best practices - Cultivating Community2024-03-28T21:38:44Zhttps://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/feed/category/best+practicesThe Purpose of Community Platformshttps://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/the-purpose-of-community-platforms2014-07-16T18:00:00.000Z2014-07-16T18:00:00.000ZRichard Millingtonhttps://cultivate.ning.com/community/RichardMillington<div><p>The platform for a community performs a single function: to facilitate interaction between members. An excellent community platform improves the quality and quantity of interactions between members. A bad community platform inhibits interactions between members. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, many organizations use platforms which restrain the growth of their communities.</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1282218?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1282218?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="750" class="align-center"></a></p>
<p>The platform is one method of facilitating interactions since for most online communities it is the only place where members will interact with each other. This is not a certainty, though. Many organizations develop platforms that are aesthetically pleasing, in line with other brand material, and clearly adhering to modern user experience principles. There is a problem with each of these aspects, but first we need to understand the biggest flaw in organizational thinking towards community platforms.</p>
<p>A content-led approach is common amongst branded online communities. Aesthetics and content is given higher priority than the interactions. This platform prohibits interactions between members. Many organizations develop a platform using a similar approach as a traditional website. In this approach, the designer/developer identifies what is needed and embraces this knowledge to design the platform. However, a community platform and a company website serve two different purposes. The former services to facilitate interactions between members, the latter serves to provide information to the target audience.</p>
<p><b>Ignoring the positive examples</b></p>
<p>Many organizations fail to research positive examples of online communities before embarking upon the development of their own platform. This means these organizations ignore best practices in favour of developing a community that adheres to more aesthetically pleasing concepts like those found in company websites.</p>
<p>Thus, whilst most successful communities use a simple, proven, interaction-focused platform, most organizations develop a custom, unproven, expensive community platform. </p></div>Before You Spend $500K On A Community Platform...https://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/before-you-spend-500k-on-a-community-platform2014-07-09T16:50:00.000Z2014-07-09T16:50:00.000ZRichard Millingtonhttps://cultivate.ning.com/community/RichardMillington<div><p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1282100?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1282100?profile=RESIZE_480x480" width="350" class="align-right"></a>Before you spend a lot of money on a community platform here are some things to think about:</p>
<p><b>1) Do you have an audience ready to use it?</b> This should be the priority. Build the community before you spend heavily on a platform. Why would you launch a platform for a community that doesn't yet exist? That's a huge gamble. Use something simple to get started and invest more as your community grows.</p>
<p><b>2) Is there a better use for the budget?</b> Most of the time, it's far better to spend the money on more/better community managers than a platform. It's not the platform that determines the community's success, it's the community manager. I've seen communities thrive on terrible platforms and fail on terrific platforms, but I haven't seen many succeed with terrible community managers. Nine times out of ten, your budget is better invested in community managers that <i>do things</i> on the platform.</p>
<p><b>3) Does it have the right, few, features?</b> This is a typical situation, an organization lists every feature it wants the audience to be able to do then looks for a platform that has those features. You can see the problem: the audience won't use those features. You won't know what features the community needs until you have an active community. In most communities, only 2 - 3 features are used. You don't need a platform that offers as many features as possible, you want a platform that does specific features really well. The minutia of the discussion boards should be of great interest to you. The fewer features you use, the more concentrated your activity (LINK) is. That's a good thing. </p>
<p><b>4) Can you easily change the platform?</b> You might think an organization wouldn't invest $500k on a platform without realizing it will need continue maintenance/changes, but then you would be surprised. This isn't a single cost, you need to be able to change and adapt the platform to suit the community. These costs can rise extravagantly. </p>
<p><b>5) Does it feature activity above everything else?</b> Don't create a content site as a community site. If it's a content site, feature activity for people to read. If it's a community site, feature activities which people to participate in. </p>
<p><b>6) Do you have a HIGHLY trained staff for it?</b> I threw this one in there at the last minute. Last week I spoke to an intern managing a community that uses an enterprise platform. Even she agreed it was madness for her to be responsible for such a huge investment. </p>
<p>Don't spend the majority of your budget on the community platform. Start simple, grow slowly, invest more as the community grows. Gradually you learn what the community needs and you can add those features. </p>
<p></p>
<p><em>(Image via The Noun Project)</em></p></div>Essential Elements Of Community Platformshttps://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/essential-elements-of-community-platforms2014-06-04T16:40:00.000Z2014-06-04T16:40:00.000ZRichard Millingtonhttps://cultivate.ning.com/community/RichardMillington<div><p>Don't compare community platforms by the features they do/don't have. Compare community platforms by the features that are essential to you and how well they execute on those features. The number of <i>essential</i> features is very limited. </p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1282269?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1282269?profile=RESIZE_480x480" width="350" class="align-right"></a></p>
<p><b>Discussion area</b>. Members need a place in which they can interact. This will usually be a forum-based. </p>
<p><b>Notifications</b>. Members need to <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.feverbee.com/2011/12/the-notification-cycle.html">be notified</a> when people have responded to their posts. This keeps members coming back. It sustains activity. </p>
<p><b>Analytics</b>. You need to be able to properly track what's going on. You need to know what's going on beneath the surface. </p>
<p><b>Member profiles</b>. Members need <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.feverbee.com/2011/05/memberprofiles.html">to create</a> and use a consistent identity within the community.</p>
<p>Looking at this, you can partly see why <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.big-boards.com/">forum-only communities are thriving</a>. They offer nothing but the essential features. They're far more successful than any feature-backed platform. </p>
<p>But this neglects a more important point, <i>depth of features</i>.</p>
<p>Within each element, there are a range of subtle, but essential, options. Does the discussion area of the platform you're considering enable exporting of data, and integration with FB/Twitter? Can you embed the latest discussions elsewhere? Does it support different access levels, category creation, sufficient admin features, and customization of design?</p>
<p>Is it clear if there are any new posts when someone visits? Does it show both total posts or just the total number of new posts since the last visit? </p>
<p>Perhaps even deeper, how much space does every discussion take on the page? Are discussions spaced out in a way that only shows 5 discussions on a page? Or does it show 25?</p>
<p>The mistake many people make here is they compare platforms by breadth of features they rarely need and are unlikely to use as opposed to the depth of essential features. If you're in the process of choosing a platform, look to at the depth and subtle variation between the key features, not the breadth of features. </p>
<p> <em>(Image via Graphic Stock)</em></p></div>20 Things That Should Be Included In Your Online Community Websitehttps://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/20-things-that-should-be-included-in-your-online-community2014-05-27T15:30:00.000Z2014-05-27T15:30:00.000ZRichard Millingtonhttps://cultivate.ning.com/community/RichardMillington<div><p>Designing an online community spec can be difficult, there are some elements I think should be included in nearly every online community. These are:</p>
<ol>
<li><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2010/07/12.html">It’s own domain name</a>.<a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1282161?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1282161?profile=RESIZE_480x480" width="350" class="align-right"></a></li>
<li><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.feverbee.com/2010/04/the-application-form.html">An application form</a> to join the community.</li>
<li><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.feverbee.com/2009/05/connect-with.html">Facebook Connect/OpenID linked</a> profiles.</li>
<li><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.feverbee.com/2009/04/hompages.html">Latest activity</a> from members on the front-page.</li>
<li><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.feverbee.com/2010/06/start-the-news-page-for-a-new-online-community.html">A news page</a> for content about the community (Should be the landing page.)</li>
<li>A forum for members to communicate.</li>
<li><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.feverbee.com/2009/05/gamemechanics.html">Game mechanics embedded</a> deep within activity.</li>
<li>Sections named after people and/or community jargon.</li>
<li><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.feverbee.com/2010/08/addvalue.html">These value-added pages</a>.</li>
<li>These <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.feverbee.com/2010/04/8-overlooked-elements-every-online-community-should-have.html">8 overlooked elements</a> too.</li>
<li>The ability for members to create their own sub-groups.</li>
<li>Commenting enabled for stories that appear on the news page.</li>
<li>The option to Tweet/Facebook-share any comment/story with friends/followers in two clicks.</li>
<li>Use Facebook plugins to show which of your friends are already members of the community.</li>
<li>The ability for visitors to read all community content (which isn’t private), but have to log in to participate.</li>
<li><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.feverbee.com/2010/01/a-good-policy-to-introduce.html">Deactivation of accounts which are inactive</a> for 6 months.</li>
<li>The option for the admin to give increasing levels of access to community members to moderate comments, write content etc…</li>
<li>Every new member is prompted to answer a question which appears on a forum thread – hence prompting further responses and <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.feverbee.com/2009/07/secondvisit.html">converting the newcomer into an instant regular</a>.</li>
<li>Members receive notifications when someone comments on their profile or responds to their forum thread (and these can be turned off).</li>
<li>A Twitter sidebar which shows tweets by members in the community and allows members to respond (with an automatic hashtag) that shows up on the side of the bar. It’s like a mini chat-room, but promotes you and encourages <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.feverbee.com/2010/08/encourage-activity-elsewhere.html">off-website activity</a>.</li>
</ol>
<p>What other elements would you include?</p>
<p><em>Image via GraphicStock</em></p></div>How To Subtly Influence Your Online Communityhttps://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/how-to-subtly-influence-your-online-community2014-05-23T13:40:00.000Z2014-05-23T13:40:00.000ZRichard Millingtonhttps://cultivate.ning.com/community/RichardMillington<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2208309?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=400"></div><div><p>Direct influence is <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.feverbee.com/2009/12/power-and-influence.html">pretty weak</a>.</p><p>You can test it, tell your members to do something. What was your conversion rate? 10%? 5%? 1%? It's usually somewhere in that region.</p><p>People don't like being told what to do. This is especially true in branded communities. They like believing they have decided to do it for themselves.</p><p>Do you know the biggest influence on community members? Other members. People do what they see people doing.</p><p>If you want people to do something in a community, you need them to see people doing it. </p><p> </p><p><b>Relationships</b></p><p>If people do what they see others doing, you have the chicken and the egg dilemma. How do you get people to make a desired action in the first place?</p><p>Invest time building relationships with your key 50 to 100 members of the community. You need to build and sustain these relationships. When you want something to happen in the community, you can ask this insider group for their advice and opinions.</p><p>You can incorporate those ideas into the activity (to give them a sense of ownership) and work with them to make it happen. That insider group are the people that begin taking the desired actions in the first place. </p><p>Once people see this core group of individuals taking that action, they follow suit. </p><p> </p><p><b>Moderation</b></p><p>You can start discussions on topics or activities you wish members to participate in. You don't need to tell people to do anything here, you need to ask for their opinions and ideas on relevant topics. Reply positively to people that suggest an idea that fits in with what you want them to do.</p><p>You can also use your <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.feverbee.com/2011/08/stickythreads.html">sticky threads</a>. Whenever a member mentions an activity or action that you wish to encourage, you can set the post as a sticky thread to ensure more people see that action. You may also include these as a '<i>what's popular?</i>' selection on the landing page of the community. </p><p>If a member moves closer towards the activity you want, ask them what they would need from you to make it happen. Ask who else in the community might be interested in being involved? People want to hop aboard something they believe will be popular.</p><p>You can also be more responsive to positive contributions and less responsive to contributions you wish to encourage. This is the subtle act of steering the community in the direction you wish it to go.</p><p> </p><p><b>Content</b></p><p>Content is your second biggest tool of influence. You can use content to give a huge amount of attention to the topics/actions you wish people to take. Don't overplay your hand here. Don't force the agenda. Use your content to give attention to people that are already taking the desired actions. Reatively create the agenda. </p><p>You can write content which mentions them and their actions. You can interview them and let them talk about their actions. You can highlight their milestone achievements. You can create polls for people to vote on a relevant issue raised by members. You can create a member of the month award given to a member that has taken the desired action. You can include such actions in your community's history. You can give members who have take the desired actions opinion columns within the community to talk about it. </p><p> </p><p><b>Events/Activities</b></p><p>As more people begin to take the desired actions, you can develop specific events/activities for the action. You can develop a live-chat, led by members, about the action. You can help your members set up a specific day to participate in that desired action/activity. You can turn that action into a challenge for members to participate in and keep score of it. </p><p>Remember to be reactive to members taking the actions, don't try to force your agenda directly upon your members. Your members want to feel ownership of their contributions. They want to feel the community has risen up to undertake this action. </p><p> </p><p>Your biggest influence over a community is your subtle influence. If you master subtle influence, the value and effectiveness of your community will increase significantly. </p><p><em>Lead Image via Graphic Stock</em></p></div>How To Optimize An Online Community Platformhttps://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/how-to-optimize-an-online-community-platform2014-05-16T12:40:00.000Z2014-05-16T12:40:00.000ZRichard Millingtonhttps://cultivate.ning.com/community/RichardMillington<div><p>Optimizing the platform (the user experience) is part of the community manager's role which tends to get overlooked. Once it's developed, most people leave it. </p>
<p>It should be an ongoing process. The goal is to increase the number of interactions which take place in the platform. This is a process which can be continually refined. </p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1282212?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1282212?profile=RESIZE_480x480" width="400" class="align-right"></a>There are some guiding principles for this:</p>
<p> <b>Guiding principles for optimizing the user experience</b></p>
<ol>
<li><b>Refine the most used features</b>. <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.feverbee.com/2012/01/newfeatures.html">Don't spent too much time</a> developing features members wont use. <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.feverbee.com/2011/10/refine-the-most-used-features.html">Refine the most used features</a>. Small refinements on discussion boards, notifications, layout/design, and profiles yield better results than adding new features.</li>
<li><b>Look for things to remove, not things to add</b>. It's usually better to remove things (text, elements that aren't used, pages with low traffic). If you begin with the goal of figuring what to add, you'll never optimize the site (and waste a lot of time/money). Keep a <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.feverbee.com/2011/04/social-density.html">high social density</a>. </li>
<li><b>Highlight the popular stuff</b>. Rank things by popularity. Put the most popular forum discussions first. List the most popular pages nearer the top. Shine attention on the most popular things. The more you can highlight what's popular, the more activity you will get. </li>
<li><b>Respond to what members do, not what they say</b>. Members say many crazy things. <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.feverbee.com/2012/05/getting-feedback-on-productsservices.html">Much of which can be ignored</a>. Focus upon what they do. If they don't like something, they wont use it. If you ask members what they want, use it for inspiration - don't let them vote. </li>
<li><b>Test & measure</b>. This is a process. You wont get it right first time. You will get it right over time. Benchmark, change, <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.feverbee.com/2012/05/getting-feedback-on-productsservices.html">and measure</a>. The more data points you collect, the more accurate you will be. So comparing one day against the previous day isn't good. Comparing the same day one week against a similar day the next. But it's better to compare weeks and months against each other. Just be careful. November will trump December. Summer months are usually a little less active. Just be sure to measure like for like.</li>
</ol>
<p><b>A few practical ideas for optimizing the user experience</b></p>
<p>Within these principles, what can you do? Quite a lot. </p>
<ul>
<li><b>Notifications. </b><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.feverbee.com/2011/12/the-notification-cycle.html">Tweak the notifications</a>. These affect every member. Shorten the message, change the text, tweak the subject line, change the 'from' field. Try provoking curiosity. Test, measure and assess. Over a period of time you should be able to optimize these. </li>
<li><b>Landing page</b>. Ensure the <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.feverbee.com/2010/09/creating-the-perfect-landing-page-for-your-online-community.html">latest activity is above the fold</a>. Tweak what you use. Typically 'latest activity' is filled with friend requests, comments on profiles and other boring information. Try <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.feverbee.com/2012/01/latest-activity.html">displaying the latest discussions instead</a>. Ensure upcoming events are listed above the fold.</li>
<li><b>Tone of copy</b>. Try tinkering with the copy. Remove out the redundant words. Use shorter sentences. Remove entire paragraphs when the information is easier conveyed in other ways. Also try changing the tone, make it more/less formal, more/less funny, <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.feverbee.com/2012/02/personalityproblem.html">add more personality</a>.</li>
<li><b>Remove blogging</b>. This isn’t true for every site but many would benefit from removing the blogging feature for members (groups too). In most communities, few people use it. Disable as many features as possible to concentrate activity.<a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1282302?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1282302?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="250" class="align-right"></a></li>
<li><b>Change the colours/design</b>. Make <a rel="nofollow" href="http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2991-behind-the-scenes-ab-testing-part-3-final">small</a>, <a rel="nofollow" href="http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2977-behind-the-scenes-highrise-marketing-site-ab-testing-part-1">tiny</a>, <a rel="nofollow" href="http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2983-behind-the-scenes-ab-testing-part-2-how-we-test">tweaks</a> in the colour and design of the platform. Try using a smaller number of colours. Ensure you follow consistent design principles.</li>
<li><b>Show unanswered posts</b>. Have an option to <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.feverbee.com/2010/12/getting-responses-to-unanswered-posts.html">show the unanswered posts</a> on the community-landing page. Encourage members to answer these especially tough questions. Make it a challenge.</li>
<li><b>Reduce the information requited to register</b>. Reduce the information required at sign-up to just a single page (ideally asking for the e-mail and password. Members can fill in the rest of the information later. Try using an <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.feverbee.com/2010/04/the-application-form.html">application form</a> instead.</li>
<li><b>Remove threading (or add single-threading)</b>. Classic example of a small, potentially important, optimization; change how the discussions appear in the community. Consider removing deep-threaded discussions (or removing it to one-thread deep).</li>
<li><b>Integration</b>. Improve the integration with social media platforms. Have popular discussions posted to followers on FB/Twitter/G+ with a question and a link to where they can participate. Ensure tweets mentioning the topic appear on the community site.</li>
<li><b>Automation</b>. <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.feverbee.com/2010/01/a-good-policy-to-introduce.html">Automatically deactivate inactive member accounts</a> (with a reminder), welcome new members with a responsive series of e-mails that reflects their action {after your 5th post we recommend you …}. Improve the feature to retrieve lost passwords. Congratulation members on milestones achieved. Close old discussions after 3 months.</li>
<li><b>Reputation</b>. If the community has been going for a while, consider <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.feverbee.com/2011/04/communityreputationsystems.html">embracing a reputation system</a>. A reputation system encourages people to actively share what they know to increase or maintain their reputation within the community. We cover this in great depth as part of the course.</li>
<li><b>Member profiles</b>. Ask <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.feverbee.com/2010/05/questions.html">more interesting questions in the profile page</a>. Where were you when you heard Michael Jackson died? (or something more relevant to the community topic. Ask questions that other members will be keen to click on the profile to find out the answer. Have a funny default image until members change it.</li>
<li><b>FAQ</b>. Add the most common questions in the FAQ. This doesn’t just have to be about the site, or the community’s history, but about the common questions people have about the topic. Make this an incredibly useful document that people want to read.</li>
<li><b>Go mobile, maybe</b>. You might also consider a mobile version of the site. Only consider a mobile version if it will increase the amount of activity on the platform from mobile users. If mobile users are still participating as much as regulars, this might not be the case.</li>
</ul>
<p>The best way to identify things that might work in your community, is to look at other top community platforms and see what they have done. However, be careful. Community platforms evolve. A community should launch with relatively few features and gradually expand from there. The community you’re imitating must be in the same stage of the lifecycle as you. Finally, remember that optimizing the platform is an on-going process, not a one-time event. Prioritize which elements you’re going to optimize (perhaps one a month), and gradually test to see what works best. Dedicate a certain amount of time to it (perhaps 5 hours a month?) and schedule when optimization will be undertaken (I like Friday afternoons). Some examples of platform I like include:</p>
<ul>
<li>The Student Rooms: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/">http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/</a></li>
<li>RockandRollTribe: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://rockandrolltribe.com/">http://rockandrolltribe.com/</a></li>
<li>Lenova: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://forums.lenovo.com/">http://forums.lenovo.com/</a></li>
<li>Element14: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.element14.com/community/index.jspa">http://www.element14.com/community/index.jspa</a></li>
<li>Backyard Chickens: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.backyardchickens.com/">http://www.backyardchickens.com/</a></li>
</ul>
<p>These platforms aren't the prettiest, but they're very effective at facilitating interactions between members. This is the sole goal of community platforms. </p></div>Initiating and Sustaining Discussionshttps://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/initiating-and-sustaining-discussions2014-05-09T18:21:52.000Z2014-05-09T18:21:52.000ZRichard Millingtonhttps://cultivate.ning.com/community/RichardMillington<div><p>Sometimes tiny tweaks can make a profound impact upon a community.</p>
<p>A situation like this is common: </p>
<p>An organization is struggling to get people to participate. They initiate plenty of discussions but few people respond.</p>
<p>Overwhelmingly, the most common problem here (especially in branded communities), are the discussions themselves. They suffer from one of five problems:</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1282146?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1282146?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="300" class="align-right"></a>1) <b>Boring topic</b>. The discussion itself is too boring. It’s usually a conveying-information discussion. These get a <i>weak</i> response. The discussion might also be based around a topic which isn’t relevant enough to members. Try status-jockeying/bonding-related discussions. Make sure the discussion is based around a topic <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.feverbee.com/2012/04/ensuring-the-community-personifies-the-interests-of-members.html">members have stated</a> they <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.feverbee.com/2012/04/turning-data-into-community-activities-a-simple-example.html">are interested in.</a></p>
<p>2) <b>Dull subject line</b>. The subject line of the post doesn’t draw people in. There is a difference between a descriptive two words on what the post is about and then <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.feverbee.com/2011/10/boostactivity.html">a subject line that draws people in</a>. </p>
<p>3) <b>Too formal/inhuman</b>. The post sounds <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.feverbee.com/2011/11/the-personality-of-community-managers-a-few-tips.html">too much like corp-speak</a> or <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.feverbee.com/2012/02/personalityproblem.html">fake-friendly</a>. You may laugh, but this is the second most common problem we come up against. Online we’ve forgotten how to act human. A related problem is it fails to connect the question to a motivation on behalf of the sender. For example, the initiator doesn’t explain <i>why</i> they’re asking the question. They need their own relevancy/experiences to the topic/experience.</p>
<p>4) <b>Too long</b>. Posts that are too long don’t get a very high response. People will read hundreds of short posts before they read one long post. Keep discussions short.</p>
<p>5) <b>Fails to ask a question</b>. You might be surprised, but there are a lot of posts that simply don’t ask a question for others to answer. Don’t be coy about this, have a clear question for members to answer. Vary <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.feverbee.com/2011/02/open-and-closed-questions.html">between open and closed questions</a>. Closed questions tend to be better for newer communities.</p>
<p>If you’re trying to start a discussion, make sure you ask the question in the topic, keep it interesting to members, keep it relatively short, explain why you’re asking the question, and act like a human being.</p>
<p>Also, be on the lookout for discussions that are rising in popularity or have obeyed the rules above and consider making them stick threads. They’re likely to get a far higher level of response.</p>
<p>Simple stuff, but effective. </p>
<p><em>Image via GraphicStock.</em></p></div>Guest Post: How Threadless, The Huffington Post and Fitocracy understand the business value of communityhttps://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/loyal-business-value-community2014-04-23T21:00:00.000Z2014-04-23T21:00:00.000ZSarah Judd Welchhttps://cultivate.ning.com/community/sarahjuddwelch<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2208317?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=400"></div><div><p class="p1"><em>This post originally appeared on <a rel="nofollow" href="http://blog.thefetch.com/2014/01/14/how-threadless-the-huffington-post-and-fitocracy-understand-the-business-value-of-community/" target="_blank">The Fetch Blog</a> as a Guest Post from Loyal. </em></p>
<p><em>Loyal is a Community Development Studio. Process-driven and people-centric, they develop bespoke solutions for each of their clients. They've worked on community with a variety of organizations from Fortune 100s and international brands to seed stage startups and politicians. For more information, visit <a rel="nofollow" href="http://loyal.is" target="_blank">http://loyal.is</a></em></p>
<hr>
<p>Over the past few years, I’ve seen and felt first hand the skepticism of business leaders and traditional marketing folks around the financial return on investing in community initiatives. While it used to be that most of the evidence was anecdotal, today there are quite a few examples of community efforts moving the bottom line among the biggest and smallest of brands.</p>
<p>Let’s keep in mind the goals of community when talking about return: connect people to each other, make them happy, and make them stay (retention). All three of these goals strongly correlate with brand loyalty, referrals, and engagement metrics. With these in mind, consider the following statistics:</p>
<ul>
<li>It costs 80% less to retain a customer than to acquire a new one</li>
<li>Increasing customer retention rate by 5% can increase profits by up to 95% over the long-term (<a href="http://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/1590.html" target="_blank">HBS</a>)</li>
<li>Increased engagement on community sites can result in up to 25% increase in revenue (<a href="http://www.msi.org/reports/social-dollars-the-economic-impact-of-customer-participation-in-a-firm-spon/" target="_blank">MSI</a>)</li>
<li>Friend recommendations are the number one influencing factor in purchase decisions (<a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1118336038" target="_blank">Brand Advocates</a>)</li>
</ul>
<p><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1282074?profile=original" width="313" class="align-center"></p>
<p>Image source: Threadless.com</p>
<p>Although these stats are impressive, nothing demonstrates a point quite like real-life examples. Take <a href="http://www.threadless.com/" target="_blank">Threadless</a> – a creative community created by <a href="http://www.skinnycorp.com/" target="_blank">skinnyCorp</a> that makes, supports, and buys great art – the perfect model of crowdsourcing and customer community success. At Threadless, e-commerce and community intersect; members submit designs (originally t-shirts, and <a href="http://www.threadless.com/otherstuff" target="_blank">now other stuff</a>) that fellow members can purchase. Founded in 2000 with just $1000, the community has now grown to 2.5 million members globally with more than 500,000 designs submitted and nearly 5000 designs printed. Together, Threadless members have helped raise nearly $8.8 million for more than 1200 artists worldwide. How’s that for ROI on community?</p>
<p>Likewise, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/" target="_blank">The Huffington Post</a>, arguably the largest actively managed community on the internet, also benefits as a media company from strong community investment. HuffPo leverages its commenter community to distribute content and drive new and returning visits to the site with roughly 9.5 million pre-moderated comments per month. As a content trendsetter, the media powerhouse has sought to ensure a safe place for people to comment, <a href="http://blog.aol.com/2012/03/01/talking-community-with-justin-isaf-huffington-post-community-ma/" target="_blank">according to its previous Director of Community, Justin Isaf</a>. While the company does use an algorithm to help moderate spammy or inappropriate comments, the community is largely self-policed, reducing the need for headcount on HuffPo’s community moderation team. Partially as a result of its community, HuffPo sees 70M unique visitors and 1.1B pageviews in the US. alone. The results are clear: community engagement and distribution means more site views and unique visitors, a major selling point for advertisers and content sponsors.</p>
<p>Like Threadless, <a href="https://www.fitocracy.com/" target="_blank">Fitocracy</a> is a community platform. The fitness gamification network is built around a community of people motivating each other to get healthy everyday. The network has grown from 300,000 to more than 1.5 million users since it launched out of beta in March 2012 and has <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/26/fitocracys-1m-users-including-arnold-schwarzenegger-are-more-engaged-than-any-other-social-network-besides-facebook/" target="_blank">more user engagement than Twitter</a>. According to founder Dick Talens, users come back to the app seven days a week even if they’re not working out – just because they’re so engrossed in the community. The app has also found a new way to monetize community with group fitness plans built around two of the most valuable benefits of any community – accountability and support among members. Aiming to replace the typical “gym trainer model,” the group fitness plans assign small groups of Fitocracy community members to one trainer for a fraction of what training would cost at a gym (plans are $50-77/month). The groups are held accountable to report their progress to the trainer and to each other through communication systems such as Google Hangouts and Q&As. Fitocracy has effectively monetized their community itself.</p>
<p>These examples show that community really can have a significant (and positive) impact on your bottom line, whether it’s through retention, increased engagement, referrals, or a revenue stream built around fulfilling the needs of an existing community. You’re most likely already interacting with your users, and many of them are likely already interacting with each other. Challenge yourself to reorganize the structure of these touch points to form a community that will contribute to your bottom line. Are you leveraging the value of community?</p>
<p>Lead image: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/wetwebwork/2402908982/in/photostream/" target="_blank">via wetwebwork on flickr</a></p>
<hr>
<p class="p1"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>About the Author:</strong></span></p>
<p class="p1">Sarah Judd Welch is the Founder // Head of Community Design + BD at <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.loyal.is/"><span class="s1">Loyal</span></a> where she designs communities for startups, brands, and Fortune 100s. Find her on Twitter at <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.twitter.com/sjw"><span class="s1">@sjw</span></a>.</p>
<p class="p1">Read more stories like this one at <a rel="nofollow" href="http://loyal.is/">http://loyal.is</a>.</p></div>Getting Started with a Community Roadmap for the Entire Teamhttps://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/loyal-community-roadmap2014-04-03T23:45:50.000Z2014-04-03T23:45:50.000ZSarah Judd Welchhttps://cultivate.ning.com/community/sarahjuddwelch<div><p dir="ltr">As community managers <a rel="nofollow" href="http://blog.percolate.com/2013/07/from-community-manager-to-cmo/">rise in the ranks</a>, we're often tasked with strategic planning for our entire team. This is our opportunity to align the greater organization around community goals while demonstrating how community initiatives reinforce business goals.</p>
<p>Where to start? Before getting overwhelmed with the large task at hand, take a step back. You have so many more resources at your disposal than you likely realize.</p>
<h3>1. Clear Purpose</h3>
<p>What is your community meant to accomplish? Community’s purposes vary from company to company: to provide support, to provide knowledge or resources, to reinforce values, etc. Defining your purpose upfront, particularly in relationship with your organization’s vision helps with the next step -- setting goals.</p>
<h3>2. Actionable, Measurable Goals<a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1282129?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1282129?profile=RESIZE_480x480" width="400" class="align-right"></a></h3>
<p>With your purpose in mind, what can you accomplish this year that will further that aim? Perhaps it’s a support center or a community forum. Maybe it’s an education program or a content series. Or, maybe it’s a set of community features. And then, what are the metrics that would indicate success for each initiative? Consider this both in terms of the initiative itself as well as within the context of greater business goals, such as increase in sales, etc.</p>
<p>Whatever it is, map it out according to specific time periods. Often, it’s helpful outline these goals according to the fiscal year: Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4. Be sure to be realistic as to what can be accomplished within a given period of time. Examples include:</p>
<ul>
<li dir="ltr"><p dir="ltr"><span>Increase community referrals by 20% by end of Q2</span></p></li>
<li dir="ltr"><p dir="ltr"><span>Decrease churn by 15% in Q1</span></p></li>
<li dir="ltr"><p dir="ltr"><span>Increase monthly sign-ups as a direct result of community efforts by 10% in Q1</span></p></li>
</ul>
<h3>3. Company Alignment</h3>
<p>You might be in charge of community for your company, but community is everyone’s job. Truly effective community roadmaps include the entire team. Make sure that you’re able to articulate to each team (marketing, development, account management, sales, etc.) how your roadmap supports their own team’s objectives and larger company goals.</p>
<p>This makes asking for help much easier -- surely you’re not going to build and design that community forum yourself! When creating your roadmap, be very clear on what resources you have at your disposal, what you’ll need from other teams, and what you’ll need to provide to other teams. Will you need help from design and development? What about marketing or operations? How will your roadmap impact BD or support?</p>
<p>After you’ve determined purpose, set goals, and have ensured that your roadmap aligns with company goals, you’re ready to break these down into tactics. Make your tactics specific and have a <a rel="nofollow" href="http://loyal.is/community-process/">clear process</a> in place for assigning them to their relevant team member. The more clear you can be when setting expectations and responsibilities, the better. If you’d like more information on how to dive into tactics and execution, feel free to <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.twitter.com/sjw">reach out</a>, I’d love to chat.</p>
<hr>
<p dir="ltr"><span><strong>About the Author:</strong></span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span>Sarah Judd Welch is the Founder // Head of Community Design + BD at</span> <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.loyal.is/">Loyal</a> <span>where she designs communities for startups, brands, and Fortune 100s. Find her on Twitter at </span><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.twitter.com/sjw">@sjw</a><span>.</span></p>
<p><span>Read more stories like this one at <a rel="nofollow" href="http://loyal.is/">http://loyal.is</a>.</span></p>
<p> </p></div>Guest Post: The Art of Gathering Feedback from Your Community (and putting it to good use)https://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/loyal-gathering-feedback2014-04-03T23:20:00.000Z2014-04-03T23:20:00.000ZShannon Byrnehttps://cultivate.ning.com/community/ShannonByrne<div><p class="p1"><em>This post originally appeared on <a rel="nofollow" href="http://loyal.is/gathering-feedback/" target="_blank">Loyal's blog</a>. </em></p>
<p><em>Loyal is a Community Development Studio. Process-driven and people-centric, they develop bespoke solutions for each of their clients. They've worked on community with a variety of organizations from Fortune 100s and international brands to seed stage startups and politicians. For more information, visit <a rel="nofollow" href="http://loyal.is" target="_blank">http://loyal.is</a></em></p>
<hr>
<p dir="ltr">At Loyal, feedback from our community — clients, colleagues, partners, friends, and even sometimes family — is invaluable. In fact, feedback is one of the <a rel="nofollow" href="http://loyal.is/community-will-help-you-get-more-done/" target="_blank">leading benefits of having a community</a>. It leads to product and service improvements, open channels of communication, customer insight, and sometimes, new product ideas.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Feedback can be used to improve minor elements of a larger strategy as well. When I first started at Loyal, I began emailing all of our <a rel="nofollow" href="http://us6.campaign-archive1.com/?u=46007b114fa24838e7fdfe9dd&id=7613d4d592&e=b016cdf2a8" target="_blank">newsletter</a> subscribers asking for feedback — what they liked, didn’t like, what they would like to see in future issues, etc. I purposely kept it very casual and open ended, as my primary goal was to introduce myself and get to know a community that I was very new to. The secondary goal was to gather feedback to improve the newsletter. Looking back, I wish I asked for more specific feedback from certain people — design advice from designers, insight on our content from community managers, etc. Having said that, the experience and insight gathered was extremely helpful in improving our newsletter for subscribers, and although we were asking about the newsletter specifically, we were able to apply much of the feedback received to other areas of our larger content strategy.</p>
<p dir="ltr">One thing we heard over and over again was that our subscribers wanted to read about our own opinions and insight on community-related issues. In response, we started producing more <a rel="nofollow" href="http://loyal.is/blog/" target="_blank">original content</a> based on our expertise and experience and added a related reading section at the end to house this content in the newsletter. These pieces continue to see the majority of click-throughs to this day.</p>
<p dir="ltr"><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1282149?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1282149?profile=original" width="523" class="align-center"></a></p>
<p dir="ltr">We also heard that our images were a little feminine for our male audience. Our brand by nature (and by design) is very feminine and romantic, but that doesn’t mean we can’t include more gender-neutral images, which we’ve worked to do.</p>
<p dir="ltr"><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1282171?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1282171?profile=original" width="515" class="align-center"></a></p>
<p dir="ltr"><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1282191?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1282191?profile=original" width="513" class="align-center"></a></p>
<p dir="ltr">Readers wanted more quantitative and metric-specific content, as well as case studies. We’ve included more of these stories in our curated content and have made a significant effort to produce original pieces on <a rel="nofollow" href="http://fullstart.com/knowledge/roi-community/" target="_blank">how to measure</a> the<a rel="nofollow" href="http://loyal.is/the-business-value-of-community/" target="_blank">business value of community</a>, and all its subsequent <a rel="nofollow" href="http://loyal.is/measuring-community/" target="_blank">activities</a> and <a rel="nofollow" href="http://loyal.is/measuring-content-success/" target="_blank">tools</a>, as well as our own <a rel="nofollow" href="http://loyal.is/community-process/" target="_blank">process-focused approach</a> to community.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Additionally, we heard that people <em><strong>loved</strong></em> our short-mid-long format for curated content and how we tie each story together into one theme, but they wanted more concrete summaries of each beyond the context we provided. We’ve also worked to make this change, while keeping each piece short and easy to digest.</p>
<p dir="ltr">After <a rel="nofollow" href="http://loyal.is/loyals-new-look/" target="_blank">rebranding our newsletter</a> from CX at Heart to <strong><a rel="nofollow" href="http://community.is/" target="_blank">Community.is</a></strong> in January, we asked for feedback again — mostly around what our readers thought of the new look, as the content and format didn’t change much. Remember, communication is a two-way street. By communicating the why behind the change and what it meant for our readers, we opened the channels for honest and constructive feedback, which resulted in a ton of positive remarks as well as some really great constructive advice.</p>
<h3 dir="ltr" style="text-align: center;">Before</h3>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1282239?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1282239?profile=original" width="529" class="align-center"></a></p>
<h3 dir="ltr" style="text-align: center;">After</h3>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1282287?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1282287?profile=original" width="527" class="align-center"></a></p>
<p dir="ltr">One minor piece of feedback we received was to include more specific calls to action at the end of each issue. I really liked this idea and tested it continuously for a while, but it did not prompt any action. It’s possible that our calls to action were not strong enough to get readers to hit reply with their thoughts. We’ve put a hold on the specific CTAs for now, but will likely brainstorm how we can improve them to spur more action and start including them again later, which brings me to one very big point…</p>
<h2 dir="ltr">Don’t forget to test</h2>
<p dir="ltr">There’s a very important step, or steps rather, between gathering feedback and executing for iteration and improvement. You must first filter, qualify, and organize feedback from your community, then you test. Whether you’re gathering feedback in bulk (like I initially did) or piecemeal (like I do now), you should read through every single communication received. From some of these, you’ll be able to <strong>pull out quick wins</strong>, the advice that makes you say “why didn’t I think of that?” and takes 15-30 minutes max to change. Execute these right away, you’ll feel good about your day.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Beyond these quick wins, it’s important to <strong>notice patterns</strong>. Highlight one specific statement (and versions there of) that keeps popping out. In our case, it was that our readers wanted our opinions and case studies from Loyal included in the newsletter. I should mention that acting on this feedback has had <strong>many other benefits</strong>, including greater brand awareness, new fans and followers (measured by people paying attention to us on a regular basis, not by Twitter count), and even leads.</p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>Start testing</strong>. Test both the big things that the majority of your community asked for and the one-offs, assuming that they’re reasonable. If someone told us that Loyal should start including stories on how to build bookshelves, we probably wouldn’t do that just please that one person because Loyal is in the business of building community, not bookshelves. However, we would include more actionable tips and take-aways on how to build and grow a community, if that was a request. After implementing a change, go back and ask those who suggested it for their thoughts, if they’re pleased, and if it’s what they were actually looking for. Never be afraid to ask someone to elaborate.</p>
<h2 dir="ltr">Keep it continuous</h2>
<p dir="ltr">Yes, I initially sent a large batch of emails to the entire subscriber-base when I first started with Loyal, but the results were so helpful that I’ve now built it into my workflow. I send an email to every new subscriber, asking them for thoughts and feedback as they continue to receive weekly issues. Not only has this resulted in a continuous source of fresh feedback and new perspectives, it also provides me with inspiration and motivation, as most of our subscribers have very positive things to say about Loyal, the newsletter, and all of our content. Although it’s the constructive criticism that I seek in order to improve our work, it’s a pretty awesome added benefit to hear how much people like what we’re doing. <img src="http://loyal.is/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif" alt=":)" class="wp-smiley"></p>
<p dir="ltr"><em><strong>In the spirit of collecting feedback, I’d love to know if you found this post helpful. Please leave your thoughts in the comments below or on the original post at the <a rel="nofollow" href="http://loyal.is/gathering-feedback/" target="_blank">Loyal Blog</a>!</strong></em></p>
<hr>
<p class="p1"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>About the Author:</strong></span></p>
<p class="p1">Shannon Byrne is the Content Manager + Community Associate at <a rel="nofollow" href="http://loyal.is/">Loyal</a>, where she crafts words and creates community-driven strategies. Florida native turned Brooklynite, she has a passion for writing and a knack for connecting people. Follow her on Twitter <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.twitter.com/shannnonb">@ShannnonB</a>.</p>
<p class="p1">Read more stories like this one at <a rel="nofollow" href="http://loyal.is/">http://loyal.is</a>.</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>3 Reasons Why Community Needs a Process-Driven Approachhttps://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/process-driven-approach-community2014-03-11T20:12:06.000Z2014-03-11T20:12:06.000ZSarah Judd Welchhttps://cultivate.ning.com/community/sarahjuddwelch<div><p dir="ltr"><span>While in the trenches of community management, it’s sometimes challenging to take a step back, evaluate your efforts and determine strategic next steps. Being heads down in our craft is certainly respectable, however, sometimes a step back and a fresh perspective is all that’s necessary to recognize a missed step, spot a new opportunity or take our work to the next level.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span>While there are tons of tools for building community, there are simply no band-aid solutions that will magically create or grow a community overnight. That’s why community needs a</span> <a rel="nofollow" href="http://loyal.is/community-process/"><span>process-driven approach</span></a><span>. Specifically:</span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span class="font-size-3"><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1282098?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1282098?profile=RESIZE_480x480" width="400" class="align-right"></a><strong>1. Every Community is Different</strong></span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span>What works well for one community, cannot be exactly replicated for another. Each community has its own values, purpose, goals, demographics and cultural norms. The success of an ambassador program for one community may be poorly incentivized for another. As such, the specific tactics, tools and approach for each community should be unique.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong><span class="font-size-3">2. Community is Both Strategic and Tactical</span></strong></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span>Community is well known as a jack-of-all trades execution role, but it’s strategic, too. At some companies, such as Airbnb, TaskRabbit, and Etsy, community is core to the product and even built into the business model. As such, community efforts are centralized around more strategic approaches with complementary execution rather than strictly social media and support. This requires a higher-level view point than one that can only be seen from the trenches.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong><span class="font-size-3">3. Measure, Iterate, Repeat</span></strong></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span>If you’re always heads down and reactive, how do you know what’s working? Taking a more process-driven approach allows you to define measurements of success upfront, evaluate progress against concrete benchmarks and then iterate both your strategies and execution accordingly.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span>At</span> <a rel="nofollow" href="http://loyal.is"><span>Loyal,</span></a> <span>we look at building community as not so different from human system design. As community folks, we’re structuring and enabling ways for people to engage with each other within specific product, platform, budget and time constraints to reach specific business goals. And, as such, we approach our work with a process</span> <a rel="nofollow" href="http://loyal.is/community-is-a-job/"><span>not too different from design processes</span></a><span>. This is what our process looks like:<br class="kix-line-break"></span></p>
<ul>
<li dir="ltr"><p dir="ltr"><span>Understand the vision for success</span></p></li>
<li dir="ltr"><p dir="ltr"><span>Define the problem or challenge</span></p></li>
<li dir="ltr"><p dir="ltr"><span>Determine the goals</span></p></li>
<li dir="ltr"><p dir="ltr"><span>Understand the constraints</span></p></li>
<li dir="ltr"><p dir="ltr"><span>Research -- What does the data tell us? What do we intuitively know? What do users say?</span></p></li>
<li dir="ltr"><p dir="ltr"><span>Set the strategy with the above in mind</span></p></li>
<li dir="ltr"><p dir="ltr"><span>Execute</span></p></li>
<li dir="ltr"><p dir="ltr"><span>Test, Measure, Iterate Repeat</span></p></li>
</ul>
<p dir="ltr"><span>While community might not be repeatable from community to community, this process is repeatable and allows us to tailor recommendations for our clients accordingly. Internally, community managers can also use this same process for project sprints. What’s your community process?</span></p>
<hr>
<p dir="ltr"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>About the Author:</strong></span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span>Sarah Judd Welch is the Founder // Head of Community Design + BD at</span> <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.loyal.is/"><span>Loyal</span></a> <span>where she designs communities for startups, brands, and Fortune 100s. Find her on Twitter at </span><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.twitter.com/sjw"><span>@sjw</span></a><span>.</span></p>
<p><span>Read more stories like this one at <a rel="nofollow" href="http://loyal.is/">http://loyal.is</a>.</span></p>
<p><em>Image via iStockphoto.</em></p></div>White Paper: 5 Questions for Selecting an Online Community Platformhttps://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/platform-selection-white-paper2014-02-21T22:00:00.000Z2014-02-21T22:00:00.000ZCrystalhttps://cultivate.ning.com/community/CrystalC<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2208341?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=400"></div><div><link href="//cdn-images.mailchimp.com/embedcode/classic-081711.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" ></link>
<style type="text/css">
/**/
<!--
/**/
<!--
/**/
<!--
<br />
#mc_embed_signup{background:#fff; clear:left; font:14px Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; }<br />
/* Add your own MailChimp form style overrides in your site stylesheet or in this style block.<br />
We recommend moving this block and the preceding CSS link to the HEAD of your HTML file. */<br />
-->
/**/
-->
/**/
-->
/**/
</style>
<p></p>
<p></p>
<p>Today, we're proud to announce a project that's been in the works for a while: A collaboration with Community Pioneer F. Randall Farmer to produce this exclusive white paper - "Five Questions for Selecting an Online Community Platform." </p>
<p>Randy is co-host of the <a href="http://socialmediaclarity.net"><i>Social Media Clarity</i></a> podcast, a <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/frandallfarmer#profile-patents">prolific social media innovator</a>, and <em>literally</em> co-wrote the book on <i><a href="http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596159801.do?cmp=af-code-book-product_cj_9781449382568_7085710">Building Web Reputation Systems</a>.</i> We were very excited to bring him on board for this much needed project. While there are numerous books, blogs, and white papers out there to help Community Managers grow and manage their communities, there's no true guide to how to pick the right kind of platform for your community. </p>
<p>In this white paper, Randy has developed five key questions that can help determine what platform suits your community best. This platform agnostic guide covers top level content permissions, contributor identity, community size, costs, and infrastructure. It truly is the first guide of its kind and we're delighted to share it with you.</p>
<p>To download "Five Questions for Selecting an Online Community Platform," simply fill out the form below and you'll be taken to a download page. Be sure to come back here and let us know your thoughts and comments on Randy's theories. </p>
<div id="mc_embed_signup">
<form action="http://ning.us3.list-manage1.com/subscribe/post?u=0bfb1d316afa5f67ffe98ec56&id=2f8d6e9977" method="post" id="mc-embedded-subscribe-form" name="mc-embedded-subscribe-form" class="validate" target="_blank" novalidate="">
<h2>Download the Community Platform Selection Guide</h2>
<div class="indicates-required">* indicates required</div>
<div class="mc-field-group"><label for="mce-EMAIL">Email Address *</label> <input type="email" value="" name="EMAIL" class="required email" id="mce-EMAIL" ></input></div>
<div class="mc-field-group"><label for="mce-FNAME">First Name</label> <input type="text" value="" name="FNAME" id="mce-FNAME" ></input></div>
<div class="mc-field-group"><label for="mce-LNAME">Last Name</label> <input type="text" value="" name="LNAME" id="mce-LNAME" ></input></div>
<div class="mc-field-group input-group"><strong>Receive future emails from Ning?</strong>
<ul>
<li><input type="radio" value="Yes" name="OPTIN" id="mce-OPTIN-0" ></input><label for="mce-OPTIN-0">Yes</label></li>
<li><input type="radio" value="No" name="OPTIN" id="mce-OPTIN-1" ></input><label for="mce-OPTIN-1">No</label></li>
</ul>
</div>
<div id="mce-responses" class="clear">
<div class="response" id="mce-error-response" style="display: none;"></div>
<div class="response" id="mce-success-response" style="display: none;"></div>
</div>
<!-- real people should not fill this in and expect good things - do not remove this or risk form bot signups-->
<div style="position: absolute; left: -5000px;"><input type="text" name="b_0bfb1d316afa5f67ffe98ec56_2f8d6e9977" value="" ></input></div>
<div class="clear"><input type="submit" value="Subscribe" name="subscribe" id="mc-embedded-subscribe" class="button" ></input></div>
</form>
</div>
<p><!--End mc_embed_signup--></p>
</div>CMX Summit 2014: Trust, Collaboration, and Communityhttps://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/cmx-summit-wrapup2014-02-14T17:52:33.000Z2014-02-14T17:52:33.000ZCrystalhttps://cultivate.ning.com/community/CrystalC<div><p>Last week, David Spinks and the team at TheCommunityManager.com gathered together over 300 community professionals for a first year conference that proved to be highly polished and extremely informative - <a href="http://cmxsummit.com/" target="_blank">CMX Summit</a>. Here are our takeaways:</p>
<p><strong><em>Why Should They? Trust Strategies for Every Situation</em> - Robin Dreeke, Head of the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Program</strong></p>
<p>Building trust with a community is the foundation for everything a community manager does. Robin led us through his model for trust, including taking time to understand where others are coming from, suspending your ego when helping others, providing factoids rather than excuses, and managing expectations. What building trust all comes down to, says Robin, is helping people discover what they want and helping them to achieve it. </p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1282072?profile=RESIZE_480x480" target="_self" width="400"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1282072?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="300" class="align-right"></a></p>
<p><strong><em>Intro to Community Psychology and the "Sense of Community" Theory</em> - Dr. David McMillian, Community/Clinical Psychologist</strong></p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.wright-house.com/psychology/sense-of-community.html" target="_blank">Sense of Community Theory</a> is approaching its 30th anniversary, but it just as relevant as ever, and having David McMillian run us through it was a unique treat. What will really stick with me was David's closing remarks (transcribed by Shannon Byrne for <a href="http://thecommunitymanager.com/2014/02/06/4-elements-to-creating-a-sense-of-community-by-dr-david-mcmillan/" target="_blank">The Community Manager</a>): </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Go home and tell someone something a little too much. Take a risk. Maybe they will tell you something. If they do, take, catch it, hold it. Tell them that they belong to you, that you’re going to reserve a special place just for them. Tell them that they matter. Being connected doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice, you sacrifice because you care. The more expectations you create, the better you’ll dance with them. Give something of value and accept something you don’t have that’s of value to you. Learn, teach, grow, and prepare them for the day that you’re not going to be there. Then tell the story about the people you love. Create rituals, symbols, and traditions then tell them your ability to build a community has grown.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p><strong><em>Crafting a Self-Sustaining Community Culture: The Power of Ritual, Purpose, and Shared Identity</em> - Emily Castor, Director of Community Relations at Lyft</strong></p>
<p>Seeing Emily present is always a delight and she is definitely the expert right now on building a company culture that becomes truly ingrained in your community (and vice versa). Lyft's pink mustaches and fist bumps are so much more than just gimmicks. These rituals and totems speak to a basic human need for something to build an identity around. These rituals scale organically and create a cultural identity, which then allows powerful one to one interactions to happen without the community manager needing to be involved. </p>
<p><strong><em>When Customers are your Product: Lessons from Hundreds of Collaborative Consumption Communities</em> - Lauren Anderson, Chief Knowledge Officer at Collaborative Lab</strong></p>
<p>Carrying on the peer to peer theme was Lauren Anderson of Collaborative Lab. Covering various companies that have built their business upon their customers' collaboration (and therefore built on community), she identified three key themes for community building for collaborative communities: Strong Values, Trust & Transparency, and Empowerment and Involvement.</p>
<p><strong><em>Building Branch and Potluck - Lessons in Developing Community Products</em> - Josh Miller, Founder of Branch</strong></p>
<p>Fresh off the announcement of being acquired by Facebook, Branch Founder Josh Miller sat down for a Q&A about community development. Josh shared some learnings from the difference between Branch and Potluck, most notably that people craft comments to their perceived audience. In this way, an intimate setting allows people to be their authentic selves more than a larger, more open setting. </p>
<p><strong><em>The Evolution of Communities - Social Design and Key Metrics for Every Stage</em> - Ligaya Tichy, Angel Investor, former Community Lead for AirBnB</strong></p>
<p>Ligaya Tichy is already a legend in the community industry, helping share the early community stages at Yelp and AirBnB. Her <a href="http://www.ligayatichy.com/1/post/2014/02/community-comes-together-at-last-at-cmx-summit.html" target="_blank">entire presentation</a> is full of actionable insights and really understandable breakdowns of the metrics that community managers should be keeping an eye on. Something I hadn't been familiar with before (but will now be swearing by) is her useful baseline for healthy community activity: 30% of your user base should be active monthly; 10% should be active daily, and 10% should be active concurrently on any given day. </p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1282085?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1282085?profile=original" width="570" class="align-center"></a></p>
<p><strong><em>Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Community Systems</em> - Nir Eyal, Author of "Hooked"</strong></p>
<p>I'm a big fan of Nir Eyal, and we reviewed <a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/forumcon-2013-nir-eyal-hooked-model" target="_self">his presentation from ForumCon 2013</a> and we're even more excited to put his ATARI theory into action now. </p>
<p><strong><em>Building the 500 Startups Community on a Global Scale</em> - Dave McClure, Founding parter at 500Startups</strong></p>
<p>Dave McClure is one of the most colorful personalities in the venture capital scene and shared some of his experiences in early communities as well as nourishing a community culture at 500 Startups. "There’s always going to be tensions between marketing, sales, product, design, UX/UI," McClure admits, "but community can bring it all together."</p>
<p><strong><em>Lessons from the History of Communities – Why They Matter Today and Tomorrow</em> - Ellen Leanse, Apple's First User Evangelist</strong></p>
<p>The last speaker of the day, Ellen Leanse, was truly inspirational. Forget Sheryl Sandberg or Marissa Mayer, Ellen is who I want to be when I grow up. As Apple's first User Evangelist, she guided Apple through the particularly turbulent time after the departure of Co-Founder Steve Jobs. There is so much that I learned from her in the too-brief time she spoke, but the main thoughts I'll be keeping with me are, echoing the days's first speaker, that what you share with the community should be about what <strong>they</strong> need, not you. And that a community will hold your company accountable to be the best that you can be - so live up to it! </p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1282120?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1282120?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="300" class="align-right"></a>I think the biggest think I took away from CMX Summit was an overwhelming feeling of love: for my job, for the community I have the privilege to manage, and for the community of community managers I get to be a part of. As part of her talk, Ligaya Tichy had little jars of Play-Doh handed out to attendees. Squeezing something, she explained, helps with public speaking... it gives an outlet for the adrenaline that flows when you're talking to a group of people. This encouragement to attendees to go speak within and outside of their companies is endemic of the culture of learning that was evident at CMX Summit. Speakers were actively engaged in each others' presentations, tweeting about them and referencing them later in their own. Whether someone has three months, three years, or three decades of experience in this field, we all have something to learn from each other. This year's attendee may be next year's speaker and vice versa. It truly is a great time to be a Community Manager</p>
<p>If you're sad to have missed CMX Summit, you can <a href="https://www.brighttalk.com/community/content-marketing/channel/10753" target="_blank">catch up on all the speakers</a> thanks to sponsor BrightTalk. And if you're encouraged to attend another community management conference, the <a href="http://www.virtualcommunitysummit.com/" target="_blank">Virtual Communities Summit</a> in London next week is sure to be another great event. You can also check out these CMX Summit posts from other attendees:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.evanhamilton.com/cmx-summit-community-management" target="_blank">What we learned (about ourselves) at CMX Summit</a> by Evan Hamilton</p>
<p><a href="http://loyal.is/cmx-summit-take-aways/" target="_blank">10 Take-Aways From the First-Ever CMX Summit</a> by Shannon Byrne for LoyalCX</p>
<p><a href="http://thecommunitymanager.com/category/cmx-summit/" target="_blank">CMX Summit Liveblogs</a> from TheCommunityManager.com</p>
<p><a href="http://www.dnnsoftware.com/blog/cid/426748/Steal-These-Community-Management-Tips-from-CMX-Summit-Presenters" target="_blank">Community Management Tips Learned from CMX Summit</a> by Dennis Shiao of DNN</p>
<p><a href="http://www.feverbee.com/2014/02/cmxsummit-and-the-new-frontier.html" target="_blank">CMXSummit And The New Frontier</a> from Feverbee</p>
<p><a href="http://seen.co/event/cmx-summit-san-francisco-ca-2014-8705" target="_blank">Twitter Trending Wrap-Up</a> from Seen</p>
<p><em>Images via <a href="https://twitter.com/500startups/status/431555239271862272" target="_blank">Twitter</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/wateringthewell/status/431498478468866048/photo/1" target="_blank">Adriana Cerundolo</a>, <a href="http://instagram.com/p/kF9qMEQLSL/" target="_blank">Krysta Gahagen</a></em></p></div>Organizing an Unruly Community: Synthesize and Strategizehttps://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/organizing-an-unruly-community-synthesize-and-strategize2013-11-19T23:00:57.000Z2013-11-19T23:00:57.000ZCarrie Melissa Joneshttps://cultivate.ning.com/community/CarrieMelissaJones<div><p></p>
<p>You're ready to synthesize all the work you've done and think long-term strategy. Take a deep breath and congratulate yourself for the work you've done so far! You've already <a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/list/tag/unruly+community" target="_self">laid the groundwork</a> for a successful and thriving community.</p>
<p class="p1">Now is the time to take a look at all of the information, stories, discussions, and data you've collected. You'll need to synthesize everything into an overall community strategy. This can mean very different things to different communities.</p>
<p class="p1">Everyone is going to have their own set of goals to meet. Talk with your executive team about what numbers they are looking for from you and then strategize around those goals. In general, your long-term strategy should be centered around a few key areas, as outlined below. This is a very basic breakdown, and I'm suggesting some great questions to ask yourself at this critical juncture.</p>
<p class="p1">If you can answer these questions and create metrics to measure the success of the efforts you move forward with, you're officially a community badass. Let's be friends.</p>
<p class="p1"><strong>Content and community platform: </strong></p>
<ol>
<li>Do you need to maintain a blog? What kind of outreach can you do for fellow bloggers? What sorts of posts can you write regularly to keep your audience coming back?</li>
<li>Where is your community reading content? Do you need a Twitter account? Facebook? Google+? It's good to have a diverse presence, but pick where to make yourself most available if you're just one person. Go to where most of your people already are if your resources are limited.</li>
</ol>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1282093?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1282093?profile=original" width="600" class="align-center"></a></p>
<p class="p1"><strong>Online and offline events:</strong></p>
<ol>
<li>Is your community ready for events, Google Hangouts, or offline meet ups?</li>
<li>Can you pick out brand ambassadors to help spread your message? If so, identify these people (you may have already done so in your surveys-- that's a wonderful place to start). Then send 'em some swag and ask them to spread the word.</li>
</ol>
<p class="p1"><strong>Product improvements:</strong></p>
<ol>
<li>What product improvements can you make now that will make joining the community seamless in the future?</li>
<li>What did you learn about people's motivations that you can apply to the product? Is gamification going to work for your community? Or are people just there to share? </li>
<li>How is your on-boarding flow? Can you make it better?</li>
<li>How can you make referrals a part of your product? This is ESSENTIAL.</li>
<li>Is there data you're missing? Your ultimate goal should be automating data collection, so get the essentials from your users right up front. If you're missing chunks of important information about your userbase/community, work with your product team to put touch points into the product to gather this data from users.</li>
</ol>
<p>I won't go over how you can set customer service goals at this point, since I don't personally believe that should ever be the principle goal of a community, but it's a great idea to reach out to your customer service folks to let them know what you've learned and to create a channel to continue communication. </p>
<p></p></div>Organizing an Unruly Community: Share Storieshttps://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/organizing-an-unruly-community-share-stories2013-11-12T17:00:00.000Z2013-11-12T17:00:00.000ZCarrie Melissa Joneshttps://cultivate.ning.com/community/CarrieMelissaJones<div><p class="p1"><a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/organizing-an-unruly-community-a-5-step-series" target="_self">By now</a>, you've <a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/organizing-an-unruly-community-open-up-lines-of-communication" target="_self">opened up lines of communication</a>, written and shared <a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/organizing-an-unruly-community-lay-down-the-law-write-some-simple" target="_self">solid guidelines</a>, and <a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/organizing-an-unruly-community-establish-benchmarks-and-goals" target="_self">established benchmarks</a>. You're bound to have made a few in-depth connections with community members. Now is the time to harness these connections, get to know people more deeply, and share their stories.</p>
<p class="p1">Stop what you're doing and send a few emails to schedule calls or Google Hangouts with users this week. You should keep doing this periodically or create an easy automated way for people to share stories in an ongoing</p>
<p class="p1">On these calls, ask your community members about their lives and why they do what they do and how you can help them. Don't just talk about your product or service. Invest your time in them as human beings. Ask them what they love and what ticks them off. With their permission, I highly suggest recording these conversations. Over a smartphone or in-person, I recommend an app called "<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.recordertheapp.com/" target="_blank">Recorder</a>". On the computer, there are a few plugins you can use to record your audio for later use (<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.evaer.com/" target="_blank">Evaer</a> for Skype is one I've used). <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.google.com/+/learnmore/hangouts/" target="_blank">Google Hangouts</a> lets you record things On Air, so that's a great option. Again, get their permission first.</p>
<p class="p1"><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1282035?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1282035?profile=original" width="600" class="align-center"></a>If you want to do something a bit more "scaleable," create a series of questions (say, 5 of 'em) and simply email them to 5-10 people and have them respond with their answers. This will create instant content. I like to ask for photos as well so I can include them with the content. It just makes the piece that much more personal. People are generally more than happy to provide one.</p>
<p class="p1">Once you have some stories to share, do a quick check to make sure you have plans for distribution of the stories. If you're lucky, you already have someone on your team working on these efforts or you walked into them already set up. But if you're just starting out, you may be a lone ranger. That's okay, just start simply with:</p>
<ol>
<li>Blog</li>
<li>E-mail newsletters + links to subscribe shared out</li>
<li>Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and/or any other social profiles that make sense for your community</li>
</ol>
<p class="p2">Now, write like you're going mad. Share the stories out in multiple ways. <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.vocus.com/blog/repackage-reuse-content-lead-gen/" target="_blank">Keep re-purposing your content and re-imagining it</a>. Write a blog post, but then also create presentations to post on Slideshare, upload it to Scribd, share it out on all your social profiles... there are so many ways to share and keep the stories alive.</p>
<p class="p2">Get your whole team in on the sharing and have them send out the stories to people they know on their social networks. Send it out to other online communities with similar purposes that you may be a part of. Just get that community out there.</p>
<p>These are the stories that will sell your community to others. This is community as a growth engine. Make it awesome. Make it accessible. Make your community members feel like they're part of something and that you care about their story. If you invest in them, they're much more likely to invest in you.</p></div>Organizing an Unruly Community: Establish Benchmarks with a Quick Surveyhttps://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/organizing-an-unruly-community-establish-benchmarks-and-goals2013-11-05T18:03:49.000Z2013-11-05T18:03:49.000ZCarrie Melissa Joneshttps://cultivate.ning.com/community/CarrieMelissaJones<div><p class="p1">Now that you've <a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/organizing-an-unruly-community-open-up-lines-of-communication" target="_self">opened up clear lines of communication</a> and <a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/organizing-an-unruly-community-lay-down-the-law-write-some-simple" target="_self">set up guidelines</a> for your community, it's time to synthesize some community feedback. This allows you to establish benchmarks for your community's current sentiment and makeup. This is something many community managers skip as they dive into a new community. Don't skip this. It's non-optional. If you don't know what people want, how are you going to create a forward-thinking strategy? </p>
<p class="p1">Once you have a benchmark, you can move forward with the fun stuff, like acting on their suggestions, instituting referral programs, telling their stories, creating ambassador programs, and so forth. But first you've got to figure out what you're dealing with.</p>
<p class="p1">This is much less daunting than it seems. I just go to SurveyMonkey (or use whatever tool you find best for surveys) and start a template.</p>
<p class="p1"><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1282025?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1282025?profile=original" width="600" class="align-center"></a></p>
<p class="p1">As you're benchmarking, you should have three clear goals:</p>
<ol>
<li>Establish a basic profile of your community members (geography, age, education, gender, profession)</li>
<li>Figure out why they're there and what keeps them coming back</li>
<li>Identify people with strong opinions and keep them in your back pocket for the future</li>
</ol>
<p class="p1">When designing the survey, <a rel="nofollow" href="http://community.uservoice.com/blog/avoid-annoying-customers-with-surveys-and-feedback/" target="_blank">keep the questions short, unbiased, and easy to understand</a>. It should take no more than 5 minutes to fill out.</p>
<p class="p1">After I've run these surveys once, I'll run them again periodically with new users. It gives me a good pulse on what we're doing well and what we need to re-visit. Also, see if you can get your product or customer service team to establish exit surveys <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.campaignmonitor.com/blog/post/3845/quick-redesign-improved-feedback" target="_blank">like the ones described here</a>. For communities closely tied to products, that information is key. </p>
<p class="p1">When you're just starting out, it's best to frame your questions around three key areas for benchmarking:</p>
<p class="p1"><strong>Establishing Community Makeup.</strong> This will help you to see the groups you should direct your outreach to as well as give you clues to their incentives. Ask about:</p>
<ol>
<li>Geographic information</li>
<li>University or other affiliation (varies by community. I run an educational community, so university/major/club is obvious.)</li>
<li>Education level, age range, etc.</li>
</ol>
<p class="p1"><strong>Establishing Sentiment and Motivation:</strong></p>
<ol>
<li>How satisfied are you with this community? (arrange this visually on a 5-point scale of extremely dissatisfied to extremely satisfied)</li>
<li>Have you referred anyone to our product/community? If so, how did you describe it? (I got this question directly from the mind of Dejana Bajic, <a href="http://community.uservoice.com/blog/net-promoter-alternative/" target="_blank">see more here</a>). </li>
<li>What are your primary reasons for coming to this community? (List some examples here such as "helping others", "love of the subject", or "acquiring points" and also add a blank space for them to add in their own motivations). </li>
</ol>
<p class="p1"><strong>Establishing future relationships</strong></p>
<ol>
<li>Can we follow up with you? </li>
<li>If so, how would you prefer to be contacted? List contact info here. </li>
<li>Which social media channels do you use daily?</li>
</ol>
<p class="p1">Send this out to everyone in an email campaign (SurveyMonkey integrates with it, how lovely!) or using mail merge. Include a quick note that makes the call to action (taking the survey) very clear. No need to offer compensation here, but do let people know that their feedback will be product-changing! If you find that your response rate is less than 5%, then you can consider making a giveaway or thinking of other incentives.</p>
<p class="p2">From there, you can break down the data, see how your community members view your product and see where you can improve. Follow up with people in a private discussion afterwards as well about some of the reoccurring things you've noticed. This is where Skype and Google Hangouts will come in handy. This is the beginning of some really great relationships and a path towards positivity and responsiveness rather than negativity and crisis. Enjoy the ride!</p></div>3 Hallmarks of an Excellent Modern Community Managerhttps://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/3-hallmarks-of-an-excellent-modern-community-manager2013-11-01T16:00:00.000Z2013-11-01T16:00:00.000ZAlethe Denishttps://cultivate.ning.com/community/AletheDenis<div><p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1282117?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1282117?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="260" class="align-right" style="padding: 10px;"></a>Community management can be tricky terrain to navigate. Whether you manage a community of slick talking sales professionals or manage complaints for an adult daycare, as it may seem some days, tailoring your approach to fit your community is essential. However, I have found that the core principles of managing a community are the same across all platforms and interests. For example, you can have ten different communities around Bonsai Trees and each will develop a different personality, and grow and develop at its own rate, through the same set of stages. By the same token, communities with varying interests and possibly even on totally separate platforms all require certain management skills and tactics that can be applied across the board.</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1282137?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1282137?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="280" class="align-left" style="padding: 10px;"></a>I’ve been an avid social media enthusiast since before anyone had even heard the term “Social Media”. Anyone remember <a rel="nofollow" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIRC" target="_blank">mIRC Chat</a>? Back in the 1990s, chat rooms were the only social medium that was readily available to the public. Bulletin boards were mostly professional and required you be a member of an organization or to be invited by a member. Being an Admin of a chat room was EASY. There was only one medium for communication and the majority of handles allowed for anonymity and therefore total freedom of text, without fear of repercussions. Additionally, admins only had three actions to consider: reply, ban, or ignore.</p>
<p>Today’s community managers have a bit more on their plates. You aren’t really managing a bunch of anonymous handles. You are managing, nurturing, and severing relationships. MySpace and Facebook launched the model for the modern communities we curate today. Communities where people can post a myriad of media types and where people generally use their real names and photos while interacting with people they know or meet online. In these modern communities everyone can find you, and your “likes” are even considered admissible in court as evidence.</p>
<p>Managing a few different types of communities, all at various stages of development, has taught me a great deal about people. Through my trials and tribulations I have discovered that three key elements are paramount to any community’s success. While they can be described simply as “work” for you, I believe that incorporating these three attributes into any community management strategy will result in marked improvement in engagement.</p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><strong>Consistency</strong></span></p>
<p>Consistency is King in all interactions with your community members. Like wrangling a bunch of grubby four year olds on the playground, you must wield your power fairly and enforce the rules equally, or you will suffer a barrage of mean spirited feedback. Make the rules clear, concise and indisputable. Your “Rules” or Terms of Use should also be readily available to all community members upon joining and anytime thereafter. <a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/list/tag/community+guidelines" target="_self">Once the guidelines are set</a>, follow them. If you start to play favorites or more harshly moderate certain individuals, regardless of your community type or platform, you will come under fire very quickly for not being “Fair.” Unfortunately, a response of “Life’s not Fair” won’t win you any fans either.</p>
<p></p>
<p><strong><span class="font-size-3">Availability</span><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1282163?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1282163?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="220" class="align-right" style="padding: 10px;"></a></strong></p>
<p>Your community doesn’t take a weekend, holiday, or mental health day. In fact, most communities for special interests will become <em>more</em> active outside of traditional working hours, when most people have time to interact and contribute. You should always be monitoring your community on a daily basis. I usually operate under the notion that if I am not sleeping, then I am available to my members. Customer Service is the most essential part of doing business. Your community may not be a retail store front, however you are offering a service to your members and with that comes the responsibility of supporting their needs and addressing their concerns as quickly as possible.</p>
<p>Some folks will need quite a bit more attention than others. In fact you may never hear from 80% of your community, regardless of if they have problems or not. Monitoring your community’s discussions for issues and community concerns is also an integral part of this support. You can’t rely on your members to let you know if there is a problem directly. I usually learn that there is a problem or situation from user discussions prior to anyone actually composing an email regarding the problem.</p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><strong>Value</strong></span></p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1282188?profile=RESIZE_320x320" target="_self" width="280"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1282188?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="300" class="align-right" style="padding: 10px;"></a></p>
<p>There are many, many places that your potential community members can go to learn about and discuss their cat figurine collections. For that reason it is vital that you have quality, valuable content available within your community. You can invite all the cat figurine authorities to join your community and write your little heart out but at the end of the day your members need to be able to find Value in joining and contributing to your community. Even with a new community it’s important to add quality content and interact with your members in a way that not only shows that you are educated on the subject of cat figurines but that you also enjoy the heck out of collecting them. Passion for your topic will attract others who are passionate and encourage them to interact with others in your community.</p>
<p>If you build great value within your community, as well as curate and promote the quality content of your members, the rest will follow. Gaining a lot of new members all at once won’t encourage growth and interaction in your community unless the value is already there. Encourage gradual growth instead, through the dispersing of valuable information and expert engagement. Your community is about interaction between members and the sharing of knowledge, as well as fostering personal sharing and building of relationships between members. Reach out to people who can lend their expertise to your community. Through their contributions, you will grow your credibility and entice new members to join, as well as increasing the participation of your current members.</p>
<p>Your community is not a pot of water that you are waiting to see boil. Instead it is a very delicate sauce, which needs constant attention and patience. It takes time and loads of energy to develop a truly fantastic and engaged community. Deliver Value, Be Available and Be Consistent and your efforts will be rewarded.</p>
<p><strong><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1282230?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1282230?profile=RESIZE_180x180" width="140" class="align-left" style="padding: 10px;"></a></strong></p>
<p></p>
<p><strong><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1282230?profile=original" target="_self"> </a></strong></p>
<p><strong>Alethe Denis</strong> is the Social Media Manager for <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.imagiclab.com" target="_blank">iMagicLab</a> and Community Manager of <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.dealer20.com" target="_blank">Dealer20</a> and <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.lifeclip.com" target="_blank">Lifeclip</a>. An early adopter of all things social media and future cat lady. Connect with her via <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/alethe" target="_blank">LinkedIn</a> or <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.twitter.com/Leafies42" target="_blank">Twitter</a></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>Organizing an Unruly Community: Lay Down the Law With Some Simple Guidelineshttps://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/organizing-an-unruly-community-lay-down-the-law-write-some-simple2013-10-29T16:50:24.000Z2013-10-29T16:50:24.000ZCarrie Melissa Joneshttps://cultivate.ning.com/community/CarrieMelissaJones<div><p class="p1">After you've had a chance to <a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/organizing-an-unruly-community-open-up-lines-of-communication" target="_self">establish yourself</a> as a trusty and reliable manager to your community, the next step is to lay down the law. Many products have terms of use, but those terms of use are very different than community guidelines. They're also not all that visible and people find them to be insulting and not the least bit user-friendly (who reads all that legal talk?). </p>
<p class="p1">There are a couple amazing posts, on Ning and otherwise, about the right way to create community guidelines, so I won't re-hash all of that here except to link you to a bunch of resources to get you started. See below for those links. Community guidelines are also very subjective and personal to the type of community, so keep in mind that these guidelines pertain to customer communities around a product or service. </p>
<p class="p1">However, I do want to make the following key point about creating community guidelines, which underlines why this is such an integral and important step in the process: <strong>These guidelines should stay true to your philosophy and the type of interaction you want to inspire in people.</strong> My personal take on guidelines is <em>if you give me more than 3 rules, I'm out</em>. So be cool about it and run it by your legal, marketing, and design departments. Then go live. </p>
<p class="p1"><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1282069?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1282069?profile=original" width="600" class="align-center"></a></p>
<p class="p2">For instance, start here with these three simple rules:</p>
<ol>
<li>
<blockquote>
No profanity, name-calling, or verbally attacking other members.
</blockquote></li>
<li>
<blockquote>
No customer service inquiries. For these inquiries, please contact xx@xx.com [your proper email here]. If you post a customer service-related question, we will kindly re-direct you once.
</blockquote></li>
<li>
<blockquote>
Product feedback must be constructive in nature. Complaints should be ways of opening up a discussion about how we can solve the issue rather than be offensive. You can complain here, but offering a suggestion for fixing the issue is always a better approach.
</blockquote></li>
</ol>
<p class="p1">And then I like to establish consequences for these actions. This is also vital as it gives you a clear roadmap of action you can take. Take the below example and tailor it as you see fit.</p>
<blockquote>
<p class="p1">Should you violate any of the above three rules, we will deal with the issue in this order.</p>
</blockquote>
<ol>
<li>
<blockquote>
<span style="font-size: 13px;">Private email warning detailing your offense and how to avoid future offenses.</span>
</blockquote></li>
<li>
<blockquote>
<span style="font-size: 13px;">After the first warning, we will remove any of your posts that violate this policy within 12 hours.</span>
</blockquote></li>
<li>
<blockquote>
<span style="font-size: 13px;">If this continues beyond 3 offenses, we will suspend your account from the community platform for 4 days.</span>
</blockquote></li>
<li>
<blockquote>
<span style="font-size: 13px;">If the offense continues, we will remove you from the community platform altogether (we hope this never happens!). </span>
</blockquote></li>
</ol>
<p class="p2">In general, I like to post these in a number of different places throughout the site, as well as in a special section on our blog so that they're visible to our customer community. If your users don't see these guidelines, that's a UX issue, which is on you, not them. You need to do a good job of educating people at the outset and they'll start to self-police in time. </p>
<p class="p1">Links to teach you how to write community guidelines:</p>
<ul>
<li>Ning: <a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/list/tag/community+guidelines" style="font-size: 13px;">http://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/list/tag/community+guidelines</a> </li>
<li>Ligaya Tichy, Musings of a Galvanizer: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.ligayatichy.com/1/post/2013/03/laying-down-the-law.html" style="font-size: 13px;">http://www.ligayatichy.com/1/post/2013/03/laying-down-the-law.html</a> </li>
</ul></div>Organizing an Unruly Community: Open up Lines of Communication from Community Manager to Customerhttps://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/organizing-an-unruly-community-open-up-lines-of-communication2013-10-22T16:00:00.000Z2013-10-22T16:00:00.000ZCarrie Melissa Joneshttps://cultivate.ning.com/community/CarrieMelissaJones<div><p>In this 5-part series, Carrie explains how to take your community from unruly to organized, positioning you for scalability and growth. You can find the <a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/organizing-an-unruly-community-a-5-step-series" target="_self">full introduction here</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Step 1: Create a clear line of communication from yourself to the community.</strong></p>
<p>The first step is surprisingly simple. If you're managing an unruly community, the very first thing you need to do is throw people clear communication channels. This can be scary and unpredictable, but it is necessary.</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1282047?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1282047?profile=original" width="457" class="align-center"></a><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1282076?profile=original" target="_self"><br></a> Here’s a great way to get started:</p>
<ol>
<li>Send out individual emails to all current users. Use a program like Mailchimp or Constant Contact to monitor response rates and open rates. Follow up with those who don’t open the email. Before sending, get input from your design team (if applicable) and product team in order to make sure you're all on the same page about messaging. It's best to throw in your picture so they know you’re a real person and give them several ways of reaching you (Twitter, G+, email).</li>
<li>For community members who have been sending out angry messages, write a special (super short!) note in addition to that email. Tell them how important their input is. Whatever they request, make it happen if you can or make sure they know you're advocating for them higher up if you can't.</li>
<li>Create a platform for people to talk to one another. Involve your product, engineering, business, and any other relevant teams in this discussion. Take some time to think about where your community is most likely to feel comfortable and start there. Choose a platform that's free or cheap so you can transfer if necessary or integrate into your product later. This is a pilot. Ning, Mightybell, Google+, and Facebook are all great starting points.</li>
<li>Continue outreach on a regular basis via email or private message as well as the platform to the following groups of people: newcomers, anyone who has commented and started a good discussion, anyone with customer service issues, and anyone with product feature suggestions.</li>
</ol>
<p>Now wait for the responses. Dedicate yourself to replying to each one at some point in the day or funneling them to the right people (preferably after lunch so your blood sugar is up). Once you've established a relationship, funnel future queries to the community itself and have people send their questions to the community platform. That will release you from answering a bevy of emails and allow the community to gather together and help one another. Choose a few people who are positive and encourage them to take care of others. Send swag if you must!</p>
<p></p></div>Organizing an Unruly Community: A 5-Step Serieshttps://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/organizing-an-unruly-community-a-5-step-series2013-10-15T16:00:00.000Z2013-10-15T16:00:00.000ZCarrie Melissa Joneshttps://cultivate.ning.com/community/CarrieMelissaJones<div><p>Today, I'm starting a series about organizing an active community that's never before been managed. This situation is growing more common, since many companies with successful products realize late in the game that they need someone onboard to organize the (messy, disorganized, broken) communities that have grown as a result. If you’re just starting out, there is hope.</p>
<p>I'm here to answer the question: Where do you begin when you're tasked with something so overwhelming? You have so many questions and yet you have very little time to ask them. </p>
<p>I’ve been there. I picked up the never-before-managed expert academic communities for Chegg’s homework help products. It's been an interesting road. But I’m now successfully through the crisis stage and onwards on a journey toward community unity and awesomeness.</p>
<p>Your users may be angry, they may be frustrated, or they may be breaking rules that don't even exist yet. It's tempting to jump in and start responding right off the bat. Instead, you should arrive with an action plan.</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1282005?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1282005?profile=original" width="600" class="align-center"></a></p>
<p>This will be a five-part series, organized in the following steps that you should take if you're facing too many roads to travel down all of them at once:</p>
<ol>
<li>Create a clear line of communication from yourself to the community. </li>
<li>Create rules and guidelines. Distribute them widely.</li>
<li>Survey the current community for sentiment to get a sense of what motivates them to leave or keep coming back. Institute end surveys for people who decide to leave.</li>
<li>Pick out the positive examples in your community and tell their stories a bunch of different ways and through a bunch of different channels.</li>
<li>Create long-term strategy, outreach, and content efforts for the community. Begin to tell the community's history. Make it badass.</li>
</ol>
<p>Now, before you begin this journey, take a moment to breathe and remind yourself that each person you help is a victory. Make your users feel amazing and you will reap the rewards. Don't let the detractors get you down. </p>
<p>Take another moment to be thankful. If your company has created products that are engaging enough to build an organic community, that's a very good sign that you're working on something worthwhile.</p>
<p>And, finally, after you're done deep breathing and being thankful, decide today what success will look like for you in your new role. So many community managers skip this step and end up working tirelessly toward some nebulous endpoint that never presents itself. Instead, decide now what you will see as a success at the end of the week, in one month, and in six months: a specific growth goal, a specific number of replies sent, a specific number of engaged comments. Take things from there so you have a concrete goal to work toward.</p>
<p>Now go out and wow 'em. </p></div>Measuring An Online Community: Master Your Data to Gain an Unfair Advantagehttps://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/measuring-an-online-community-master-your-data-to-gain-an-unfair-2013-10-04T13:20:00.000Z2013-10-04T13:20:00.000ZRichard Millingtonhttps://cultivate.ning.com/community/RichardMillington<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2208290?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=400"></div><div><p>You have a truly remarkable advantage over offline community builders. You can track every single action your audience makes. You should know exactly what stage they are at in the membership life cycle process and which stages need to be optimized.</p>
<p>I'm always amazed by the number of organizations and community managers who have either:</p>
<ul>
<li>a) No strategy for the community beyond maintenance; or</li>
<li>b) A strategy built upon guesswork and assumptions when the data is so close at hand.</li>
</ul>
<p>You shouldn't be guessing what is or isn't working in a community. You should be religiously gathering and analyzing what the data. You should measure the following:</p>
<ul>
<li><b>New visitors</b>. This shows whether your outreach is successful. Always compare it to the previous month and six months ago. You should also analyze where these visitors arrived from and track how many of each progressed into active members. You can also track the success of each different source of members (where does the best quality traffic come from?)</li>
<li><b>New visitors to new registered members</b>. This shows whether your website is optimized for converting a curious visitor into a member and whether you're attracting the right sort of visitors. You can go further and measure their progress through each stage of the registration form.</li>
<li><b>Percentage of members who make a contribution</b>. This shows whether you are converting those that register into participants within the community. If this is low, you might be just collecting lurkers.</li>
<li><b>Members active within the past 30 days</b>. This shows whether you are gaining or losing active members. When this number starts to drop, you have a serious problem and a limited amount of time to correct course.</li>
<li><b>Contributions per active member per month</b>. This is an activity per member ratio. If this drops, members are less engaged in the community and this could lead to more members leaving. This might also show if a small number of members are dominating the discussions.</li>
<li><b>Visits per active member per month</b>. This shows how often members visit the community. The less frequently members visit, the more likely the contributions will drop and the number of active members will depart. This may also show the popularity of events held in the community.</li>
<li><b>Content popularity</b>. Each piece of content can and should be measured. How many people read it and how many responded to it. This will indicate which content items are most popular and which should be discontinued.</li>
</ul>
<p>You should also use <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.feverbee.com/2008/10/measuring-diy.html">sampling</a> to understand the following:</p>
<ul>
<li><b>What percentage of newcomers remain members for more than a month</b>. Select 10 newcomers from three months ago and analyze their journey through the community and specifically where they dropped out of the process. Did they make a contribution? Did they not make a second contribution? You can adjust and tweak your community for this.</li>
<li><b>Speed of replies to discussions</b>. How quickly are discussions receiving a reply? The faster the responses, the higher the level of social presence within the community and the greater the level of participation.</li>
<li><b>The percentage of newcomers who initiate a discussion</b>. This highlights whether newcomers may be unmotivated or intimidated to start discussions.</li>
<li><b>Language and tone of voice</b>. What language do members adopt when they address each other? Is it formal and polite? Is there friendly banter? Is there a sense of familiarity? This will let you know what <a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/list/tag/community+lifecycle" target="_self">stage the community is in</a>.</li>
<li><b>Sense of community</b>. Ask members every year to participate in your specially modified version of the <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.communityscience.com/pdfs/Sense%20of%20Community%20Index-2(SCI-2).pdf">sense of community index</a>.</li>
<li><b>Number of volunteers</b>. This will indicate the number of people moving on to the highest levels of engagement within the community. Low numbers usually limit the scalability of the community.</li>
</ul>
<p>Each piece of data will tell a story. If the number of active members is decreasing but the level of contributions continues to rise, it might indicate a core group is dominating discussions and other members are unable to break into the circle. As a result you might provide core members with a separate place to chat, or work to break newcomers into the group or talk directly to group members about the problem. </p>
<p>Create a spreadsheet and a graph showing all this data. Update this monthly. Watch for numbers that dip and take a corrective course of action. </p>
<p>When you gather data you can set objectives, strategy and targets for each of the areas of community management (growth, moderation, relationships, activities, content etc...). </p>
<p>In practice, if you notice the number of volunteers has dropped, you can set a relationships strategy to focus on fewer bring and offer opportunities to be involved in areas of the community they are passionate about. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>(<i>Image: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/aussiegall/286709039/">Measuring time</a>, a Creative Commons <a rel="nofollow" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en">Attribution (2.0)</a> image from aussiegall's photostream</i>)</p>
</div>How to Optimize Your Social Media Strategy to Gain More Followershttps://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/how-to-optimize-your-social-media-strategy-to-gain-more-followers2013-09-23T12:20:00.000Z2013-09-23T12:20:00.000ZGuest Contributorhttps://cultivate.ning.com/community/GuestContributor<div><p><em>Rob Mitchell is a social media strategist and writer who discusses tips for business, technology, and finance.</em></p>
<p>It's no secret that social media can be used for more than just sharing photos and funny status updates. In the business world, it represents a great way to improve your online reputation and increase exposure to your brand and website. However, as with all things social media, there is a right and wrong way to do it. If you're just starting out with your <a href="http://www.moneycrashers.com/social-media-marketing-sites-business/" target="_self">social media marketing strategy</a>, or if you're looking to revamp your current plan for better results, consider the following tips to boost your profile and generate new followers and likes.</p>
<p><strong>1. Maintain a Sharp Focus on Content</strong><br />
Having a presence on Facebook and Twitter is great, but if your content is not up to par, all your efforts can be a waste of time. Consider offering longer posts for Facebook, and whip up quick tidbits of information for Twitter. Make your content creative and engaging, but keep it brief. Try to give your readers tips and advice that they won't be able to find anywhere else. Draw on your own experiences and include relevant statistics when appropriate.</p>
<p><strong>2. Try Out the New Guys</strong><br />
Pinterest, Google Plus, Instagram, and even Vine are all now valid social media players. Investigate them all and try some of them out. You never know where you're going to gain your next social media stronghold.</p>
<p><strong>3. Gauge Your Performance</strong><br />
If you're not tracking your performance, you won't know if your efforts are getting you anywhere. Implement Google Analytics and take a look at where your followers are coming from. You may find that it's not worth it to maintain a presence on some sites. Review and adjust your strategy based on that data.</p>
<p><strong>4. Create an Interactive Experience</strong><br />
Social media by definition has an interactive aspect to it - don't miss out on this key point. Post polls or ask for votes and opinions. You may even want to consider hosting timely <a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/do-you-tweet-chat" target="_self">TweetChats</a>, online virtual discussions held on Twitter. You moderate the discussion and lead your participants through the chat. It's a great way to find out how your efforts are perceived and what kinds of new content your followers may be looking for in the future.</p>
<p><strong>5. Don't Automate</strong><br />
Automation does have its place in social media in terms of scheduling when your posts and tweets go out, but it's not wise to rely on it too heavily. Twitter users who spam their readers with constant, mindless content run the risk of getting "un-followed" because they clog up users' news feeds. Use automation only to the extent that it saves you time – do not use it to overwhelm your followers.</p>
<p><strong>6. Listen</strong><br />
You can learn a lot about your followers and uncover ways to gain more of them simply by listening to what they are saying. Monitor your accounts regularly (or assign someone to do so) and be sure all comments receive a response. Even if you just thank someone for commenting, your reader is going to know that you care and that you're listening. If you receive any negative commentary, take it to heart and acknowledge that the comment was received and is being evaluated. If it's valid, put measures in place to ensure the mistake doesn't happen again. Social media is a broad undertaking, but if you devote the time to building relationships with your readers, your business is sure to gain traction.</p>
<p><strong>Closing Thoughts</strong><br />
Social media is the way to go for marketing your small business, so it's important to get it right. If you don't think you have the necessary time to devote to your strategy, consider hiring an expert. Search <a href="http://www.guru.com/">Guru</a> or <a href="https://www.elance.com/">Elance</a> for qualified social media freelancers and you can save yourself the cost of a full-time employee. Social media marketing done the right way takes a lot of time and effort, so you have to be savvy enough to know when it's time to ask for help.</p>
<p>What are you doing to improve your social media presence?</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>Professional Community Course by FeverBee Now Availablehttps://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/professional-community-course-by-feverbee-now-available2013-08-13T23:45:17.000Z2013-08-13T23:45:17.000ZAaronhttps://cultivate.ning.com/community/Aaron<div><p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281897?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281897?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="250" class="align-right"></a><br> <span class="font-size-3">We're excited to announce a free course for Ning Network Creators developed in collaboration with FeverBee, a top community management consultancy. In the course, you'll learn the skills, knowledge, and resources to build a thriving community.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">This self-paced course, which contains 10 lessons, covers the objectives of a community, understanding your audience, recruiting your first members, creating thriving discussions, developing content and facilitating exciting events. At the end of each lesson, you'll find a list of specific action points. These are elements that you can directly apply to your community efforts.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">We're really excited about the addition of this resource for Ning Network Creators. Ning prides itself on being the home for social innovators who want to create online communities of people with similar interests or passions. We make it easy to get your community up and running quickly. The FeverBee Community Management Course for Ning will help you along the next steps: finding people who will love your community, building a welcome plan designed to turn new members into regulars, finding and creating content that will engage your community, and nurturing the relationships that make things happen in your community. </span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">With lessons, templates, actionable elements, and other resources, the amount of information and guidance you'll receive from this course is invaluable - and it's all free to Ning customers. We're rolling out access slowly and Ning 3.0 customers will get the first crack at it to help build their newly created communities. If you're a Ning 3.0 customer, check your email for a message from us with your enrollment key and follow the access instructions below:</span></p>
<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td valign="middle" class="td1"> <p class="p2"></p>
<ol class="ol1">
<li class="li3"><span class="font-size-3">Go to <a href="http://students.feverbee.com/login/signup.php" target="_self">this page</a>.</span></li>
<li class="li3"><span class="font-size-3">Complete the required fields, then click <i>Create my new account</i>.</span></li>
<li class="li3"><span class="font-size-3">Once you have received the confirmation email, click on the link to confirm your new account.</span></li>
<li class="li3"><span class="font-size-3">This will take you back to the Student site. Once here, select the module FeverBee training for Ning Customers.</span></li>
</ol> </td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table></div>