this stage.</p>
<p><b>Master the lifecycle, master communities</b></p>
<p>If you've read this far, you now know how to measure the progress of a community and use those measurements to identify what you should be doing in your community. </p>
<p>Your goal, and the goal of every community manager, is to <i>progress their community through the lifecycle</i>. </p>
<p>If you achieve this, you maximise what your community can be, the benefit it brings to your organization, and the benefits that members gain from the community. </p></div>The Online Community Lifecycle - Stage Three: Maturityhttps://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/the-online-community-lifecycle-stage-three-maturity2013-08-01T16:00:00.000Z2013-08-01T16:00:00.000ZRichard Millingtonhttps://cultivate.ning.com/community/RichardMillington<div><p>A couple of years ago Feverbee introduced something we had been working on for years, our <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.feverbee.com/2012/01/introducing-the-map-a-proven-process-for-developing-successful-online-communities.html">online community lifecycle</a>. The lifecycle was based upon <a rel="nofollow" href="http://isl.cgu.edu/publicationpdf/16_ACM_CSUR_2006-0042_Online_Communities_Iriberri_and_Leroy_temp_online.pdf">Iriberri and Leroy's initial work</a> and our own research and experience.</p>
<p>It was the sum of everything we had learnt about communities until then. <strong> If there is one single thing every community manager should know about communities, the lifecycle is it</strong>. Using the lifecycle you can identify exactly where you are now and where you need to go next. In this series of posts, we're going to explain the full online community lifecycle. </p>
<p>If you take the time to read this series and <a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/the-online-community-lifecycle-video" target="_self">watch the webinar</a>, it will completely change how you approach your community. You will be more informed about communities than most community professionals you meet. Better still, <em>you will be able to explain to your organization exactly what you need to do next and why. </em></p>
<p><b>The Online Community Lifecycle</b> </p>
<p>The lifecycle consists of four stages, 1) inception, 2) establishment, 3) maturity, and 4) mitosis. </p>
<p>The names are less important than the activities that you need to perform at each stage. </p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281812?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281812?profile=original" class="align-center"></a><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281860?profile=original" target="_self"><br></a> </p>
<p><i>* The sense of community is a score derived from the results of surveys.</i></p>
<p>The tasks you perform in the inception stage of the online community lifecycle will be significantly different from those you undertake in the maturity phase. You shouldn’t be doing the same job from one year to the next. Your role evolves with the community.</p>
<p>Previously, we looked at <a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/the-online-community-lifecycle-stage-one-inception" target="_self">inception</a> and <a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/the-online-community-lifecycle-stage-two-establishment" target="_self">establishment</a>. Now, let's look at the maturity stage.</p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><b>Stage 3: Maturity</b></span></p>
<p>The maturity phase of the online community lifecycle begins when members of the community are generating 90% or more of activity/growth, and there is a limited sense of community. This is measured through growth, activity, and sense of community metrics. The maturity phase ends when the community has a highly developed sense of community, but the level of activity or sense of community amongst members has plateaued. </p>
<p>Most of the familiar online communities are in the maturity phase of the online community lifecycle. They are established, highly active, and have a highly developed sense of community. They also merit a lot of attention <a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/online-community-ecosystem=edit" target="_self">within their ecosystem</a>. This final element, external attention, is common amongst mature communities. They become the definitive place for those interested in that topic. <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.mumsnet.com/">Mumsnet</a> is the definitive community for parents in the UK. <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.techcrunch.com/">Techcrunch</a> is the definitive community for the start-up companies. <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.4chan.org/">4Chan</a> has a thriving online community for online hackers/pranksters.</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281836?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281836?profile=RESIZE_480x480" width="350" class="align-right"></a>By this stage, you should only rarely be initiating discussions, prompting people to participate, or engaging in any micro-tasks besides those that facilitate relationships with members/volunteers. You should only do this to fill in the gaps (i.e. when there is a lull in activity, it makes sense for you to prompt a few discussions). Now you should be focused solely upon macro-level activities that have the biggest long-term impact upon the majority of members in the community. This includes scaling processes, events/activities, content, optimizing of the platform, developing a strong sense of community, increasing the profile of the community outside of the platform. Your volunteers or additional staff should now be handling the micro-activities undertaken in the previous stages of the lifecycle (e.g. conflict resolution, removing spam, responding to member queries). <em>You need to focus on the bigger things.</em></p>
<p>During this phase, there will usually be a plateau in growth. This is the natural consequence of the community reaching its maximum potential. There are only so many people who can be interested in the community’s topic. Once this figure has been reached, further growth is not possible. In addition, there will eventually be a plateau in activity. This occurs when members are as active as they can possibly be. This is the outcome of members that have a strong sense of community and dedicating as much time to the topic as they possibly can. The goal at this stage is to sustain this high level of activity and increase the sense of community amongst members.</p>
<p>A plateau is not a major cause for concern. It is the natural and final evolution of a successful online community. You should only be concerned when there is a decline, especially a sustained decline. We cover this topic in the mitosis phase of the community lifecycle. </p>
<p><b>Growth</b></p>
<p>During this phase, all growth will come from referrals/word-of-mouth activity (such as sharing content/discussions, networking at events, or generally being a well known community within the sector), and potentially major promotional activity undertaken by the organization. The community manager helps facilitate the latter gaining publicity in major outlets and by developing a system by which all members feel a sense of ownership over areas of the community.</p>
<p>This will involve ensuring the community is frequently mentioned with regards to its sector and also making the community have influence within its realm. For example, by releasing regular statements related to relevant issues within the sector, working with influencers to implement desirable change within the sector. Mumsnet, for example, frequently campaigns on behalf of its members. Mumsnet proactively runs campaigns on issues its members care deeply about. The success rate is remarkably high.</p>
<p><b>Activity</b></p>
<p>The level of activity per member will peak during the maturity phase of the community lifecycle. The community will become highly responsive and you should focus upon optimizing activity. This will involve reviewing what areas of the site are used and optimizing the most used features. In the maturity phase of the lifecycle, the level of activity is extremely high and the community is well known in its sector This will also include closely analysing the process through which a newcomer becomes a regular and taking steps to optimize that process. This is a data-driven process, not a haphazard series of actions.</p>
<p><b>Sense of community</b></p>
<p>The activities undertaken at this stage blur the lines between growth, activity, and sense of community. Releasing statements on behalf of the community, for example, achieves all three. It promotes the community, it increases activity from members talking about the issue, and makes members feel a greater sense of community from the influence their community has upon its ecosystem.</p>
<p>The objective at this stage is, counter-intuitively, to hit the plateau. The goal is to reach the point where the community has reached its initial maximum potential. Everyone in the sector should know it, your members are highly active within the community, and there is a deep sense of community amongst members.</p></div>The Online Community Lifecycle - Stage Two: Establishmenthttps://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/the-online-community-lifecycle-stage-two-establishment2013-07-30T16:00:00.000Z2013-07-30T16:00:00.000ZRichard Millingtonhttps://cultivate.ning.com/community/RichardMillington<div><p>A couple of years ago Feverbee introduced something we had been working on for years, our <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.feverbee.com/2012/01/introducing-the-map-a-proven-process-for-developing-successful-online-communities.html">online community lifecycle</a>. The lifecycle was based upon <a rel="nofollow" href="http://isl.cgu.edu/publicationpdf/16_ACM_CSUR_2006-0042_Online_Communities_Iriberri_and_Leroy_temp_online.pdf">Iriberri and Leroy's initial work</a> and our own research and experience.</p>
<p>It was the sum of everything we had learnt about communities until then. <strong> If there is one single thing every community manager should know about communities, the lifecycle is it</strong>. Using the lifecycle you can identify exactly where you are now and where you need to go next. In this series of posts, we're going to explain the full online community lifecycle. </p>
<p>If you take the time to read this series and <a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/the-online-community-lifecycle-video" target="_self">watch the webinar</a>, it will completely change how you approach your community. You will be more informed about communities than most community professionals you meet. Better still, <em>you will be able to explain to your organization exactly what you need to do next and why. </em></p>
<p><b>The Online Community Lifecycle</b> </p>
<p>The lifecycle consists of four stages, 1) inception, 2) establishment, 3) maturity, and 4) mitosis. </p>
<p>The names are less important than the activities that you need to perform at each stage. </p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281812?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281812?profile=original" class="align-center"></a><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281860?profile=original" target="_self"><br></a> </p>
<p><i>* The sense of community is a score derived from the results of surveys.</i></p>
<p>The tasks you perform in the inception stage of the online community lifecycle will be significantly different from those you undertake in the maturity phase. You shouldn’t be doing the same job from one year to the next. Your role evolves with the community.</p>
<p>Earlier, we looked at the <a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/the-online-community-lifecycle-stage-one-inception" target="_self">inception stage</a>. Today, let's look at the establishment stage.</p>
<p></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><b>Stage 2: Establishment</b></span></p>
<p>The establishment phase of the online community lifecycle begins when the community has reached <strong>critical mass</strong>. This is the point at which the community generates more than 50% of growth and activity. As the community develops, the level of responses to posts increase and members generate an increasing level of growth and activity. The establishment phase ends when members are generating over 90% of growth and activity in the community. There also needs to be a limited sense of community to advance to the maturity phase of the community lifecycle. </p>
<p>Once the establishment phase has been reached, your role gradually shifts from the micro-level tasks that focus on individual members at a time to more macro-level activities (tasks that affect several members at a time). These activities will include those that sustain growth, activity, and develop a sense of community. During this phase of the online community lifecycle, the number of tasks you focus upon will broaden and you need to shift your time accordingly. These tasks will include:</p>
<ol>
<li>Inviting members to join and keeping them active/engaged.</li>
<li>Initiating discussions and prompting members to participate.</li>
<li>Writing content about the community.</li>
<li>Building relationships with key members.</li>
<li>Initiating discussions and prompting responses.</li>
<li>Organizing a regular event/activity.</li>
<li>Recruiting volunteers.</li>
<li>Promoting the community.</li>
<li>Collecting and analyzing data.</li>
<li>Resolving disputes/conflicts.</li>
</ol>
<p><em>The objective of this phase is to continue increasing growth, and activity, develop a limited sense of community and provide the basis for sustainable development of the community.</em></p>
<p>This final point is important. It would be difficult, for example, for anyone to handle a community membership numbering over 100,000 active members without support. The processes that allow a community to scale must begin relatively early in the community’s lifecycle.</p>
<p><b><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281841?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281841?profile=RESIZE_480x480" width="350" class="align-right"></a>Referral and promotional growth</b></p>
<p>You should now gradually shift away from direct growth and encourage referral and promotional growth (members inviting their friends and coverage in media outlets read by the target audience). Referral growth tactics will include ownership/involvement level ideas that encourage members to invite their friends.</p>
<p>For example, you establish an event/goal that members participate in, increase a sense of ownership and thus invite other people in their social network to join the community. Or you might focus upon sharing content/discussions within the community. You will also spend more time converting newcomers into regular members of the community.</p>
<p>There will also be some promotional activities undertaken during this time. This might be outreach to bloggers/magazines, issuing statements on behalf of the community, hosting events that attract interests of your target audience.</p>
<p><em>Don’t leave growth to chance; you have to proactively stimulate it. </em> </p>
<p><b>Scaling activity</b></p>
<p>As the community begins to grow, it will be important to embed scaling processes. Most organizations allow their communities to grow until they become unmanageable. Don’t let this happen to you. Embed scaling processes early in the development lifecycle. Prepare to have a big community now. This will involve recruiting volunteers, developing the platform, and optimizing areas of the site. The community manager will also have to spend more time on moderation. This will involve resolving disputes between members, concentrating and dissipating activity (we will explain this later), removing spam/inappropriate material, highlighting the most popular discussions/activities.</p>
<p><b>Sense of community</b></p>
<p>At this stage of the lifecycle, you must begin to introduce elements which increase the sense of community felt amongst members. This will usually involve <a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/the-different-types-of-events" target="_self">initiating events</a> and activities as shared experiences, introducing a community constitution, securing the community promotion in other media, and documenting the community history. <em>You need members to feel they are part of a community together.</em> This sustains a high level of activity amongst members. In essence, it keeps people returning to the community to see what’s new, as opposed to only visiting when notified of a reaction to their own post.</p>
<p>In addition, content will play an important role in further developing the community. Content can help develop a community narrative, highlight the top members in the community, create a social order within the community, and (akin to a local newspaper) increase the sense of togetherness felt by members</p>
<p><b>Signs of development</b></p>
<p>During this phase of the lifecycle, the community should see growing levels of growth and activity. These should be closely correlated. Growth should increasingly come from referrals/word-of-mouth activity. This may not be easy to measure, but can be ascertained by asking newcomers how they heard about the community. In addition, the community should continue to generate an increasing amount of its own activity. The level of responses per discussion should continue to rise and the number of discussions initiated by members should also steadily increase.</p>
<p>A community in the establishment phase should show continued growth and development, in addition to a sense of community. This is often reflected in a growing amount of off-topic/social chatter. There should also be signs that a sense of community is developing amongst members. This may include in-jokes, a continuation of discussions beyond the immediate subject matter, an increasingly level of direct contact between members, higher levels of self-disclosure in debates and other signals of familiarity between members.</p>
<p><b>Potential problems</b></p>
<p>A drop in growth or activity indicates a potential problem for the community. If growth increases but the activity drops, then members are becoming less active than before or a smaller number of members are accounting for an increasingly larger share of activity. Tracking relevant data is important to spot these potential issues. Once this issue has been identified you can initiate activities designed to change this trend before too many members are lost. Once you enter a dip, it’s hard to avoid a death spiral (less activity begets less activity).</p>
<p>It is also common for community managers to switch roles too early. This means to go from micro to macro-level activities too rapidly as opposed to gradually shifting roles as the measurement of growth and activity shows progress.</p>
<p> </p></div>ForumCon 2013: Nir Eyal on How to Hook Your Communityhttps://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/forumcon-2013-nir-eyal-hooked-model2013-07-10T16:00:00.000Z2013-07-10T16:00:00.000ZCrystalhttps://cultivate.ning.com/community/CrystalC<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2208258?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=400"></div><div><p>At this year's enlightening ForumCon, there were some <a href="http://www.forumcon.com/blog" target="_blank">fantastic, educational, and fun sessions</a>. Allison covered Ted Rheingold's energetic talk on <a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/how-to-make-social-work-for-your-forums-ted-rheingold-at-forumcon" target="_self">making social work for your community</a>. The presentation that really stuck with me was Nir Eyal's "<a href="http://www.slideshare.net/nireyal/hooked-model" target="_blank">Hooked Model</a>." A writer, lecturer at Stanford University and frequent speaker, Nir's specialty is educating companies and consumers on habits and behaviors that help and hinder their lives, both online and off. In talking about what traits apps need to "hook" users, much of his information was directly relevant to building communities that keep members coming back . </p>
<p>To "hook" users, Nir identified a model of four behaviors: Trigger, Action, Reward, and Investment. </p>
<p><strong><span class="font-size-3">Trigger </span></strong></p>
<p>This is the reason that a potential member looks for your site or a current member comes back. Internal Triggers (within the individual) will commonly draw new members to your community: seeking information for a new purchase, frustration over a product change, or excitement over a new development. Current members will be drawn in more by external triggers initiated by others: Email newsletters, message notifications, blog or social media updates. External triggers are often within your control, but internal triggers are usually emotions within the user and harder to grab onto. <em>Think about what emotional needs your community fulfills for your users.</em> Is it relieving boredom, encouraging camaraderie, providing support from the community or something else?</p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><strong>Action</strong></span></p>
<p>Action is the behavior you want your users to take when faced with a trigger. Eyal cites BJ Fogg's <a href="http://www.behaviormodel.org/" target="_blank">Behavior Model</a> in his presentation: Behavior (Action) equals motivation combined with ability and a trigger. <em>Making your intended action easier for your user greatly increases the chance that they will act on the trigger you provide them with.</em> When sending out notification messages, make sure to include direct links to the content referenced so they will be taken right to what they've been triggered by. </p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><strong>Reward</strong></span></p>
<p>Potential rewards are the reason we click on links in email, log in to communities, and post discussion topics. Variable rewards are sometimes even more compelling. Think of updating your Facebook newsfeed as a variable reward: you don't know if there will be new posts to read, or from whom, or what they will say. You are acting (updating) for the potential of an unknown reward (new content). Y<em>ou still have to give the user what they came for</em>, though, otherwise they will become disenchanted with your rewards and stop acting. </p>
<p><strong><span class="font-size-3" style="color: #000000;">Investment</span></strong></p>
<p>The last stage is investment, something that online communities generally excel at. <em>People attribute more value to something to which they have contributed.</em> A user who has added something to a discussion is more likely to come back to it, to see if others have recognized their input. This investment sets the entire cycle up to repeat, by storing value and giving the user more variable rewards to anticipate. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Want to learn more? You can view Nir Eyal's presentation below or <a href="http://www.nirandfar.com/" target="_blank">visit his website</a> to see if he'll be speaking near you soon. </p>
<p> <iframe width="427" height="356" style="border: 1px solid #CCC; border-width: 1px 1px 0; margin-bottom: 5px;" src="http://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/embed_code/16424773?rel=0" frameborder="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" allowfullscreen="" webkitallowfullscreen="" mozallowfullscreen=""></iframe></p>
<div style="margin-bottom: 5px;"><strong><a href="http://www.slideshare.net/nireyal/hooked-model" title="Hooked Model" target="_blank">Hooked Model</a></strong> from <strong><a href="http://www.slideshare.net/nireyal" target="_blank">Nir Eyal</a></strong></div>
<p>(<i>Image: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/g-ratphotos/3279810070/">Baby, you've got me hooked(explored :D)</a>, a Creative Commons <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en">Attribution Share-Alike (2.0)</a> image from g-ratphotos's photostream</i>)</p>
</div>Growing An Online Community: Attracting Clustershttps://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/growing-an-online-community-attracting-clusters2013-07-02T15:30:00.000Z2013-07-02T15:30:00.000ZRichard Millingtonhttps://cultivate.ning.com/community/RichardMillington<div><p><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/marc_smith/8772280430/" target="_blank"><img src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5446/8772280430_613ecfebbe_n.jpg?width=320" class="align-right" width="320"/></a></p><p>We all gather in interconnected clusters. You’ve probably seen a cluster map somewhere. There's an example to the right. Think of it like social groups in a playground. Friends gather in circles of 8 to 12 people, but one of those people might have connections to another group of similar size.</p><p>There is a cluster of technology types here in London. If you attract a few of them, it’s much easier to attract the rest. They’re in the same cluster.</p><p>If you want to grow an online community, find a good-sized cluster of people. Appeal to 3 – 5 members, then invite their support to help attract the rest. Don’t randomly approach people; target specific clusters of people you want to join.</p><p>Once you have about 5 – 10 members of a cluster you can set up sub-groups, develop unique content, and specifically appeal to that cluster of people.</p><p>(<i>Image: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/marc_smith/8772280430/">NodeXL-Collection-Twitter-socialgood_2013-05-14_10-45-00</a>, a Creative Commons <a rel="nofollow" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en">Attribution (2.0)</a> image from marc_smith's photostream</i>)</p></div>Understanding Conceptualization: The Process You Go Through Before You Launch An Online Communityhttps://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/understanding-conceptualization2013-06-26T16:00:00.000Z2013-06-26T16:00:00.000ZRichard Millingtonhttps://cultivate.ning.com/community/RichardMillington<div><p><span class="font-size-3">Everything between the moment you establish the objectives and the moment you begin doing outreach to your members is the conceptualization phase.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">This is when you decide who you're targeting, what the community will be about, what type of community it will be, and how you get it going. </span></p>
<p><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/furryscalyman/291249520/" target="_blank"><img src="http://farm1.staticflickr.com/119/291249520_1a3921cf90_m.jpg?width=240" width="240" class="align-right" /></a></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">If you get the community concept <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.feverbee.com/2011/08/another-concept-error.html">wrong</a>, nothing else you do matters. A community can't overcome a terrible concept. A community about something that isn't a really strong interest can't possibly succeed. Too many communities are created by organizations for customers to talk about their products.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"> </span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-4"><b>The Conceptualization Phase</b></span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">Conceptualization is a phase, a process...it takes time. It's not a series of instant decisions to be made in a meeting one afternoon. It's a steady process of testing ideas, analyzing the audience, and understanding the community ecosystem.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">Organizations make many common mistakes at this phase. They make the community about their brands, products, or service - as opposed to making the community about their audience and a strong common interest. </span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">Some questions you will want to answer here include:</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"> </span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><b>1) Identify the target audience</b></span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">In the beginning, you need an extremely focused target audience. You're aiming to get a fewer number of members who share a stronger common interest. </span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">You're looking for <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.mint.com/blog/how-to/make-more-money-sethi-02032011/">at least two-qualifiers</a>. You want a community for {people who} who are {qualifier 2}. This qualifier will be a demographic, habit, or psychographic. So it will be a community for people that {purchase a product} who also {believe in whole food diets}, for example.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">This demographic is identified by understanding the strong common interest. You can't ascertain that strong common interest without interacting with members of that target audience. </span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><em>If your target audience doesn't already talk about the topic online, then you have the wrong topic.</em> During this phase you should also have an extensive understanding about the strong common interest. </span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"> </span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><b>2) Determine the type of community</b></span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">Will it be a community of place, practice, interest, action, or circumstance? </span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">Don't default to a community of interest. This is the most competitive. It's easier to build a community of place or action. There aren't many things we're interested in. You can make it a community of people who want to change something in the world, or a community for people who live in a certain location and use a product/service. </span></p>
<p><em><span class="font-size-3">Review the existing ecosystems. Make sure that yours is the only one of its kind.</span></em></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"> </span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><b>3) Positioning</b></span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">If a community like this already exists, the positioning becomes important. The type of community can help, but so does having a unique tone of voice, unique goal or unique benefit.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">The positioning problem will not be solved by technology. People won't join a community solely because it offers picture-sharing. Having a better platform doesn't help you much here. <em>What helps is a social-related change.</em> Targeting unique groups, being exclusive, unique tone of voice/personality, etc.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"> </span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><b>4) Benefit</b></span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">What will be the benefit to people from participating in the community?</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">Will members learn about a topic? Will they become an expert? Will they receive attention for their expertise? These self-interest related benefits do better than utopian statements of connecting, making friends, or sharing your knowledge.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">The only way to understand the benefit a community needs is to be deeply embedded within the ecosystem. This means speaking directly to members of the target audience. Don't avoid this. <em>You need to identify what people want.</em></span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"> </span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><b>5) Unique environment</b></span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">Now we need to conquer the amateur-competition problem. Amateurs can always do things that you can't. They can criticise your brand, for example. <em>You need to use your resources to configure an exclusive environment.</em></span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">This will mean providing exclusive news, unique information, introducing your contacts, have your employees participating, among other unique value propositions you can provide.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"> </span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><b>6) What will members do in the community?</b></span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">What will community members talk about? What are the major topics to build discussions, events, activities, relationships, and growth around? Gather data on your audience's current habits and from other trade press to identify the major topics here. </span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">Have a very clear idea of what the general themes are going to be in the opening stages of the community and a plan for testing/refining what works best. </span></p>
<p> </p>
<p></p>
<p>(<i>Image: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/furryscalyman/291249520/">Pavilion in Red</a>, a Creative Commons <a rel="nofollow" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en">Attribution Share-Alike (2.0)</a> image from furryscalyman's photostream</i>)</p>
</div>Basic Tactics To Grow Your Online Community Without Any Promotionhttps://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/basic-tactics-to-grow-your-online-community-without-any-promotion2013-06-19T16:00:00.000Z2013-06-19T16:00:00.000ZRichard Millingtonhttps://cultivate.ning.com/community/RichardMillington<div><p><span class="font-size-3">Sometimes new members <em>do</em> find their way to your community. Sometimes they <em>do</em> invite their friends. Sometimes you <em>don't</em> need to do much work to make this happen.</span></p><p><span class="font-size-3">It's probably not a good idea to bet your client's fee on 'sometimes'. A better approach is to think of tactics and a process to stimulate growth.</span></p><p><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/pinksherbet/3370498053/" target="_blank"><img src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3452/3370498053_612bf01ac8_n.jpg?width=320" width="320" class="align-right"/></a></p><p><span class="font-size-3">Here are a few ideas to grow your community from existing members.</span></p><ul><li><span class="font-size-3"><b>Ask members to invite friends.</b> Very simple, often overlooked. Doesn't always work without a reason, though. </span></li><li><span class="font-size-3"><b>Keep score of top recruiters.</b> If a member gets 5 friends to join, reward them. If they invite 10, give them a super reward. Better still, keep score and reward the best each month. If each new member helps you generate a profit, share it with whoever recruited them.</span></li><li><span class="font-size-3"><b>The "share this" page</b>. Whenever anyone adds content, use the confirmation page to let them tell their friends. Maybe by e-mail, Facebook, Twitter or by sharing it on their blog/delicious etc.</span></li><li><span class="font-size-3"><b>Encourage Pride.</b> Related to the above, tackle a sin (pride, wrath, greed). e.g. Imagine you run a poetry website and a budding author is criticised, encourage all authors to get their friends to support them.</span></li><li><span class="font-size-3"><b>Competitions</b>. Competitions work, especially ones where the winners are decided by popular vote. This means participants rally their friends and colleagues to visit and get involved. Be sure to keep these newcomers involved.</span></li><li><span class="font-size-3"><b>Give members something for their friends</b>. Empower members to become super-popular in their social circles. If you run a wine community, offer a bottle of wine to every friend of who joins.</span></li><li><span class="font-size-3"><b>Share the wealth</b>. If there are points, air miles, or any sort of currency involved, let members share it. Let people give their air-miles to people taking a trip soon. Let everyone try to beat the system.</span></li><li><span class="font-size-3"><b>Provoke debates between popular groups.</b> If you say <a rel="nofollow" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsenal_F.C." target="_blank">Arsenal</a> are rubbish, I'm going to say you're wrong. In fact, I'm going to rally my friends to get involved and say you're wrong. Many blogs and news sites are thriving by provoking political debates. Find the major issues in your community and explore them.</span></li><li><span class="font-size-3"><b>Birthdays and celebrations.</b> If someone's in your community, it's a safe bet they care. So let them create a birthday list page of products they might want from your company, and offer their friends discounts/bonuses if they buy from that page (remember to get their birthdays, too). Amazon and JustGiving do this well.</span></li><li><span class="font-size-3"><b>Interviews</b>. It's no surprise when you interview someone, they're likely to get their friends to read. So keep these newcomers in your loop, at the end of the interview ask them to participate in a poll on a topic that came up during the interview, or discuss the interview in the forums.</span></li><li><span class="font-size-3"><b>Appoint recruiters.</b> Find the true believers in your community, and put them in charge with recruiting new members. It's like outsourcing your marketing, only to people who love to do the work.</span></li><li><span class="font-size-3"><b>Delegate Jobs and Ownership.</b> Let the people who want to be more involved, become more involved. Give them part ownership, maybe even establish a little democracy (with voting, of course). The more they feel in control of the community, the harder they'll try to recruit friends - and election season will swell the community quicker than any natural force of nature.</span></li><li><span class="font-size-3"><b>Make membership exclusive.</b> Why not close membership and instead only let each member nominate 1 person per month. Imagine 100% growth every month. Even better, why not 1 member per 3 months, or year? 100% growth every year isn't bad. Scarcity is great.</span></li></ul><p><span class="font-size-3">Some of these ideas overlap, some ideas are missing. What great ideas do you have?</span></p><p>(<i>Image: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/pinksherbet/3370498053/">Child Tending Broken Baby Seedling free creative commons</a>, a Creative Commons <a rel="nofollow" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en">Attribution (2.0)</a> image from D Sharon Pruitt's photostream</i>)</p></div>Types of Community Growthhttps://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/types-of-community-growth2013-05-29T16:30:00.000Z2013-05-29T16:30:00.000ZRichard Millingtonhttps://cultivate.ning.com/community/RichardMillington<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2208232?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=400"></div><div><p>How you persuade new members to join a community isn't as interesting as <i>why</i> you are persuading new members to join a community. </p><p>Making a community bigger won't necessarily make it better. In fact, evidence suggests that making a community bigger will <i>decrease</i> the level of participation. It gets noisier, harder to follow, and less personable than it used to be.</p><p>Think of the friendship groups you're in, perhaps even the successful communities you're a part of, would you like a flood of new members to arrive?</p><p>There are three types of community growth:</p><ol><li><b>Replenishment</b>. Replenishment is the essential <i>growth</i> all communities need to survive. New members are required to replace departing members. On a long-enough time scale, all members will eventually leave. New blood ensures the long-term survival of the community. Replenishment growth should have a clear target number (matching the average of those who go inactive from a community each month). In many communities, replenishment growth is organic.</li><li><b>Expansion</b>. Expansion is deliberate growth beyond current numbers. Early in a community, expansion helps reach a critical mass of activity. Expansion can also help the community adapt to a change in the broader eco-system (if the current interest is fading) or it might be driven by the ambitions of members to grow bigger or be seen in a certain light.<i> Expansion should not be the default setting</i>. Expansion should be used as a response to extraordinary (out of the ordinary!) events or activities inside or outside the community. Specific growth for a specific reason.</li><li><b>Organic</b>. Organic growth is growth which is not directly stimulated by the organization/community manager. This will usually be in the form of a referral or mention of the community in other popular channels. Organic growth is the <i>ideal </i>passage of growth.</li></ol><p>Most organizations will ignore this and pursue their expansion plans regardless of whether it will affect member participation. You can worry about participation rates tomorrow, right? Which is true, except it's far more difficult to reinvigorate inactive members than keep members active altogether. </p><p>You can make a community better without making it bigger. </p><p>(<i>Image: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/adselwood/2463634924/">Growth</a>, a Creative Commons <a rel="nofollow" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en">Attribution (2.0)</a> image from adselwood's photostream</i>)</p></div>How to Find your Community’s First Membershttps://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/how-to-find-your-community-s-first-members2013-05-24T18:15:20.000Z2013-05-24T18:15:20.000ZRichard Millingtonhttps://cultivate.ning.com/community/RichardMillington<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2208220?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=400"></div><div><p><span class="font-size-2">You don’t want to teach people about your company nor technology right now. These are barriers to tackle in the next stage.</span></p><p><span class="font-size-2">To get going, you want people who are interested in your company or your industry. You want people who are comfortable with technology.</span></p><p><span class="font-size-2">Here is some fertile recruiting ground:</span></p><ul><li><span class="font-size-2"><b>Bloggers.</b> Not the big bloggers, but people with a blog about your industry. They care so much they spend their time on it.</span></li><li><span class="font-size-2"><b>Comments.</b> People that comment on blogs in your industry are great to contact. They’re interested, know the tools, and have the time to spare.</span></li><li><span class="font-size-2"><b>News Stories.</b> Most news sites allow people to add their opinion to the story. Don’t be afraid to approach them.</span></li><li><span class="font-size-2"><b>Book Reviewers.</b> People that review books about your genre are becoming more approachable. Visit Amazon, eBay and other sites to find potential members.</span></li><li><span class="font-size-2"><b>Facebook, LinkedIn and Other Social Networks:</b> Learn how to search for people by interest and develop relationships with people.</span></li><li><span class="font-size-2"><b>Industry Magazines.</b> Who’s been writing into your industry’s magazines? Read the letters and Google the names. They most likely have an online presence.</span></li><li><span class="font-size-2"><b>Customer Service.</b> Anyone that’s shown such an interest that they’ve contacted the customer service team to complain or improve the product is someone you want.</span></li><li><span class="font-size-2"><b>Your Inbox.</b> Anyone that’s written to you with a question, or a comment that never really got your full attention. Invite them.</span></li><li><span class="font-size-2"><b>Taggers.</b> Who’s tagging content about your sector? Invite them.</span></li><li><span class="font-size-2"><b>Twitter.</b> Search Twitter for mentions of your company and your industry. Invite the people you find, unless they have over 500 followers.</span></li><li><span class="font-size-2"><b>Conference Attendees.</b> People that attended the industry conference are usually interested in being better at what they, or becoming more involved in the industry. You can often get the complete list of members from the conference site. Use with caution.</span></li><li><span class="font-size-2"><b>Regular Visitors/Lurkers.</b> Put up a post calling for volunteers interested in getting more involved. You can’t announce the project yet, but they can e-mail you if it spikes their interest.</span></li><li><span class="font-size-2"><b>People They Know.</b> Ask everyone you get from this list who else they think would love to be one of the first members of your new community – approach them.</span></li></ul><p><span class="font-size-2">Who not to approach:</span></p><ul><li><span class="font-size-2"><b>A-List Bloggers.</b> Too busy to bother with your community. Focus on the people that comment on their blog instead.</span></li><li><span class="font-size-2"><b>Current Customers.</b> It’s too soon to invite your current customers at will. Unless they have shown an extended interest in your company i.e. they filled in the suggestions form, don’t invite them yet.</span></li><li><span class="font-size-2"><b>Journalists.</b> It’s too soon for a journalist to care. Make something they can’t ignore.</span></li><li><span class="font-size-2"><b>Employees</b>. Employees will notice that in the early days your community is looking a bit bare. It might put them off from coming back. Wait until you have something you can show them.</span></li><li><span class="font-size-2"><b>Newsletters.</b> Don’t automatically try to convert your passive newsletter deletes into members.</span></li><li><span class="font-size-2"><b>Anyone From A Paid-For List.</b> Just don’t.</span></li><li><span class="font-size-2"><b>Existing Online Groups/Rival Communities.</b> Don’t mass invite members of pre-existing online communities. You don’t want a group of people that already know each other just yet. You want passionate people that you can forge into a community. That’s a big difference.</span></li></ul><p>(<i>Image: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/stuartpilbrow/2887408253/">Reach Out</a>, a Creative Commons <a rel="nofollow" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en">Attribution Share-Alike (2.0)</a> image from stuartpilbrow's photostream</i>)</p></div>20 Fantastic Content Ideas For Your Online Communityhttps://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/20-fantastic-content-ideas-for-your-online-community2013-05-20T14:30:00.000Z2013-05-20T14:30:00.000ZRichard Millingtonhttps://cultivate.ning.com/community/RichardMillington<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2208292?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=400"></div><div><p><span class="font-size-3">The best content for any online community is content about the community. Too many communities focus on advice or industry news. You should focus on community people and activities. Here are 20 fantastic ideas you can use:</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><ol><li><span class="font-size-3"><strong>Week ahead.</strong> Write a weekly piece about what members can expect in the week ahead.</span></li><li><span class="font-size-3"><strong>Events preview.</strong> Write an events preview, include predictions from members, short snippet of interviews and other material that involves a broader group.</span></li><li><span class="font-size-3"><strong>Events review.</strong> Review recent events. Let others contribute their opinion. Members can reflect on the event together.</span></li><li><span class="font-size-3"><strong>Predictions.</strong> Invite members to make predictions about the future, everyone loves to do it.</span></li><li><span class="font-size-3"><strong>Interview members.</strong> Members interviews should be cornerstone content. It creates engaged readers for life, encourages referrals and gives people means to compare themselves to others.</span></li><li><span class="font-size-3"><strong>Interview VIPs.</strong> VIPs are usually eager to talk to connected groups of people. Mumsnet has interviewed no less than two Prime Ministers. Who is a VIP in your industry?</span></li><li><span class="font-size-3"><strong>Product reviews.</strong> What products are members likely to be using in the future? Can you review some?</span></li><li><span class="font-size-3"><strong>Member achievements.</strong> Who has achieved something fantastic this week? Ask members to submit their achievements.</span></li><li><span class="font-size-3"><strong>Gossip column.</strong> Risky, but often popular. Invite members to submit topical gossip and publish it as a weekly column. Go easy on the venom, heavy on the fun.</span></li><li><span class="font-size-3"><strong>Member of the week/month.</strong> Like the above, but a member of the week/month tends to be popular. Use promiscuously.</span></li><li><span class="font-size-3"><strong>Statement from the community.</strong> On a frequent basis I’d ask members to contribute to a statement from the community. i.e. We’re furious bank fees are going up, please input on what you would like in a statement from the community.</span></li><li><span class="font-size-3"><strong>People on the move.</strong> Who is moving? It might be people changing jobs or people moving house or any relevant ‘move’. Hard to resist this sort of content.</span></li><li><span class="font-size-3"><strong>Latest news.</strong> Overused in most communities, but often useful. What’s the latest news in your topic?</span></li><li><span class="font-size-3"><strong>Job vacancies.</strong> Any jobs available? Reach out to recruiters or compile a job tips page. Any information that would encourage people to participate in the job vacancies page.</span></li><li><span class="font-size-3"><strong>Competition.</strong> I 'usually' hate competitions. When they’re done right they’re really a lot of fun.</span></li><li><span class="font-size-3"><strong>VIP spotted.</strong> Has any member spotted a VIP at an event recently, submit it here.</span></li><li><span class="font-size-3"><strong>Opinion pieces.</strong> Give people in your community a chance to give their opinion in a rotating-authorship opinion section. Everyone gets a turn.</span></li><li><span class="font-size-3"><strong>Guest columnists.</strong> Will any relevant business in your sector write a guest column?</span></li><li><span class="font-size-3"><strong>Advice section.</strong> Summarize the latest advice, what’s the general consensus of the online community?</span></li><li><span class="font-size-3"><strong>News round-up.</strong> What is the round-up of the news this week? It’s a simple place a member can visit to see what’s new without trawling various sources of industry news.</span></li></ol><p><span class="font-size-3">What other content could work for your community?</span></p><p> </p><p>(<i>Image: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gazeronly/5864748047/" target="_self">Destined to Gossip Forever</a>, a Creative Commons <a rel="nofollow" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en">Attribution (2.0)</a> image from torbakhopper's photostream</i>)</p></div>Cultivating Communities From Your Audiencehttps://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/cultivating-communities-from-your-audience2013-05-13T17:40:22.000Z2013-05-13T17:40:22.000ZRichard Millingtonhttps://cultivate.ning.com/community/RichardMillington<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2208198?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=400"></div><div><p><span class="font-size-3">An audience is a group of people brought together by a common interest. </span></p><p><span class="font-size-3">The difference between an audience and a community is relationships. Community members have relationships with one another, audiences don't. </span></p><p><span class="font-size-3">On social media channels you build audiences, the focus is on disseminating information. In communities the focus is on facilitating interactions between members. </span></p><p><span class="font-size-3">The benefits of building communities are high. You can increase spending from existing customers through up-selling, increase in repeat purchases, higher levels of retention. You can attract new customers and improve lead conversion %. You can reduce marketing/customer service costs. </span></p><p><span class="font-size-3">For organizations that have built big audiences on social media platforms, the next step should be to turn this audience into a community. Yet, at the moment, this rarely happens. Too many stop at building a Facebook page or Twitter following and fail to gain any measurable benefit. </span></p><p><span class="font-size-3">We put together the table below to show the key differences between developing an online community and creating a profile on a social network.</span></p><p><span class="font-size-3"> </span></p><table border="1" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr><td valign="top" width="354"><p style="text-align: left;" align="center"><span class="font-size-3"><b>Online Communities</b></span></p></td><td valign="top" width="354"><p style="text-align: left;" align="center"><span class="font-size-3"><b>Social Media Audience/Following</b></span></p></td></tr><tr><td valign="top" width="354"><p><span class="font-size-3">Long-term</span></p></td><td valign="top" width="354"><p><span class="font-size-3">Short-term</span></p></td></tr><tr><td valign="top" width="354"><p><span class="font-size-3">Slow growth</span></p></td><td valign="top" width="354"><p><span class="font-size-3">Quick growth</span></p></td></tr><tr><td valign="top" width="354"><p><span class="font-size-3">About members</span></p></td><td valign="top" width="354"><p><span class="font-size-3">About audience/followers</span></p></td></tr><tr><td valign="top" width="354"><p><span class="font-size-3">Focus on engagement</span></p></td><td valign="top" width="354"><p><span class="font-size-3">Focus on growth</span></p></td></tr><tr><td valign="top" width="354"><p><span class="font-size-3">High interactions between members</span></p></td><td valign="top" width="354"><p><span class="font-size-3">Low interactions between audience</span></p></td></tr><tr><td valign="top" width="354"><p><span class="font-size-3">Develop products for the members</span></p></td><td valign="top" width="354"><p><span class="font-size-3">Develop audience for products</span></p></td></tr><tr><td valign="top" width="354"><p><span class="font-size-3">Content about community</span></p></td><td valign="top" width="354"><p><span class="font-size-3">Content about topic</span></p></td></tr><tr><td valign="top" width="354"><p><span class="font-size-3">Share control with top members</span></p></td><td valign="top" width="354"><p><span class="font-size-3">Centralized control</span></p></td></tr><tr><td valign="top" width="354"><p><span class="font-size-3">Members wants info about other members</span></p></td><td valign="top" width="354"><p><span class="font-size-3">Audience wants info about the products</span></p></td></tr><tr><td valign="top" width="354"><p><span class="font-size-3">Commitment required by members</span></p></td><td valign="top" width="354"><p><span class="font-size-3">Less investment by audience/followers</span></p></td></tr></tbody></table><p><span class="font-size-3"> </span></p><p><span class="font-size-3">Regardless of your platform, building an audience should not be the end goal. Moving from communities to audiences is to move backwards. Push towards cultivating genuine communities on community platforms. It's far easier to build a community when you have an existing audience; make sure you're making the most of it.</span></p><p><span class="font-size-3"> </span></p><p><span class="font-size-3">(<i>Image: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/marfis75/3272079115/">Hands in the air - in concert (CC)</a>, a Creative Commons <a rel="nofollow" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en">Attribution Share-Alike (2.0)</a> image from marfis75's photostream</i>)</span></p></div>How To Help Members Overcome Their Fear of Participationhttps://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/how-to-help-members-overcome-their-fear-of-participation2013-05-02T19:00:00.000Z2013-05-02T19:00:00.000ZRichard Millingtonhttps://cultivate.ning.com/community/RichardMillington<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2208160?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=400"></div><div><p>If you could increase the number of members initiating discussions, the level of activity and engagement would rise sharply. </p><p>The percentage of members who initiate discussions is usually small. This limits activity and the level of engagement members have in the community.</p><p>Members need both the motivation to initiate and to overcome their fear of starting a discussion. Their motivation to initiate will be to either learn something (e.g. <i>"Does anyone know how to....?"</i>), to impress others (e.g. "<i>does anyone else think business class travel isn't as great as it used to be?</i>") or to bond with others (e.g. "<i>I'm upset Kelly got fired from the Apprentice</i>").</p><p>Motivation comes relatively easy in active communities. It's social anxiety which prevents most members from initiating discussions. This social anxiety comes in three forms:</p><ol><li>I might ask a dumb question or make a dumb statement.</li><li>My comment won’t receive any reply and I will appear unpopular.</li><li>I might be criticised by members of the community.</li></ol><p>A community can overcome much of this anxiety in a few simple steps:</p><ol><li><b>Regularly ask members who write a good response to publish it as an initiated discussion</b>. This creates a habit for members to start discussions. </li><li><b>Feature highly active discussions prominently on the landing page</b>. This showcases the potential rewards (popularity) for initiating a successful discussion and acts as social proof to overcoming the fear of no responses.</li><li><b>Send members the unwritten rules of the community when they join</b>. Make sure they know how to start discussions, what discussions are usually about and a few tips on how to make a good impression. Automatically edit/correct any questions which are a little off the mark.</li><li><b>Respond to discussions which have not received a response in 24 hours</b>. The appearance of a community in which every discussion receives a response reduces the fear. You may also contact members directly to respond to these discussions. Another option is to have an 'unanswered questions' box. You can even congratulate the initiator on thinking up a question that your community's experts haven't yet been able to answer.</li><li><b>Make heroes of initiators</b>. e.g. <i>"Also this week Joe Smith started an interesting debate about....if you have some expertise, be sure to let him know".</i> This, again, acts as social proof within the community platform and helps other members to know that it's safe to participate.</li></ol><p>Social anxiety within a community platform is low compared to offline situations. Yet, it is still high enough to persuade most members never to participate at all. You should be actively working to overcoming this fear. </p><p>(<i>Image: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/ryanready/4829673528/">worried sidewalk</a>, a Creative Commons <a rel="nofollow" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en">Attribution (2.0)</a> image from ryanready's photostream</i>)</p></div>7 Tips for Developing Your Community Guidelineshttps://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/7-tips-for-developing-your-community-guidelines2013-05-01T21:00:00.000Z2013-05-01T21:00:00.000ZCrystalhttps://cultivate.ning.com/community/CrystalC<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2208164?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=400"></div><div><p class="p1">It's the boring part of developing a new community: setting the Dos and Don'ts. While Community Guidelines will be an ever growing part of your community, getting some basics down will not only give users a clear idea of what's right and wrong, but it can also go a long way toward developing your community culture.</p>
<p class="p1"><span class="font-size-3">1. Accentuate the Positive. </span></p>
<p class="p1">Instead of focusing on the Don'ts, think about the Dos first. What kind of behavior do you want from your users? You want them to be nice to each other, you want them to refrain from four-letter words, you want them to help out other users and answer questions?</p>
<p class="p1"><span class="font-size-3">2. Check out the guidelines of the communities you like. </span></p>
<p class="p1">As well as some communities you may not like. Read through their guidelines. Note what you like about them, as well as what you don't like.  It can even be helpful to try and determine what prompted a particular guideline and consider if that situation might occur within your community.</p>
<p class="p1"><span class="font-size-3">3. Consider your community as it is right now (or will be from the start). </span></p>
<p class="p1">What are the special concerns of your community? Instagram (<a href="http://help.instagram.com/477434105621119/">http://help.instagram.com/477434105621119/</a>) and Flickr (<a href="http://www.flickr.com/guidelines.gne">http://www.flickr.com/guidelines.gne</a>), being photo sharing communities, put a big emphasis on making sure that the content you upload is your own. In contrast is Get Satisfaction (<a href="https://getsatisfaction.com/corp/help/community-guidelines/">https://getsatisfaction.com/corp/help/community-guidelines/</a>) who mentions content rights toward the end of their guidelines, but, as customer service community, they focus more on how to interact with other users.</p>
<p class="p1"><span class="font-size-3">4. And then think about how you'd like it to grow.</span></p>
<p class="p1">Adding in a few guidelines that might seem like overkill right now may come in handy if you find yourself scaling up quickly.</p>
<p class="p1"><span class="font-size-3">5. Talk like a person</span></p>
<p class="p1">The Terms of Use or Terms and Conditions are for jargon and lawyer-speak. The Community Guidelines are where humans come to find out from other humans what's cool in your community. Don't talk over their head.</p>
<p class="p1"><span class="font-size-3">6. Provide ways for the community to self-regulate. </span></p>
<p class="p1">If you can build in (or turn on) flagging functions or provide a venue for easy reporting, you community will let you know when you need to step in, freeing you up to grow the community instead of playing referee. Make sure to point to these in the community guidelines.</p>
<p class="p1"><span class="font-size-3">7. Don't overedit. </span></p>
<p class="p1">Think of the Community Guidelines as your site's Constitution. While the ability to add amendments is important (especially when major new functions are released, for instance), some things don't need to be handled at that level. Don't make a super-specific rule just because of one incident in your community. Look how well that worked with prohibition. </p>
<p>(<i>Image: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/savingfutures/8124845798/">Law code of Hammurabi - King Hammurabi with Shamash</a>, a Creative Commons <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en">Attribution (2.0)</a> image from savingfutures's photostream, edited</i>)</p>
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