Featured Posts - Cultivating Community2024-03-29T12:08:10Zhttps://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/feed/featuredCommunity Spotlight: The Peace and Collaborative Development Network, a Community for Goodhttps://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/community-spotlight-pcdn2013-10-14T16:00:00.000Z2013-10-14T16:00:00.000ZCrystalhttps://cultivate.ning.com/community/CrystalC<div><p class="p1">Take thousands of people all over the world devoted to peacebuilding and international collaboration, put them together in a community and what do you get? The <a href="http://www.internationalpeaceandconflict.org/" target="_blank">Peace and Collborative Development Network</a> (PCDN). Founded by Dr. Craig Zelizer in 2007, PCDN has been uniting both job seekers and esteemed professionals in social development fields to help make the world a better place. With a robust selection of resources and a self-maintained advertising program, PCDN is leading the way in its field. Dr. Zelizer took some time to speak with us about where the network has been and where it's going. </p>
<p class="p1"><b><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281968?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281968?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="183" class="align-right"></a>Tell us a bit about the Peace and Collaborative Development Network.</b></p>
<p class="p2">The Peace and Collaborative Development Network (PCDN) is the leading online global community of individuals and organizations working in peacebuilding, international development, and related fields. PCDN has over 30,000 registered members, over 300,000 hits per month, and 100,000 unique visitors. The PCDN membership is composed of individuals and organizations from around the world dedicated to a wide range of social change fields including peacebuiding, international development, humanitarian relief, and social entrepreneurship. Further, respected leaders in the peacebuilding field, who have more than two decades of applied experience in the nonprofit, consulting, and academic sectors, founded PCDN. </p>
<p class="p2"><b>What was your biggest challenge in starting your community?</b></p>
<p class="p2">I have been doing online networking sites and similar listservs for over 15 years. I had always been seeking a platform such as Ning, as I tried many other companies and services (including hiring IT companies to do customized sites) and none were able to deliver a truly interactive, peer-networking platform. When I found Ning in 2007, I was delighted as it was the first time I saw a software platform that had the key features I wanted, was easy to use, affordable, was constantly adding new tools and innovations, and that truly cared about the community of network creators.</p>
<p class="p2">The biggest challenge I find is taking the time to create the solid content that will attract current and new members to constantly visit the PCDN platform. I made a central decision to create high quality content that would serve as a central resource for anyone in the field and to have content be the way to attract members and advertisers. It took a long time to reach a critical mass where PCDN achieved enough visibility and traffic that others started contributing their own meaningful content. In particular, we have created over 50 resources guides about different aspects of our field that have attracted thousands upon thousands of visitors. These guides include the best Meta job list and guide to careers, one on scholarships, and others on research and sectoral practice areas. We are continually adding new guides and this has become a key way to attract members. In addition, we also have thousands of blogs, forums, videos, photos, etc. </p>
<p class="p2">The other main challenge is finding the time to invest in building the network. As PCDN's revenue has slowly grown we have been able to hire our first employee (currently part/time but hopefully soon to be full time) and maybe another part-time person. This is providing the team that we need to truly scale up PCDN. Eventually we hope to reach 3-5 staff people.</p>
<p class="p1"><b>What are some of your favorite stories or testimonials from community members?</b></p>
<p class="p1"><b><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281990?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281990?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="600" class="align-center"></a></b></p>
<p class="p1">We have countless testimonials and regularly solicit the community for feedback about what they like, what has been the impact of the network on their lives/organizations, and suggestions for what to improve.</p>
<p class="p1">In terms of concrete feedback, we have created several sections on the site with feedback. One is directed more at <a href="http://www.internationalpeaceandconflict.org/page/advertise#.UlbvOGRgZsJ" target="_blank">advertisers</a> and has metrics from organizations that have advertised on PCDN. It is critical for us to have concrete metrics about the impact of advertising on PCDN and we are able to demonstrate that advertisers experience an increase in traffic that has ranged between 10 and 200% (the average is close to 25%).</p>
<p class="p1">In terms of members, I still do a lot of training and traveling around the world. One of my favorite experiences is that almost anywhere I go in the world to do work in peacebuilding (for example in Jordan or Italy where I have been the past year) I run into people who say PCDN has had the most incredible impact on their lives. It has helped countless individuals obtain scholarships, jobs, stay networked, stay informed about events and trends in the field, and much more.</p>
<p class="p1"><b>Your network serves as a resource for academics, NGO organizers, job seekers, students, researchers, and more. How do you cater to the needs of these different audiences?</b></p>
<p class="p1">This is a challenge, but we do try to provide content relevant to all groups and I think have succeeded fairly well. We have developed resource guides for both individuals and organizations. We have conducted almost 30 interviews for the network with leading practitioners and scholars from around the world and try to vary who we seek to be of interest to as a diverse audience as possible.<b> </b></p>
<p class="p1"><b>You’ve successfully leveraged advertising on your network, pulling in some big advertisers. How did you develop your advertising program and specifications?</b></p>
<p class="p1">This has been a long, long process. For many years I ran PCDN as a volunteer effort. As it grew, I started using Google ads, which provided some revenue to help cover costs. Starting about a year and half ago, we decided to run our own advertising options and invested countless hours in researching the competition, developing a professionally designed media kit, developing a customer relationship management database, and determining realistic rates that could provide sufficient revenue to help us grow.</p>
<p class="p1">Most importantly, everyone on the PCDN team is involved in peacebuilding and development. For example, I have more than two decades of experience that has helped in several ways. We have an incredible commitment to the field and for us this is a passion. We already have strong networks and contacts. We are committed to helping our clients succeed. For us it is not about a transaction but working with clients to understand their goals, what has been working for them, and how PCDN can help them increase their reach. </p>
<p><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1282022?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="600" class="align-center"></p>
<p class="p1">This often means countless hours communicating with clients, giving them feedback on draft ideas, tweaking ads as they run to improve the metrics, and providing constant support throughout the advertising lifecycle. It's a sign we are performing well (of course there is always room to improve) when we have had many clients test us out for a month or two and then become longer-term clients.</p>
<p class="p1">I really do enjoy reaching out to potential clients, but it key that we see this as something we enjoy and not as a job. Of course we have a long way to go to increase our revenue stream from advertising to the level we would like to achieve with PCDN.</p>
<p class="p1">We also have been very fortunate to have some partners in this effort, such as working with Global Tolerance, a leading communications firm that is committed to communications with a conscience and an amazing graphic designer.</p>
<p class="p1"><b>You're a Retweeting machine on <a href="https://twitter.com/pcdnetwork" target="_blank">Twitter</a>… how do you find such great content to share and have any interesting partnerships come of it?</b></p>
<p class="p1">I think the most important result from being active on Twitter is that people have come to see PCDN as the go to resource. I have made some great professional connections on PCDN that has benefited our community.</p>
<p class="p1"><b>What aspect of your Ning Network has proved most valuable to your community?</b></p>
<p class="p1">I think three things.</p>
<p class="p1">First, the resource guides.</p>
<p class="p1">Second, the members, as they are a global community from nearly every country in the world who are all committed to affecting positive social change in the world, often amidst the most challenging circumstances.</p>
<p class="p1">Third is finding ways to promote direct member interaction. This is an area we are trying to improve by starting webinars and other live online (and we hope soon in person events).</p>
<p class="p1"><b>On the design side, do you give much thought to the user experience or have any design-minded people to help with it?</b></p>
<p class="p1"><b><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1282042?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1282042?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="500" class="align-center"></a></b></p>
<p class="p1">We have done some tweaking to the site and also had our graphic designer do our logo (which people love). I do get complaints sometimes from members that our site may be too busy and this is something we are starting to explore as we upgrade to Ning 3.0 about how to possibly simplify our home page and improve our visuals. We also need to put more thought into being mobile responsive.</p>
<p class="p1"><b>What’s the most surprising thing you’ve learned from your community?</b></p>
<p class="p1">That is a great question and a hard one to answer. I think the main thing is how committed people have become to PCDN over the past six years (and we hope for many more years into the future). We probably need to think about creating some PCDN branded items such as shirts or hats. </p>
<p class="p1"><b>What’s the best piece of advice you have for someone looking to start an online community?</b></p>
<p class="p1">The number one piece of advice is pick an area that you have a strong passion for as building an online community can be tremendous fun, but also at times a long slog dealing with the minute details. Also be sure that you're not reinventing what is already being done and try to find a strong niche area for your network. And of course considering using Ning as we have found it to be a wonderful platform for our community and looking forward to using Ning 3.0. </p>
<p class="p1">Thanks so much, Craig, and we can't wait to see how the Peace and Collaborative Development Network looks when you switch over to Ning 3.0!</p></div>Infographic: The Value of Community Managementhttps://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/infographic-the-value-of-community-management2013-09-12T14:40:00.000Z2013-09-12T14:40:00.000ZAllison Leahyhttps://cultivate.ning.com/community/allisonleahy<div><p><span class="font-size-3">In the interest of distilling the most popular takeaways and key data points from this year's <a href="http://www.communityroundtable.com/research/the-state-of-community-management/the-state-of-community-management-2013/" target="_self">State of Community Management: The Value of Community Management report</a> (2013 SOCM), Ning partnered with The Community Roundtable to produce a three part infographic that includes a profile of the average community manager, information on the central role of community managers, and community engagement standards.</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="font-size-3">The 2013 SOCM builds on previous qualitative research, like 2012's <a href="http://www.communityroundtable.com/research/the-state-of-community-management/the-state-of-community-management-2012/">Lessons from Community and Social Business Leaders</a>, to offer a quantitative look at how community management functions within organizations and the value to expect from those efforts over time. Information was aggregated from over 100 survey participants, <a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/the-2013-state-of-community-management-survey-participate-and-be-">myself included</a>, who answered questions relating to organizational demographics, community programs, funding, community management practices, and community demographics. The goal of the research was to characterize and describe the value of business communities and report on how community management impacts their success. It was a major undertaking with incredible results. And the response from the social business community has been overwhelming to boot. The 2013 SOCM has been written up by <a href="http://www.socialfish.org/2013/06/2013-state-of-community-management-report-stresses-importance-of-community-managers.html">Social Fish</a>, <a href="http://dachisgroup.com/2013/09/todays-community-manager-skills/">Dachis Group</a>, <a href="http://jeffesposito.com/2013/06/19/five-takeaways-from-state-of-community-management-report-2/">Jeff Esposito</a>, <a href="http://blogs.salesforce.com/company/2013/07/invest-in-community-management.html">Maria Ogneva</a>, and <a href="http://company.socialstrata.com/blog/2013-state-of-community-management-report">Rosemary O'Neill</a> to name a few.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">We had the pleasure of collaborating with Maggie Tunning, Rachel Happe, Leanne Chase, and TheCR Network's rockstar <a href="http://www.communityroundtable.com/about/reserach-innovation-and-the-2013-state-of-community-management-advisory-board/" target="_blank" style="font-size: 12pt;">research innovation and management team</a> who dug deep into the data so we didn't have to. Without their efforts, how would we know that 22% of organizations outsource at least some community management duties, or that when hiring a community manager, soft skills are valued over technical skills? We wouldn't. And these are important learnings in a fast-evolving social business landscape where more and more companies are investing in online communities. </span></p>
<blockquote>
<p><span class="font-size-3"> Infographic: The central role, responsibilities and value of a community manager. <a href="http://clicktotweet.com/c92P9" target="_blank"><font color="#75AF42"><click to tweet></font></a></span></p>
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<p><span class="s1"> </span></p>
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<p><a href="http://www.communityroundtable.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/SOCM-2013-Infographic-final.pdf" target="_blank"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1282175?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="750" class="align-center"></a></p>
<p><span class="s1"> </span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">Special thanks go out to Ning and Glam Media's very own Crystal Coleman, Jean Hsuehz, Vic Zaud, and Sheena Yang for the ideation, design and execution of this <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%232013socm&src=typd" target="_blank">#2013SOCM</a> infographic. </span></p>
<p> </p></div>Are Comments Bad for Science?https://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/are-comments-bad-for-science2013-09-26T18:40:04.000Z2013-09-26T18:40:04.000ZAllison Leahyhttps://cultivate.ning.com/community/allisonleahy<div><p><em>Popular Science</em> recently declared that it is <a href="http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-09/why-were-shutting-our-comments" target="_blank">shutting off comments</a> because "comments can be bad for science." The logic driving this decision is that less informed, quick-to-react readers may dominate the discussion and lead others astray. "Even a fractious minority wields enough power to skew a reader's perception of a story," states <em>Popular Science</em>'s Online Editor Suzanne LaBarre. The claim is supported by Dominique Brossard's <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jcc4.12009/full" target="_blank">study</a> on how reader perceptions about science are affected by online comments: </p>
<div class="para">
<blockquote>
<p>The Internet has the potential to foster discussion and deliberation among far-reaching audiences in spaces such as the comments section of news items and blog posts. However, such discussions are not always rational. Discussions on the Internet can take an uncivil route, with offensive comments or replies impeding the democratic ideal of healthy, heated discussion (Papacharissi, <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jcc4.12009/full#jcc412009-bib-0033" rel="references:#jcc412009-bib-0033" class="referenceLink" title="Link to bibliographic citation" shape="rect">2004</a>; Shils, <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jcc4.12009/full#jcc412009-bib-0045" rel="references:#jcc412009-bib-0045" class="referenceLink" title="Link to bibliographic citation" shape="rect">1992</a>).</p>
</blockquote>
</div>
<div class="para">
<blockquote>
<p>The question remains as to whether online incivility affects the opinions of “lurkers,” or people who read online discussions without participating in them. Smith and his colleagues (<a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jcc4.12009/full#jcc412009-bib-0049" rel="references:#jcc412009-bib-0049" class="referenceLink" title="Link to bibliographic citation" shape="rect">2009</a>) argue that lurkers are in fact participating in deliberation when reading others' comments because a large part of rational discussion consists of reflecting on others' opinions, which may or may not coincide with lurkers' own opinions. In other words, audiences reading uncivil language in blog comments may find the messages hostile and make judgments about the issue based on their own preexisting values rather than on the information at hand. This may develop polarized perceptions on issues among different audience segments that hold different values.</p>
</blockquote>
</div>
<div class="para">
<p>While a few of Brossard's hypotheses were debunked by the study, she did discover that reader's perceptions towards science are shaped in the online blog setting not only by top-down information, but by civil or uncivil viewpoints, as well. </p>
<p>Most community managers are aware of the <a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/influencing-community-members-video" target="_self">power of influence</a>. Couldn't these same principles of social influence be applied by moderators to encourage proactive, meaningful conversation? And where these efforts fail, PopSci moderators could block or remove detractors. While the Internet opens doors for public deliberation of emerging concepts and technologies, it also gives a new voice to non-expert, and sometimes rude, individuals. But this is the beauty of the Internet, no?</p>
<p>Instead of removing the opportunity to debate and add context to a thought-provoking scientific article, I would have liked to see PopSci either go the community management route and/or replace open comments with a click-to-load commenting system. At least this way casual readers could absorb the content and move on without noticing or engaging with the comments. The community would remain whole.</p>
</div>
<p>PopSci invites us to voice our opinions and commentary on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Pinterest, and via email, but surely they understand the <a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/facebook-vs-a-custom-community-quantity-vs-quality" target="_self">limitations of these mediums</a>?</p>
<p>How do you think this decision will impact readership? Will more websites follow <em>Popular Science's </em>lead and remove commenting?</p>
<p></p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/JimNX74205">@JimNX74205</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/PopSci">@PopSci</a> Interaction with the readers is important. This isn't the best solution. Make them sign in, maintain a profile instead</p>
— Selemir (@DS_Scriggler) <a href="https://twitter.com/DS_Scriggler/statuses/382556615926231040">September 24, 2013</a></blockquote>
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<p>Those who think <a href="https://twitter.com/PopSci">@PopSci</a> shutting off comments is insane have clearly never written about, oh, climate change for <a href="https://twitter.com/PopSci">@PopSci</a></p>
— Seth Fletcher (@seth_fletcher) <a href="https://twitter.com/seth_fletcher/statuses/382574767426924545">September 24, 2013</a></blockquote>
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<p><a href="https://twitter.com/PopSci">@PopSci</a> FWIW, I approve. Conversation about science is better when we don't have to keep stopping to defend scientific inquiry.</p>
— Erica Friedman (@Yuricon) <a href="https://twitter.com/Yuricon/statuses/382568234429337600">September 24, 2013</a></blockquote>
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<p>A sad repercussion of loss of civility and polarizing comments online-Why We're Shutting Off Our Comments <a href="http://t.co/DiWDGdrjya">http://t.co/DiWDGdrjya</a> via <a href="https://twitter.com/PopSci">@popsci</a></p>
— Laura Damschroder (@schrodster33) <a href="https://twitter.com/schrodster33/statuses/383321746964635648">September 26, 2013</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p>The ubiquitous, vocal and ignorant minority will think it's won. "Why We're Shutting Off Our Comments" <a href="http://t.co/n9vlm6L1av">http://t.co/n9vlm6L1av</a> via <a href="https://twitter.com/PopSci">@popsci</a></p>
— Maya H. (@mambolica) <a href="https://twitter.com/mambolica/statuses/383305885465862144">September 26, 2013</a></blockquote>
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</div>The Online Community Lifecycle [Video]https://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/the-online-community-lifecycle-video2013-08-29T23:29:06.000Z2013-08-29T23:29:06.000ZAllison Leahyhttps://cultivate.ning.com/community/allisonleahy<div><p><span class="font-size-3">Over the past few decades, the concept of an online community lifecycle has been developed by academics and refined by practitioners, but there still isn’t a single agreed upon lifecycle. Some focus heavily on the launch period and others are not associated with any metrics. This is what prompted FeverBee to dig into the subject and redefine <a href="http://course.feverbee.com/lifecycle20.png" target="_blank">The Online Community Lifecycle</a> based upon initial research by <a href="http://isl.cgu.edu/publicationpdf/16_ACM_CSUR_2006-0042_Online_Communities_Iriberri_and_Leroy_temp_online.pdf" target="_blank">Leroy and Irriberi</a> and their own experience. The result is an lifecycle that can be recognized as a progression through four phases: <a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/the-online-community-lifecycle-stage-one-inception" target="_self">inception</a>, <a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/the-online-community-lifecycle-stage-two-establishment" target="_self">establishment</a>, <a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/the-online-community-lifecycle-stage-three-maturity" target="_self">maturity</a>, and <a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/the-online-community-lifecycle-stage-four-mitosis" target="_self">mitosis</a>. Tied to each phase of the lifecycle is an objective, specific tasks, and data-based indicators of development. Watch the recording of Richard Millington's presentation below to learn more.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/LGspJjUUWvE?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">Online communities develop along a relatively fixed path. They start small and steadily grow larger, and they have different needs at each of these various stages. If you've watched the video, you now know how to measure the progress of a community and use those measurements to identify what you should be doing in your community. Your goal, and the goal of every community manager, is to <i>progress your community through the lifecycle</i>. If you achieve this, you maximize what your community can be, the benefit it brings to your organization, and the benefits that members gain from the community. </span></p>
<ul>
<li><span class="font-size-3">What phase of the community lifecycle is your community in?</span></li>
<li><span class="font-size-3">What activities do you prioritize, and have these priorities shifted over time?</span></li>
<li><span class="font-size-3">Does The Online Community Lifecycle align with your understanding and experience? Is there anything you would add?</span></li>
</ul>
<p><span class="font-size-3">Join the discussion over on the <a href="http://creators.ning.com/forum/topics/the-community-lifecycle-the-discussion" target="_blank">Ning Creators network</a> or share your response as a comment below.</span></p>
<p></p>
</div>Unpopular Communitieshttps://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/unpopular-communities2013-08-23T19:13:13.000Z2013-08-23T19:13:13.000ZCrystalhttps://cultivate.ning.com/community/CrystalC<div><p>Everyone wants to be liked. But maybe being liked by everyone isn't the best thing for your community. </p>
<p>I recently read "The Power of Unpopular" by <a href="http://erikanapoletano.com/blog/" target="_blank">Erika Napoletano</a>, the no holds barred brand strategist who makes a splash in the marketing world with her frank, uncensored advice. While the advice in her book is primarily aimed at brands and companies, I found that much of the wisdom could easily be applied to online community. Here are my favorite takeaways for cultivating an "unpopular" community:</p>
<h3>Get in the pool with the haters.</h3>
<p>In customer support communities, a large amount of negativity is common. Many companies are hesitant to start a community or even cultivate one through social media in fear of this backlash. Erika thinks they're making a big mistake. "You screwed up, here's why" can be the best kind of customer feedback. <em>Even a person who's upset clearly has a lot of passion about your company</em> - if they didn't, they wouldn't bother joining/commenting/emailing, etc. The same goes for any community that encounters an upset member. The key is in figuring out what people are asking for in between their need to blow off steam.</p>
<div>
<img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281954?profile=original" width="500" class="align-center">
<h3>What's your story?</h3>
</div>
<div>
Napoletano describes a brand's "secret sauce" as something in particular that attracts one group and possibly repels another. Your community needs a secret sauce, too. You have to make it clear to your prospective community members who your community, why you're different and, most importantly,
<em>why people should care</em>. There are an abundance of running communities but the
<a href="https://www.zombiesrungame.com/" target="_blank">Zombies, Run!</a> community has logged over 11 million kilometers in only a year and a half because they've brought a unique story to their community.
</div>
<div>
<h3>The Recipe for Unpopularity</h3>
</div>
<div>
Erika suggests a five ingredient recipe for unpopular brands: Personality, Approachability, Sharability, Scalability, Profitability. Every ingredient is just as vital to a successful community.
</div>
<div>
<strong>Personality</strong> - If your community is dry and bland, members won't develop an attachment to it.
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<div>
<strong>Approachability</strong> - Making your moderator team accessible, friendly, and eager to welcome new members means members will feel like they've found a place where they belong.
</div>
<div>
<strong>Sharability</strong> - You want your community to be a place that people are excited and proud to invite like-minded friends to join.
</div>
<div>
<strong>Scalability</strong> - From the early days of your community, make sure to keep an eye out for members that would be great additions to the moderator team; if all goes well, you might need them one day.
</div>
<div>
<strong>Profitability</strong> - Even if you're not creating a community for the express purpose of making money, you
<em>are</em> investing in it - whether it's money on a platform or hosting, or just the time that you put into making the community great. You need to be getting something in return, at the very least the leadership experience it will bring you and satisfaction at bringing people together.
</div>
<div>
<em><span class="font-size-3">How are you embracing or encouraging the unpopularity of your community? </span></em>
</div></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>Influencing Community Members [Video]https://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/influencing-community-members-video2013-08-17T00:20:00.000Z2013-08-17T00:20:00.000ZAllison Leahyhttps://cultivate.ning.com/community/allisonleahy<div><p>Gone are the days of ruling an online community with only a scepter and your royal lineage. Modern times have proven that there are three paths to gaining influence in your community: likability, reciprocity, and expertise.</p>
<p><iframe width="640" height="360" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/72447140?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0&color=75af42" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="" mozallowfullscreen="" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></p>
<p>The first, likability, is the most common path people take, and it is the most difficult. It is saturated -- most people in your community want to be liked. It is also dependent upon maintaining a positive communication style in even the most difficult of situations (read: patience, verbal smiles). So, if you're aiming to lead the community to great things via likability, you may want to give it a second thought. Or, at the very least, weave some <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reciprocity_(social_and_political_philosophy)" target="_blank">reciprocity philosophy</a> into your community strategy. Take notes along the way, too. You don't want to wake up five months later and realize you've only managed to convert six friendlies.</p>
<p>If likability and reciprocity are such time intensive and tricky ways to gain influence in your community, what is the most direct way to gaining the kind of influence that will allow you to really drive your community's success? Expertise. Note that expertise is an especially effective path toward influence in communities of practice where intellect, experience, generosity, and communication skills combine to make the most potent community influence cocktail on the planet.</p>
<p>What is your style of community management? How do you leverage your own influence to get things done in the community? Let us know. We'd love to hear from you!</p>
</div>The Online Community Lifecycle - Stage Four: Mitosishttps://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/the-online-community-lifecycle-stage-four-mitosis2013-08-06T16:00:00.000Z2013-08-06T16:00:00.000ZRichard Millingtonhttps://cultivate.ning.com/community/RichardMillington<div><p>A couple of years ago Feverbee introduced something we had been working on for years, our <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.feverbee.com/2012/01/introducing-the-map-a-proven-process-for-developing-successful-online-communities.html">online community lifecycle</a>. The lifecycle was based upon <a rel="nofollow" href="http://isl.cgu.edu/publicationpdf/16_ACM_CSUR_2006-0042_Online_Communities_Iriberri_and_Leroy_temp_online.pdf">Iriberri and Leroy's initial work</a> and our own research and experience.</p>
<p>It was the sum of everything we had learnt about communities until then. <strong> If there is one single thing every community manager should know about communities, the lifecycle is it</strong>. Using the lifecycle you can identify exactly where you are now and where you need to go next. In this series of posts, we're going to explain the full online community lifecycle. </p>
<p>If you take the time to read this series and <a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/the-online-community-lifecycle-video" target="_self">watch the webinar</a>, it will completely change how you approach your community. You will be more informed about communities than most community professionals you meet. Better still, <em>you will be able to explain to your organization exactly what you need to do next and why. </em></p>
<p><b>The Online Community Lifecycle</b> </p>
<p>The lifecycle consists of four stages, 1) inception, 2) establishment, 3) maturity, and 4) mitosis. </p>
<p>The names are less important than the activities that you need to perform at each stage. </p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281812?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281812?profile=RESIZE_480x480" width="450" class="align-center"></a><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281860?profile=original" target="_self"><br></a> </p>
<p><i>* The sense of community is a score derived from the results of surveys.</i></p>
<p>The tasks you perform in the inception stage of the online community lifecycle will be significantly different from those you undertake in the maturity phase. You shouldn’t be doing the same job from one year to the next. Your role evolves with the community.</p>
<p>We've covered <a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/the-online-community-lifecycle-stage-one-inception" target="_self">inception</a>, <a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/the-online-community-lifecycle-stage-two-establishment" target="_self">establishment</a>, and <a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/the-online-community-lifecycle-stage-three-maturity" target="_self">maturity</a>, so now it's time for the final stage: mitosis.</p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><b>Stage 4: Mitosis</b></span></p>
<p>The mitosis phase of the online community lifecycle begins when the community is almost entirely self-sustaining and continues indefinitely (with a view to the community reforming around greater focused sub-groups).</p>
<p>Not all communities progress to this phase. For example, my friend Susan runs Park Slope Parents, a community for a few thousand parents in the Park Slope area of Brooklyn, New York. Her community is highly active, but will never grow so big it needs to split into multiple sub-groups. It has a much smaller potential audience than a larger community like Mumsnet. Mumsnet targets parents throughout the UK, Park Slope Parents is just for a relatively small area in New York. Mumsnet has a potential audience in the millions, Park Slope Parents has a potential audience of a few thousand (see <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.feverbee.com/2012/07/tfas.html">total feasible audience size</a>). Susan has seen this community through to the <a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/the-online-community-lifecycle-stage-three-maturity" target="_self">maturity phase of the lifecycle</a>. She’s maximized the potential of that community. Therefore, it won't enter the mitosis stage of the lifecycle. If your prospective target audience is bigger than this, the mitosis phase of the lifecycle is more important.</p>
<p>Not all communities advance to mitosis. The message history for Park Slope parents shows a plateau since 2007 without any significant decline. If you have a large potential audience (or a large existing community), when the plateau has been reached you need to shift your role again from optimizing to facilitating multiple, smaller, online communities. The objective of this phase is to sustain and increase the level of both activity and sense of community.</p>
<p><b>Growth</b></p>
<p>During this phase of the lifecycle, the growth to the community as a whole should remain consistent, but the growth to the smaller sub-groups should be growing as per the <a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/the-online-community-lifecycle-stage-one-inception" target="_self">inception</a> stage. This means, initially, the co-founders of the sub-group will invite new members; these will usually be through existing contacts made in the community.</p>
<p>You may also have to stimulate this growth by mentioning new groups through content/discussions, and by hosting events and activities for these groups. <em>Each of these sub-groups should endeavour to achieve a critical mass within the first three months of existence.</em> You will need to train people to manage these groups and provide support when necessary.</p>
<p><b>Activity</b></p>
<p>The overall level of activity to the community should increase as members reform around stronger common interests (social circles, niche interests within the topic). Each group should be smaller, but more members will have the opportunity to be involved. In the short-term, there may be a brief dip in activity as members gradually move from the broad topic into a niche group based around their activities. You need to focus on identifying the potential sub-groups at this stage. This means identifying the topics or interests which have continually arisen within the community, then creating a group specifically for these individuals. This group might be a forum category or any other place within the community platform where people can interact.</p>
<p>In <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.scienceforums.net/">ScienceForums</a>, members each have several sub-groups they participate in. The broad topic ‘science’ has been artfully broken into highly active sub-groups.</p>
<p>Alternatively, you may identify social groups that have developed within the community and build areas within the platform just for close groups of friends. These groups might be elders, newcomers, those that have attended particular events (events especially are a good place for members to bond). You might want to look at your original audience overview here to identify clusters of people that share the same demographic, habitual, or psychographics traits. These are ideal categories for developing sub-groups. </p>
<p><b>Sense of community</b></p>
<p>The sense of community at this stage will dip before rising considerably. Past a certain stage, it’s impossible for all members to feel a sense of connection with everyone. Breaking the community into smaller sub-groups helps sustain these connections. Fewer people are more active in the community. You should spend considerable time helping boost the sense of community in each of these groups. It is therefore important not to launch multiple groups at a single time, but to gradually increase the number of groups in the community.</p>
<p><b>Mitosis-phase tasks</b></p>
<p>During this phase of the community lifecycle, the community manager balances the role of sustaining a healthy community in the maturity phase with developing self-sustaining groups.</p>
<p>Note with the tasks below, as per the previous phases, there is a gradual shift from the maturity level tasks to the mitosis level tasks. This should not be an abrupt change. It may be possible not to split the entire community into sub-groups, just elements/people within the community.</p>
<ol>
<li>Identify and create sub-groups.</li>
<li>Train and manage leaders of sub-groups.</li>
<li>Promote and support sub-groups.</li>
</ol>
<p>Whilst the number of mitosis task feels light, it is a highly repetitive process. This means, for instance, the amount of managing of sub-group leaders will steadily increase throughout the lifespan of the community (perhaps until you’re managing the people that manage the sub-group leaders).</p>
<p><b><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281894?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281894?profile=RESIZE_480x480" width="350" class="align-right"></a>Signs of development</b></p>
<p>As the community advances into the mitosis phase of the community lifecycle, an increasing number of successful niche groups/topics should begin to be visible within the community. These should be independently run with only small assistance from you. Over time, these sub-groups should be organizing regular events, maintaining a regular content schedule, and become relatively self-sustaining, close-knit, entities within the community.</p>
<p><b>Potential dangers</b></p>
<p>As I mentioned earlier, it is common for community managers to let their community become too big and too active without proper structure. Beyond a certain level of activity and a certain number of members it becomes difficult for all members to believe they can influence the community. <em>Past a certain number of active members in a community, it becomes impossible for a high level of familiarity to persist.</em> Members will know fewer and fewer of the participating members. Therefore, the overall sense of community in the community begins to decrease. This often leads to less ownership over the community and eventually a lower number of participating members.</p>
<p>This is similar for the level of activity in a community. Once a community becomes too active, it becomes difficult for members to stay abreast of what’s new and what’s popular in the community. It becomes difficult to follow the overall narrative of the community. This is often referred to as ‘<i>information overload</i>’. A member that is used to catching up on 10 missed messages feels less motivation to catch up on 50, or 500 messages. It becomes harder to find the messages that will be of most relevant to that individual.</p>
<p>If you fail to use your data to recognise these situations, it can result in the number of members gradually declining to a small group who retain a limited sense of community with one another.</p>
<p>Another potential danger at this stage is top-down community planning. Instead of reacting to interests which have risen naturally within the community, those that have clearly gained a high level of participation, the community attempts a top-down approach to try and facilitate multiple groups at once. This approach is not suited to community development. First, creating multiple groups rapidly dissipates activity within the community. This can cause a sharp, uncontrolled, drop in the level of activity. Second, it can fail to develop <em>any</em> group to critical mass. Sub-groups need to be nurtured to advance past the inception stage. It’s important to develop these individually before making a huge change at this stage.</p>
<p><b>Master the lifecycle, master communities</b></p>
<p>If you've read this far, you now know how to measure the progress of a community and use those measurements to identify what you should be doing in your community. </p>
<p>Your goal, and the goal of every community manager, is to <i>progress their community through the lifecycle</i>. </p>
<p>If you achieve this, you maximise what your community can be, the benefit it brings to your organization, and the benefits that members gain from the community. </p></div>The Online Community Lifecycle - Stage Two: Establishmenthttps://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/the-online-community-lifecycle-stage-two-establishment2013-07-30T16:00:00.000Z2013-07-30T16:00:00.000ZRichard Millingtonhttps://cultivate.ning.com/community/RichardMillington<div><p>A couple of years ago Feverbee introduced something we had been working on for years, our <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.feverbee.com/2012/01/introducing-the-map-a-proven-process-for-developing-successful-online-communities.html">online community lifecycle</a>. The lifecycle was based upon <a rel="nofollow" href="http://isl.cgu.edu/publicationpdf/16_ACM_CSUR_2006-0042_Online_Communities_Iriberri_and_Leroy_temp_online.pdf">Iriberri and Leroy's initial work</a> and our own research and experience.</p>
<p>It was the sum of everything we had learnt about communities until then. <strong> If there is one single thing every community manager should know about communities, the lifecycle is it</strong>. Using the lifecycle you can identify exactly where you are now and where you need to go next. In this series of posts, we're going to explain the full online community lifecycle. </p>
<p>If you take the time to read this series and <a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/the-online-community-lifecycle-video" target="_self">watch the webinar</a>, it will completely change how you approach your community. You will be more informed about communities than most community professionals you meet. Better still, <em>you will be able to explain to your organization exactly what you need to do next and why. </em></p>
<p><b>The Online Community Lifecycle</b> </p>
<p>The lifecycle consists of four stages, 1) inception, 2) establishment, 3) maturity, and 4) mitosis. </p>
<p>The names are less important than the activities that you need to perform at each stage. </p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281812?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281812?profile=original" class="align-center"></a><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281860?profile=original" target="_self"><br></a> </p>
<p><i>* The sense of community is a score derived from the results of surveys.</i></p>
<p>The tasks you perform in the inception stage of the online community lifecycle will be significantly different from those you undertake in the maturity phase. You shouldn’t be doing the same job from one year to the next. Your role evolves with the community.</p>
<p>Earlier, we looked at the <a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/the-online-community-lifecycle-stage-one-inception" target="_self">inception stage</a>. Today, let's look at the establishment stage.</p>
<p></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><b>Stage 2: Establishment</b></span></p>
<p>The establishment phase of the online community lifecycle begins when the community has reached <strong>critical mass</strong>. This is the point at which the community generates more than 50% of growth and activity. As the community develops, the level of responses to posts increase and members generate an increasing level of growth and activity. The establishment phase ends when members are generating over 90% of growth and activity in the community. There also needs to be a limited sense of community to advance to the maturity phase of the community lifecycle. </p>
<p>Once the establishment phase has been reached, your role gradually shifts from the micro-level tasks that focus on individual members at a time to more macro-level activities (tasks that affect several members at a time). These activities will include those that sustain growth, activity, and develop a sense of community. During this phase of the online community lifecycle, the number of tasks you focus upon will broaden and you need to shift your time accordingly. These tasks will include:</p>
<ol>
<li>Inviting members to join and keeping them active/engaged.</li>
<li>Initiating discussions and prompting members to participate.</li>
<li>Writing content about the community.</li>
<li>Building relationships with key members.</li>
<li>Initiating discussions and prompting responses.</li>
<li>Organizing a regular event/activity.</li>
<li>Recruiting volunteers.</li>
<li>Promoting the community.</li>
<li>Collecting and analyzing data.</li>
<li>Resolving disputes/conflicts.</li>
</ol>
<p><em>The objective of this phase is to continue increasing growth, and activity, develop a limited sense of community and provide the basis for sustainable development of the community.</em></p>
<p>This final point is important. It would be difficult, for example, for anyone to handle a community membership numbering over 100,000 active members without support. The processes that allow a community to scale must begin relatively early in the community’s lifecycle.</p>
<p><b><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281841?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281841?profile=RESIZE_480x480" width="350" class="align-right"></a>Referral and promotional growth</b></p>
<p>You should now gradually shift away from direct growth and encourage referral and promotional growth (members inviting their friends and coverage in media outlets read by the target audience). Referral growth tactics will include ownership/involvement level ideas that encourage members to invite their friends.</p>
<p>For example, you establish an event/goal that members participate in, increase a sense of ownership and thus invite other people in their social network to join the community. Or you might focus upon sharing content/discussions within the community. You will also spend more time converting newcomers into regular members of the community.</p>
<p>There will also be some promotional activities undertaken during this time. This might be outreach to bloggers/magazines, issuing statements on behalf of the community, hosting events that attract interests of your target audience.</p>
<p><em>Don’t leave growth to chance; you have to proactively stimulate it. </em> </p>
<p><b>Scaling activity</b></p>
<p>As the community begins to grow, it will be important to embed scaling processes. Most organizations allow their communities to grow until they become unmanageable. Don’t let this happen to you. Embed scaling processes early in the development lifecycle. Prepare to have a big community now. This will involve recruiting volunteers, developing the platform, and optimizing areas of the site. The community manager will also have to spend more time on moderation. This will involve resolving disputes between members, concentrating and dissipating activity (we will explain this later), removing spam/inappropriate material, highlighting the most popular discussions/activities.</p>
<p><b>Sense of community</b></p>
<p>At this stage of the lifecycle, you must begin to introduce elements which increase the sense of community felt amongst members. This will usually involve <a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/the-different-types-of-events" target="_self">initiating events</a> and activities as shared experiences, introducing a community constitution, securing the community promotion in other media, and documenting the community history. <em>You need members to feel they are part of a community together.</em> This sustains a high level of activity amongst members. In essence, it keeps people returning to the community to see what’s new, as opposed to only visiting when notified of a reaction to their own post.</p>
<p>In addition, content will play an important role in further developing the community. Content can help develop a community narrative, highlight the top members in the community, create a social order within the community, and (akin to a local newspaper) increase the sense of togetherness felt by members</p>
<p><b>Signs of development</b></p>
<p>During this phase of the lifecycle, the community should see growing levels of growth and activity. These should be closely correlated. Growth should increasingly come from referrals/word-of-mouth activity. This may not be easy to measure, but can be ascertained by asking newcomers how they heard about the community. In addition, the community should continue to generate an increasing amount of its own activity. The level of responses per discussion should continue to rise and the number of discussions initiated by members should also steadily increase.</p>
<p>A community in the establishment phase should show continued growth and development, in addition to a sense of community. This is often reflected in a growing amount of off-topic/social chatter. There should also be signs that a sense of community is developing amongst members. This may include in-jokes, a continuation of discussions beyond the immediate subject matter, an increasingly level of direct contact between members, higher levels of self-disclosure in debates and other signals of familiarity between members.</p>
<p><b>Potential problems</b></p>
<p>A drop in growth or activity indicates a potential problem for the community. If growth increases but the activity drops, then members are becoming less active than before or a smaller number of members are accounting for an increasingly larger share of activity. Tracking relevant data is important to spot these potential issues. Once this issue has been identified you can initiate activities designed to change this trend before too many members are lost. Once you enter a dip, it’s hard to avoid a death spiral (less activity begets less activity).</p>
<p>It is also common for community managers to switch roles too early. This means to go from micro to macro-level activities too rapidly as opposed to gradually shifting roles as the measurement of growth and activity shows progress.</p>
<p> </p></div>The Online Community's Ecosystemhttps://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/online-community-ecosystem2013-07-19T16:00:00.000Z2013-07-19T16:00:00.000ZRichard Millingtonhttps://cultivate.ning.com/community/RichardMillington<div><p><span class="font-size-3">Your community lives within an ecosystem. This ecosystem is the broader topic, industry, area, field, or group which encompasses the community. Communities about karate live within the martial arts ecosystem. Communities about World of Warcraft live within the gaming ecosystem.</span></p><p> </p><p><span class="font-size-3">The ecosystem includes:</span></p><ul><li><span class="font-size-3"><b>Brands/Companies.</b> Brands/Companies that operate in this sector. Notably those that sell to individuals within the sector.</span></li><li><span class="font-size-3"><b>Media</b>. <b> </b>The major media publications in this sector.</span></li><li><span class="font-size-3"><b>Groups/communities</b>. Other groups and communities within that sector.</span></li><li><span class="font-size-3"><b>Influencers</b>. The influencers who help shape and create the issues within the sector.</span></li><li><span class="font-size-3"><b>Relationships</b>. Who likes/doesn’t like who? What are the relationships between the organizations and individuals listed above?</span></li><li><span class="font-size-3"><b>Issues</b>. The most important one, what are the major issues in the sector? What are people talking about?</span></li></ul><p><br/> <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/pierrepocs/5480153734/" target="_blank"><img src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5132/5480153734_0b406c88b5.jpg?width=500" width="500" class="align-center"/></a></p><p><span class="font-size-3"> </span></p><p><span class="font-size-3"><b>React and participate in the ecosystem</b></span></p><p><span class="font-size-3">The ecosystem has a significant impact upon the community. It provides both inspiration for material in the community and opportunities to foster a closer sense of community.</span></p><p><span class="font-size-3">The ecosystem provides inspiration for content, discussion topics, activities and events. You can set up interviews with key influencers, ask for sample/review products for members from brands, host polls on major issues in the sector, discuss media articles in the community, etc.</span></p><p><span class="font-size-3">In the early stages of the community life cycle, the community should be highly <em>reactive</em> to its ecosystem. It should aim to solicit opinions from members about issues in the broader ecosystem and summarize them into a community consensus. This creates a unique identity for the community within its ecosystem. It aims to forge a sense of community amongst individuals based upon common thoughts and feelings. </span></p><p><span class="font-size-3"> </span></p><p><span class="font-size-3"><b>The latter stages of the community life cycle - influencing</b></span></p><p><span class="font-size-3">In the latter stages of the community life cycle, the community should become very influential within its ecosystem. This means ensuring the individuals, issues, groups, media within the community become influential individuals, issues, groups, and media within the ecosystem.</span></p><p><span class="font-size-3">This means the community manager must be <em>proactive</em> in their efforts for example:</span></p><ol><li><span class="font-size-3">Build relationships with the groups, influencers, and companies in the ecosystem and bring your top members into those relationships.</span></li><li><span class="font-size-3">Promote the major issues in your community to the major media channels.</span></li><li><span class="font-size-3">Initiate events/activities and invite the broader ecosystem to participate (this is by far the easiest and most effective means of influencing the ecosystem – especially with offline events).</span></li><li><span class="font-size-3">Ensure the major media channels rely upon your community for news about your sector (send them regular updates about issues they should notice).</span></li><li><span class="font-size-3">Issue regular statements on behalf of the community which summarize feelings on topical issues (look to welfare/special interest groups for inspiration on this). These can range from responses to topical issues to highlighting under-reported or unnoticed issues within the community.</span></li><li><span class="font-size-3">Campaign on issues which matter to the community.</span></li></ol><p><span class="font-size-3">The more influential your community becomes, the stronger sense of identity members will feel. They will be more active and feel a greater sense of community with other members. More people will join the community to achieve a sense of ownership with the community’s success and ability to impact it’s environment.</span></p><p><span class="font-size-3">(<i>Image: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/pierrepocs/5480153734/">Micro Ecosystem</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 pierrepocs's photostream</i>)</span></p></div>Community Spotlight: Flipped Classroom, a Community of Education Innovatorshttps://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/community-spotlight-flipped-learning2013-07-22T16:00:00.000Z2013-07-22T16:00:00.000ZCrystalhttps://cultivate.ning.com/community/CrystalC<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2208260?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=276"></div><div><p class="p1">Lectures at home and homework during classroom time? Sounds like the education world turned upside down, right? Over at the <a href="http://www.flippedlearning.org/" target="_blank">Flipped Learning Network</a>, that's just what they're trying to do: bring innovation to education by "turning learning on its head." Utilizing technologies such as screencasting and virtual textbooks, teachers of flipped classes attempt to reach every student like never before. </p>
<p class="p1"><br> Educators into Flipping their Classrooms gather together at the Flipped Learning Network's Ning Network, <a href="http://flippedclassroom.org/" target="_blank">Flipped Classroom</a>, where Jerry Overmyer, Mathematics and Science Outreach Coordinator for the Mathematics and Science Teaching Institute at the University of Northern Colorado, oversees the community of over thirteen thousand members. Jerry took some time to talk to us about Flipped Classroom and how to manage such a large community.</p>
<p class="p1"><strong><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281952?profile=original" target="_self"><br></a></strong> <img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281854?profile=RESIZE_180x180" width="150" class="align-right"><strong>Tell us a bit about Flipped Classroom.</strong></p>
<p class="p1">JERRY OVERMYER (pictured right): Our community is for educators interested in flipped learning. It is called the flipped class because what used to be classwork (the "lecture“) is done outside of class and what used to be homework (assigned problems) is now done in class. However, the definition has evolved to describe any situation in which technology is used to time shift the delivery of content.</p>
<p class="p2"><strong>What made you start a dedicated online community?</strong></p>
<p class="p2">JO: Jon Bergmann and Aaron Sams started this instructional method of recording their lectures and putting them online and having students work on their homework in class. I attended one of their workshops in Woodland Park, Colorado with about 30 other teachers. I went to visit their classes a few months later and they said they were receiving too many emails. I work at the MAST Institute at the University of Northern Colorado as the Outreach Coordinator, so I offered to start a social network site to help organize teachers interested and to relieve their inboxes.</p>
<p class="p2"><iframe width="459" height="344" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/MjPHBsibul4?feature=oembed&wmode=opaque" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p class="p1"><strong>What other options did you consider?</strong></p>
<p class="p1">JO: I also considered Google Groups, but Ning seemed to be the most user friendly and have the most options for creating an online professional learning community.</p>
<p class="p2"><strong>Have you achieved your original objectives?</strong></p>
<p class="p1">JO: I think we all thought that the site might have a few hundred members. We are continuously amazed that our membership is over 13000!</p>
<p class="p1"><strong>What do you think contributes to this awesome growth?</strong></p>
<p class="p1">JO: I think the growth can be attributed to many technological advances. The main one would be the ease in which teachers can create and share online videos.</p>
<p class="p1"><strong>How do you measure success or the ROI of the time and effort you put into cultivating your community?</strong></p>
<p class="p1">JO: As educators, we just want to make education better for teachers and students. I feel that the work of Jon and Aaron and other flipped learning pioneers is having a profound positive effect on teaching and learning.</p>
<p class="p1"><strong>Have you heard success stories from members about how the community has helped them solve learning problems or introduce Flipped Learning into their classroom?</strong></p>
<p class="p2">JO: The community has been very successful on two fronts. First, our most popular Group is First Time Flippers and we have a very nurturing community of teachers helping teachers with the pedagogical challenges and possible pitfalls of starting flipped learning. Second, we have some very knowledgeable techies on the site who are eager to help with tech questions. We have over 30 official moderators who have been very helpful.</p>
<p class="p2"><strong><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281871?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281871?profile=RESIZE_180x180" width="150" class="align-right"></a>How did you find your moderating team?</strong></p>
<p class="p1">JON BERGMANN (pictured right): We realized the network was getting unwieldy and folks started not using it. We realized that to keep the conversations going we needed moderators. Thus we used the message broadcast to ask for folks to moderate. We also give them a reduced price at our national conference. But mostly, they are doing it because they believe in the flipped class.</p>
<p class="p1">JO: I initially sent out an invite through Message Broadcast as a call for moderators. I had about 40 people respond which was a perfect amount. I then had them fill out a Google Form and gathered information about their expertise and time commitment. I looked at all our Groups and active Discussions and assigned everyone one or two topics to moderate. This started around the beginning of 2013. In late February I went through to check the activity of the moderators. If they had no activity, I sent them an email and a few of them resigned saying they just didn't have enough time, and a few of them were just answering direct questions. I checked again in May and again had a few folks resign, but have also added more moderators. Each moderator is in charge of one or two Groups or Forums. I also have a few moderators as "wild cards", meaning they are to just chime in where they see fit. The moderators do not remove or reorganized content. I am looking at a way to do this and would love suggestions.</p>
<p class="p2"><strong><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281934?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281934?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="300" class="align-right"></a>How else has your community helped the Flipped Learning mission?</strong></p>
<p class="p2">JO: The community has a great partnership with the Flipped Learning Network and the MAST Institute. It has been very helpful for flipped learning leaders to keep a pulse on the constant growth and transformation of the movement.</p>
<p class="p1"><strong>The Flipped Learning Network hosts many events. Do these extend into the community?</strong></p>
<p class="p1">JO: It's very symbiotic. The Ning helps to promote the Flipped Learning Network, which in turn sends more people to the Ning.</p>
<p class="p2"><strong>What features of the Ning Platform are most important to you and your members?</strong></p>
<p class="p2">JO: Discussions, Groups, and Broadcast Message.</p>
<p class="p2">JB: We use the message broadcast to keep our members informed of things happening in the world of Flipped Learning. It has been a great tool for us to tell them about conferences, workshops, publications, etc that are coming out about Flipped Learning.</p>
<p class="p2"><strong>Do you have any advice for other groups similar to you who are considering building an online community?</strong></p>
<p class="p2">JO: I actually have a pretty funny story about starting the site. I knew that if I had Jon or Aaron send an invite to a network with less than 20 members, that no one would join. I used the analogy of an empty restaurant. The food may be great, but we all tend to avoid empty restaurants. It's just human nature. So, before announcing the network I had everyone I knew "join" the network just so it didn't look empty. My mom, the admin assistant down the hall, co-workers who've never been in a classroom. I think I even had my cat create a fake account... so we had about 25 "members", then sent out the announcement. After the site had a good number of real members, I removed the fake members. I did the same technique for my other site, the Colorado Mathematics Teachers Network.</p>
<p class="p2"><strong>Thanks, Jerry and Jon. To learn more about Flipped Learning techniques, visit <a href="http://flippedclassroom.org" target="_blank">Flipped Classroom</a>. </strong></p>
<p></p></div>Understanding Conceptualization: The Process You Go Through Before You Launch An Online Communityhttps://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/understanding-conceptualization2013-06-26T16:00:00.000Z2013-06-26T16:00:00.000ZRichard Millingtonhttps://cultivate.ning.com/community/RichardMillington<div><p><span class="font-size-3">Everything between the moment you establish the objectives and the moment you begin doing outreach to your members is the conceptualization phase.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">This is when you decide who you're targeting, what the community will be about, what type of community it will be, and how you get it going. </span></p>
<p><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/furryscalyman/291249520/" target="_blank"><img src="http://farm1.staticflickr.com/119/291249520_1a3921cf90_m.jpg?width=240" width="240" class="align-right" /></a></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">If you get the community concept <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.feverbee.com/2011/08/another-concept-error.html">wrong</a>, nothing else you do matters. A community can't overcome a terrible concept. A community about something that isn't a really strong interest can't possibly succeed. Too many communities are created by organizations for customers to talk about their products.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"> </span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-4"><b>The Conceptualization Phase</b></span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">Conceptualization is a phase, a process...it takes time. It's not a series of instant decisions to be made in a meeting one afternoon. It's a steady process of testing ideas, analyzing the audience, and understanding the community ecosystem.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">Organizations make many common mistakes at this phase. They make the community about their brands, products, or service - as opposed to making the community about their audience and a strong common interest. </span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">Some questions you will want to answer here include:</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"> </span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><b>1) Identify the target audience</b></span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">In the beginning, you need an extremely focused target audience. You're aiming to get a fewer number of members who share a stronger common interest. </span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">You're looking for <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.mint.com/blog/how-to/make-more-money-sethi-02032011/">at least two-qualifiers</a>. You want a community for {people who} who are {qualifier 2}. This qualifier will be a demographic, habit, or psychographic. So it will be a community for people that {purchase a product} who also {believe in whole food diets}, for example.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">This demographic is identified by understanding the strong common interest. You can't ascertain that strong common interest without interacting with members of that target audience. </span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><em>If your target audience doesn't already talk about the topic online, then you have the wrong topic.</em> During this phase you should also have an extensive understanding about the strong common interest. </span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"> </span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><b>2) Determine the type of community</b></span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">Will it be a community of place, practice, interest, action, or circumstance? </span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">Don't default to a community of interest. This is the most competitive. It's easier to build a community of place or action. There aren't many things we're interested in. You can make it a community of people who want to change something in the world, or a community for people who live in a certain location and use a product/service. </span></p>
<p><em><span class="font-size-3">Review the existing ecosystems. Make sure that yours is the only one of its kind.</span></em></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"> </span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><b>3) Positioning</b></span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">If a community like this already exists, the positioning becomes important. The type of community can help, but so does having a unique tone of voice, unique goal or unique benefit.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">The positioning problem will not be solved by technology. People won't join a community solely because it offers picture-sharing. Having a better platform doesn't help you much here. <em>What helps is a social-related change.</em> Targeting unique groups, being exclusive, unique tone of voice/personality, etc.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"> </span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><b>4) Benefit</b></span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">What will be the benefit to people from participating in the community?</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">Will members learn about a topic? Will they become an expert? Will they receive attention for their expertise? These self-interest related benefits do better than utopian statements of connecting, making friends, or sharing your knowledge.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">The only way to understand the benefit a community needs is to be deeply embedded within the ecosystem. This means speaking directly to members of the target audience. Don't avoid this. <em>You need to identify what people want.</em></span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"> </span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><b>5) Unique environment</b></span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">Now we need to conquer the amateur-competition problem. Amateurs can always do things that you can't. They can criticise your brand, for example. <em>You need to use your resources to configure an exclusive environment.</em></span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">This will mean providing exclusive news, unique information, introducing your contacts, have your employees participating, among other unique value propositions you can provide.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"> </span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><b>6) What will members do in the community?</b></span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">What will community members talk about? What are the major topics to build discussions, events, activities, relationships, and growth around? Gather data on your audience's current habits and from other trade press to identify the major topics here. </span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">Have a very clear idea of what the general themes are going to be in the opening stages of the community and a plan for testing/refining what works best. </span></p>
<p> </p>
<p></p>
<p>(<i>Image: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/furryscalyman/291249520/">Pavilion in Red</a>, a Creative Commons <a rel="nofollow" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en">Attribution Share-Alike (2.0)</a> image from furryscalyman's photostream</i>)</p>
</div>Setting Objectives For Your Online Communityhttps://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/setting-objectives-for-your-online-community2013-07-03T17:30:00.000Z2013-07-03T17:30:00.000ZRichard Millingtonhttps://cultivate.ning.com/community/RichardMillington<div><p>Fight the pressure to set clear objectives for your online community. Especially objectives with measurable metrics.</p><p>When you set fixed objectives (e.g. get 50 great product ideas, increase repeat buying by 15%, 250 mentions on blogs) you create a chasm between what you and your community members want.</p><p><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rmgimages/4881844153/" target="_blank"><img src="http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4117/4881844153_debf711b41_m.jpg?width=240" width="240" class="align-right"/></a></p><p>Did members join to give product feedback, buy more or get you mentioned on blogs? No. They joined to meet others like them and have a good time. When you start pressuring members to give ideas, buy more or help promote you – you’re asking them to do something that they don’t want to do. That doesn’t end well (for you).</p><p>Every major successful online community has its objectives aligned with what members want. This is usually <i>being awesome</i>, like getting exclusives, arranging meet-ups, having influence over the topic itself etc..</p><p>Here is the important thing to understand. <i>The benefits you get from thriving online communities are the derivatives of its success.</i> They should not be the objectives for the community itself. You still get what you want, but they get what they want first.</p><p>First you have to create a successful online community – then you can enjoy its benefits. If you can understand this, your online community will be so much better.</p><p>(<i>Image: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rmgimages/4881844153/">Success is this way</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 rmgimages's photostream</i>)</p></div>Facebook vs. a Custom Community: Quantity vs. Qualityhttps://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/facebook-vs-a-custom-community-quantity-vs-quality2013-07-12T14:00:00.000Z2013-07-12T14:00:00.000ZJohn McDonaldhttps://cultivate.ning.com/community/JohnMcDonald<div><p>“Why should I invest in a custom community on Ning – why not just focus on my Facebook Page?” It’s a question I’ve heard frequently since I joined the Ning team in 2009. While there isn’t just one answer, custom communities do offer several unique benefits including complete ownership of the relationships and membership data, the ability to communicate with fans when and how you want, the chance to create a branded destination, and the freedom to monetize fan activity.</p>
<p>However, the most important reason for investing in a custom community is the outcome – higher quality engagement with fans, peers, or customers. Real conversations and Interactions that are deeper than just a Like or a quick “Love it” comment. In a custom community, fans develop stronger relationships with each other. For a business or social leader, the end result is higher fan retention, increased brand loyalty, and greater activation of fans to achieve goals e.g., a social purpose, repeat purchase, co-creation of content, brand evangelism, etc.</p>
<p>To demonstrate this point, I analyzed fan engagement for five Ning customers who have active communities on both Ning and Facebook. Three are product brands and two are influential authors. I focused only on deeper interactions (posts and comments) within each Ning community and Facebook Page in May 2013. I excluded light interactions such as Likes because they don’t involve exchange of ideas – real conversation. At the request of these customers, I’ve kept their identities confidential.</p>
<p>The analysis illustrates two major differences in the quality of engagement within their custom Ning communities vs. their Facebook Pages:</p>
<ol>
<li><span class="font-size-2">Fans in the Ning communities were much more likely to post something (a blog post, new discussion topic, a photo, or a video) over a simple comment.</span></li>
<li><span class="font-size-2">In the Ning communities, the vast majority of commenting were fans commenting on other fans’ posts. On the Facebook Pages, the majority of commenting were fans commenting on posts from the brand or page owner. In other words, most activity in the custom Ning communities were many-to-many interactions whereas on Facebook, most activity were one-to-many interactions.</span></li>
</ol>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><strong>The Study</strong></span></p>
<p>All five social leaders have large communities on both platforms. The number of posts and comments on each platform was roughly equivalent. Note, if lightweight engagements such as likes and shares were included, overall fan activity on Facebook would be higher.</p>
<p><a target="_self" href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281863?profile=original"><img class="align-center" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281863?profile=original" width="642"></a></p>
<p>In 4 of the 5 examples, fans or customers who had joined a Ning community were much more likely to post something (a blog post, new discussion topic, a photo or a video), rather than just comment.</p>
<p><a target="_self" href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281869?profile=original"><img class="align-center" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281869?profile=original" width="624"></a></p>
<p>In all cases, the vast majority of comments in the Ning community were made by fans on fan posts, rather than fan comments on the social leader’s posts or vice versa. On all of the Facebook Pages, the majority of interactions were between the social leader and fans (one-to-many).</p>
<p><a target="_self" href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281916?profile=original"><img class="align-center" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281916?profile=original" width="624"></a></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><strong>And (not Or)</strong></span></p>
<p>A Facebook Page and a custom community can both play a valuable role in your social media strategy. The Author B in my study posts content on Facebook eight times per day on average. He’s casting a fishing net in a pond with more than a billion users. It’s an efficient, light-touch way for him to reach his fans and get a Like or a “Brilliant”, “Amazing” or “So wonderful”. As Richard Millington, a leading community expert, <a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/the-psychological-impact-of-interactions" target="_self">explains</a>, “This is an audience, not a community.”</p>
<p>Author B has recruited over 39,000 of his most loyal fans to join his Ning community where they help and support each other. In the entire month of May, Author B only contributed 3 blog posts and commented 9 times in his Ning community. His loyal fans did the rest – posting blogs or initiating new discussion topics over 30 times per day. They are carrying out the philosophy and social purpose of Author B.</p>
<p>If you want to do more than fish in a big pond, build a custom community for your most loyal fans and create an army of brand evangelists.</p></div>Community Spotlight: Rokkus Radio, A Radio Station With a Story to Tellhttps://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/community-spotlight-john-starr-rokkus-radio2013-06-24T18:10:47.000Z2013-06-24T18:10:47.000ZAllison Leahyhttps://cultivate.ning.com/community/allisonleahy<div><p class="p1">Rokkus Radio is more than a radio station, it's a <span>community with bucket loads of personality, a lot of heart, and a dedication to trans-media storytelling. <a href="http://rokkus.ning.com/page/our-shows" target="_blank">Rokkus Radio</a> follows the</span> story of a once-famous rock radio DJ named Rey King and his wild life running an online radio station as told through the interactive medium of a Ning community and bolstered by social channels including Facebook, Twitter, SoundCloud, ReverbNation, and YouTube. I<span>nstead of listening to radio, fans choose which character to follow, what story to dive into or what show to listen to, and Rokkus provides music and entertainment 360 degrees around them. </span></p>
<p class="p1">We caught up with <a href="http://www.ourmanstarr.com/about.html" target="_blank">John Starr</a>, founder of Rokkus.com, at SF MusicTech this year and were intrigued by the story, so we invited John to discuss his creation in greater depth. John has all the charisma you'd expect from the creator of "Spinal Tap for online radio," and we're grateful he took the time to tell us a bit about the operation and his community of Rokkhounds.</p>
<p class="p1">The narrative reality radio station highlights great rock music and Rey King shares the airwaves with <a href="http://www.rokkus.com/hosts.html" target="_blank">strange and funny cohorts</a> including "a paranoid mall cop, a teenaged android, a real-life pirate crew, an alien from outer space masquerading as an old blues man, a punk rocker who lives in the dumpster behind the building, and a beautiful young woman with a strong scent of brimstone."</p>
<p class="p1">Warm up to Rokkus Radio and its colorful cast of characters by listening to the hilarious snippets embedded below.</p>
<p class="p1"><span><iframe width="100%" height="166" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F32334007"></iframe></span></p>
<p class="p1"><strong>Tell us a bit about your community. </strong></p>
<p class="p1">It started in late 2011 and I run it with a little help from volunteers.</p>
<p class="p1"><strong>What made you start a dedicated online community?</strong></p>
<p class="p1">I started <a href="http://rokkus.com/"><span class="s1">Rokkus.com</span></a> as part of an alternate reality storytelling project I was developing. My background is in screenwriting, acting and media production but I have also help run 2 tech startups and have managed networks for some large non-profits. I started this project as a way to bring those two parts of my life together.</p>
<p class="p1">It started out as a story about a guy who runs an online radio station. So I started researching online radio and I saw how easy it was to run a station online, I thought that instead of a book or movie, I would script a radio station. Use a station full of characters to tell their own story, in real time, over a bunch of platforms. That way I could tell a story in real time by having them interact during their broadcasts. In playing around with the storytelling, I found I needed a more dynamic way for the characters to talk to each other. I originally had a website with discussion boards. Then I got a little funding and decided to use a Ning community to further develop the characters. I figured that eventually fans would want to talk to them directly and have an effect on the story, so I wanted a dynamic community.</p>
<p class="p1"><strong>What others tools does the Rokkus machine run on? </strong></p>
<p class="p1">We use Ning, Live365, Weebly, ReverbNation, MusicXRay, Facebook, YouTube and increasingly Twitter. And a lot of Google Docs.</p>
<p class="p1"><strong><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281824?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281824?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="300" class="align-right"></a>What other options did you consider?</strong></p>
<p class="p1">I am pretty much a one man band on the tech side of things. I contract some stuff out and have a bunch of folks who pitch in on audio projects. But the web stuff is almost all on me. I needed something more robust than chat rooms, so I began to learn Drupal in order to build the site of my dreams. But I have a LOT of other hats to wear and to be honest, <a href="http://Rokkus.com/"><span class="s1">Rokkus.com</span></a> would not be here like it is if I had to learn a CMS and build it myself. When I found Ning, I literally dropped what I was doing and signed up.</p>
<p class="p2"><strong>Have you achieved your original objectives?</strong></p>
<p class="p1">Absolutely. Ning has allowed me a way to manage content, flesh out the characters and maintain a community. My goals for the site were different, I think, than a normal community manager. I am using Ning as a canvas, so almost all of the content on the site is generated by me or other actors. We are creating content that future audiences will come and explore. But the story must have the element of time, so we have been planting storyline seeds in content for a while. All of this while we built the 24/7 radio station. We now have 7 shows on the air, we have a network of artists involved and we rock</p>
<p class="p1">This summer we're beta launch-ing and doing some live events. We have an IndieGoGo campaign rolling out next month. We've got some other things set up that should get us noticed. We are looking at a big influx of members in the coming months so the community will start to grow and form. It's gonna be cool.</p>
<p class="p1"><strong>How do you measure success or the ROI of the time and effort you put into cultivating your community?</strong></p>
<p class="p1">As the community grows I'll better be able to answer that question. Much of the creation of Rokkus is in upfront sunk costs that will amortize over the lifetime of the property. So it will ultimately be valued based on it's popularity in the future. Hard to tell, but I think the production costs through Ning are negligible.</p>
<p class="p1"><strong>You’ve got a pretty large following on Facebook, as well. Do you have advice for managing a complimentary Facebook page for your community?</strong></p>
<p class="p1">OK, first off it helps to have no life and spend too much time on Facebook and other socials. It also helps to have a wife who does the same thing. I manage my page <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ourmanstarr" target="_blank">/ourmanstarr</a> and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/RokkusRadio" target="_blank">/rokkusradio</a>. Each of the characters has a page -- and I am the online curator for <a href="https://www.facebook.com/localmusicvibemarin" target="_blank">/localmusicvibemarin</a>.</p>
<p class="p1">It also helps to have popular friends who send traffic your way. I have been lucky enough to attend the San Francisco Music Tech Summit for the last three years and I have made great connections with companies that later became partners. When someone like ReverbNation puts in a good word for you, it really helps.</p>
<p class="p1">I think it also points to the popularity of the idea. We have continuous built Facebook with nothing but word of mouth marketing. When I tell people that I am building a comedy, parody radio station and they hear about the characters and the music, they fall in love a little bit. They get excited. I've had people thank me without having ever listened to the station. Probably later regretted it, but they said it, so it counts. It <em>is</em> the story of a plucky band of misfits trying to save rock and roll, so anyone who loves the underdog takes to it.</p>
<p class="p1">A big part of Rokkus Radio's structure is that we can deliver the story to other platforms like Facebook and Twitter as channels. So using Ning, with it's ability to cross post to Twitter (and then on to Facebook) lets me cover all the bases from one location.</p>
<p class="p1"><strong>Are the DJ’s and listeners interacting with each other in the forums? How do the DJ’s like having that closer relationship with their fans?</strong></p>
<p class="p1">As of right now, the production hasn't fully launched, so we haven't seen a lot of interactivity. There have been some users who were very active and had fun with the DJs. Once we have a larger membership and listenership I see this closeness being a big attraction for us.</p>
<p class="p1"><strong><iframe width="100%" height="166" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F22163876"></iframe></strong></p>
<p class="p1"><strong>Any tips or lessons learned for running a live radio show?</strong></p>
<p class="p1">Haven't really done a live show, but I have had to so some announcing in the past. I would say: Say as little as you need to until you get comfortable and watch your "Umms" and "You knows"</p>
<p class="p1"><strong>What features of the Ning Platform are most important to you and your members?</strong></p>
<p class="p1">Right now, the most important feature for me is the ability to post music. Most of my members are bands and they post their own music and I post music from bands that have submitted with host introductions. It is the best way to get to know the hosts and a fun way to hear new music.</p>
<p class="p1"><strong><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281858?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281858?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="750" class="align-right" height="187"></a>Do you have any advice for other people similar to you who are considering building an online community?</strong></p>
<p class="p1">I don't think I am sucessful enough using it as a narrative medium to dispense advice!</p>
<p class="p1"><strong>What is the most surprising thing you’ve learned by creating Rokkus Radio?</strong></p>
<p class="p1">How active the rest of the world is in Rock music. A big number of my listeners and members come from non-english speaking countries and the music from those countries Rocks! Some of it is in English, some of it is in their native language, but it is the real deal. The tradition of rock music has gone global and the next stage in it's evolution is worldwide inclusion.</p>
<p class="p1"><strong>Favorite Rokkus moment?</strong></p>
<p class="p1">We accept in submissions from anyone through ReverbNation and MusicXray. We play a lot of music from bands that are great, but have never been given a chance by anyone else. I had spent the better part of my Christmas vacation reviewing around 3,000 submissions from bands. I selected about 9%. That's a lot of chaff. My friends and family got used to hearing me grumble about bad music, weak vocalists and endless song intros. When I was done, I sent out a mass email to the bands that had been accepted. It was just a quick not to tell them when they'd be on and what Rokkus was all about. Then i went to bed, glad I was finally finished with that load of submissions.</p>
<p class="p1">When I woke up, I grabbed some coffee, sat down, checked my email and started deleting the non-delivery notices and the out-of-office auto responders. In the middle of it all was an email from one of the performers. He had written back less than an hour after I sent out the mass email. He wrote the most heartfelt note, thanking me for accepting his song. He told me of how hard it was to get music played on the radio, how impossible it was to get an agent or record contract if you live in the mid-west and how much trouble he had keeping his spirits up. Then he thanked me for believing in him. This was such a wonderfully heartfelt note, I am not ashamed to say tears came to my eyes.</p>
<p class="p1">That's when I realized I wasn't in the "online radio" business, or the "transmedia entertainment" business, I was in the business of hope. Of helping dreamers. Of supporting dreams. Forget the phony DJs and the stories and the games -- this is the heart of Rokkus Radio. Reaching out a helping hand to artists, <a href="http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Muso" target="_blank">musos</a> and bands.</p></div>Special Initiatives for Online Communitieshttps://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/special-initiatives-for-online-communities2013-06-25T16:00:00.000Z2013-06-25T16:00:00.000ZGuest Contributorhttps://cultivate.ning.com/community/GuestContributor<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2208268?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=400"></div><div><p>Successful Community Managers are experts in facilitating conversations, and we’re all learning best practices on seeding new discussions, responding warmly, etc. These topics are the bread-and-butter of Community Management. In this article, we want to explore special projects or initiatives that add to the community mix. </p>
<p>Our goals are twofold. We hope to:</p>
<ul>
<li>Generate discussion on the projects we did; what else should we have considered?</li>
<li>Learn about special projects you’ve done or are contemplating? Our projects were for the consumer Internet space. What segment are you in and how do your circumstances change things?</li>
</ul>
<p>A year ago, in the summer of 2012, we started a new community from scratch for Simraceway (SRW), a PC-based racing simulation game. Our customers were passionate enthusiasts, so it was not long before the community buzzed with activity, providing customer-to-customer support, lots of feedback for the SRW Product team, and new business via SEO-tuned threads. </p>
<p>To this mix we added the following initiatives:<a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281792?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281792?profile=original" width="96" class="align-right"></a><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281814?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281814?profile=original" width="93" class="align-right"></a></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><b><i>Community Champions:</i></b></span></p>
<p>Customers are recognized for extra contributions to the community or the company. Champions were handpicked, not system-generated. They often earned their designation by being especially helpful in the forums or live chats. Others helped with outreach or hardware/software troubleshooting. SRW had about 18 Champions after one year. Champions appeared online with a special badge and markings.</p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><b><i>You vs. SRW:</i></b></span></p>
<p>Every Friday for one year, various SRW employees were available in-game to race customers. The morning featured a one-hour session for experts, with big bragging rights up for grabs. Three hours in the afternoon were for casual racers. The chat conversations that occurred between these races helped humanize our company and foster personal (emotional/loyal) relationships with customers.</p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><b><i>Conversations with SRW</i></b><b>:</b></span></p>
<p>We held several live Google Hangouts, each with about 7 customers and 3-4 SRW Product people. The discussions lasted for one hour and were focused on what ideas and feedback the customers had for our company. Our internal plan was to do a lot of listening and much less talking. The first few sessions included highly-skilled players. Before the initiative was stopped, we next planned to involve less-skilled players, and to use Hangouts-On-Air to broadcast the sessions to a much wider audience. </p>
<p>Simraceway was very good at taking customer ideas from our (asynchronous) community and implementing them into our product. However, these live sessions were transformative for both customers and internal Product staff in the immediacy and intimacy of the session.</p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><b><i>Testers:</i></b></span></p>
<p>About 40 customers (in various locations and with various system configurations) were organized to help test our releases, both game code and car/track assets. After software updates cleared our internal QA department, the Testers received a copy one week before General Release. In this week, bugs and issues could be surfaced and corrected before problems affected our worldwide audience. The Testers were excited to have the first crack at things, generating early buzz in the community. As of this writing, the Testers are organized but have not yet been used for a release.</p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><b><i>Desafio América Latina</i></b><b>:</b></span></p>
<p>Simraceway (game and web) was not localized and only appeared in English. This hurt us in some key racing markets like Brazil. A customer we called “Rock-star” came forth with an idea to organize a series of events where the title and descriptions were in Portuguese, and on the day of the event, the in-game chats were filled with Portuguese speakers. Rock-star recruited other Brazilians to help, and involved the community in choosing the event specifics. This team of Brazilian sim-racers was also responsible for marketing the event widely. Over time, the idea grew to also include Spanish speakers in Latin America and Spain.</p>
<p>While we loved the idea, the implementation did not go so well. The customers were ineffective at bringing in many Portuguese and Spanish racers. Besides language, a localized payment scheme was another pitfall. SRW did not have a good mechanism to allow common Brazilians to easily put money into the game.</p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><b><i>Masterclass:</i></b></span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><b><i><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281875?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281875?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="500" class="align-center"></a></i></b></span></p>
<p>Simraceway is a game of skill, where players improve by practicing, by better understanding racing theory (racing line, corner apex), and by studying faster racers. We recruited a group of elite racers to add their unique touches to a pre-designed curriculum and teach vital racing techniques to others. Currently, this Masterclass has not yet gone operational, but we have recruited 5 customers who have personalized both Beginner and Intermediate curriculums and who will serve as Instructors. The Beginner class will be primarily canned videos watched anytime, and then augmented with live Q&A sessions. The Intermediate class is done in-game, with one volunteer Instructor doing lead-follow laps with a small (~4) group of lesser skilled racers. For the first few sessions, SRW’s professional drivers will review footage of the lead-follow sessions to coach our Instructors and ensure the class is meeting high standards. Leveraging customers to teach customers allows for community management resources to be utilized more creatively.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">These are the special programs we have organized. We’d love to discuss your thoughts on these initiatives or your own.</span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span class="font-size-4">About The Authors: </span></p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281903?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281903?profile=RESIZE_180x180" width="100" class="align-left" style="padding: 5px;"></a><a href="http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=178087630" target="_self">Ojan Namvar</a>, Simraceway Community Manager - Ojan Namvar, a 24-year old with an overpriced B.A. of Philosophy from the University of Redlands, will be relocating back to the Bay Area shortly. A lover of all things tech, he has been given a great introduction to the world of startups by his current endeavors with the free-to-play simulation racing game Simraceway. A licensed EMT, bedroom musician, and craft beer dilettante, Ojan hopes to one day combine his interests into something that could pay the rent. Until then, his passion for building computers and communities has satisfyingly served as his creative outlets. You can email him at onamvar88@gmail.com.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281930?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281930?profile=RESIZE_180x180" width="100" class="align-left" style="padding: 5px;"></a><a href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/marcsiegel/" target="_blank">Marc Siegel</a>, (former) Simraceway Manager of Community and Customer Service - Marc Siegel lives in San Jose with one wife, two daughters, and various pumpkins. He’s been doing online community since before the web existed for NASA, IBM, and several startups, both in consumer and B2B, including developer relations. Marc’s passion is helping companies get close to their customers, especially for product ideas. When people think they’ve helped build something, they’ll be loyal as puppies. He has built several support communities where customers help one another solve problems, offloading paid support. Marc is currently looking for fulltime or contract/temp work opportunities. You can email him at msiegel@gmail.com.</p>
<p> </p></div>Survey the Earth in a Day: Land Surveyors Unite to Measure Our Planet's Surfacehttps://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/community-spotlight-survey-the-earth-in-a-day2013-06-10T16:42:27.000Z2013-06-10T16:42:27.000ZAllison Leahyhttps://cultivate.ning.com/community/allisonleahy<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2208225?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=400"></div><div><p>Land surveying is one of the oldest professions in the world. Its history dates back to 2700 BC and the Great Pyramid at Giza, but it is a practice that has never received much attention. The second annual <a href="http://surveyearth.com/" target="_blank">Survey Earth In A Day</a> project from the <a href="http://landsurveyorsunited.com/" target="_blank">Land Surveyors United</a> (LSU) community aims to change that.</p>
<p>On June 21, 2013 at noon -- Summer solstice, the longest day of the year -- thousands of land surveyors will switch on their survey grade GPS devices to simultaneously measure and record information about their location in the largest scale land surveying project ever undertaken. The data will be submitted to the LSU social network and compared with last year's results to illustrate variations in the planet's surface over time.</p>
<p><em><span class="font-size-4"><font color="#20424C">"Planet Earth has never been measured with great precision -- in its entirety -- from thousands of points, simultaneously, during the course of a single day," says Land Surveyors United founder Justin Farrow. "On Survey Earth Day, the geospatial professionals of the world will have a chance to change that."</font></span></em></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2"><a href="http://creators.ning.com/profile/ElSurveyor" target="_blank">Justin Farrow</a> is responsible for creating Land Surveyors United, the first ever global social support network for geospatial professionals, and he has been cultivating the community since its inception in 2007. </span><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Land Surveyors United boasts nearly <a href="http://landsurveyorsunited.com/page/new-lsu-member-map" target="_blank">5,500 members from every continent</a> and over 50 countries, translates into over 145 languages, and offers localized community support for virtually any type of geospatial equipment or software on Earth. Survey Earth in a Day is arguably one of its most exciting projects -- activity on the network has doubled and membership is on the rise in these few weeks prior to the event. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 10pt;">We caught up with Justin and asked him to explain the evolution of Survey Earth as well as its significance to non-surveyors.</span></p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281742?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281742?profile=original" class="align-right"></a></p>
<p class="p1"><strong>Measuring the Earth sounds really cool. Can you explain how it works for us non-surveyors?</strong></p>
<p class="p1">The fact that the majority of the public does not know what a professional land surveyor does happen to be one of the primary reasons for holding such an event -- to educate. Without land surveyors, no one in the world would be able to accurately understand the ownership of real property. Surveyors bring accuracy to the measurement of land that the general public could never achieve. You can't find your property corners using Google Maps, for example.</p>
<p class="p1">Before <a href="http://landsurveyorsunited.com/"><span class="s1">Land Surveyors United</span></a>, no Global Social Network existed for Land Surveyors, despite the fact that it is the oldest profession known to man. Land Surveyors are trained to use a type of GPS equipment which is highly accurate. Cellphone GPS is only accurate to +/- 30 meters, and can only triangulate positions between 2-4 satellites. Survey grade GPS can be accurate to close to a centimeter or more, triangulating position from 20 or more satellites <span class="s2">at once.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-5"><span style="font-size: 13px;">An entire global network of surveyors simultaneously capturing and sending in data during a single day (Summer solstice, the longest day of the year) will actually increase the accuracy of the maps we use everyday, on our phones and on the Web. Therefore, only a professional land surveyor can improve the accuracy of Web-based maps. Imagine how much land surveyors could change the state of Web-mapping when we, as a community, simultaneously measure the entire planet on the longest day of the year from thousands of locations around Earth. We will show the public how truly important land surveyors are to society. </span></span></p>
<p class="p1"><strong>What kinds of information do you hope to learn from this data?</strong></p>
<p class="p1">Our first goal is to get land surveyors in the habit of communicating across borders. Surveyors are governed by laws which vary from state to state, country to country, which is one of the primary reasons for the lack of a 'global community' before now. We hope to understand both the similarities and differences shared among surveyors in different parts of the world. We hope to unify land surveyors based on this community gathered data, and we hope to educate the public about the importance of professional land surveyors to society. Ultimately, we hope to learn much more from the data than we currently anticipate, as it could be useful across disciplines of science, math, geodesy, geography, and of course, anthropology.</p>
<p><span class="font-size-5"><font color="#20424C"><em>An entire global network of surveyors simultaneously capturing and sending in data during a single day will actually increase the accuracy of the maps we use everyday, on our phones and on the Web.</em></font></span></p>
<p><em style="font-size: 16pt;"><a href="http://api.ning.com/files/rRlLHC*Dey1XMggUwdIR0jSc7ubJPa474RmmZnG5bskm2Hfr2c8LCsuHcsAcsQuBJfuwZlvFL9C4e2uAH3lE6LT-8SVvUk5J/internationalsurveyorsweek2013.png?size=139&crop=1:1" target="_self"><img src="http://api.ning.com/files/rRlLHC*Dey1XMggUwdIR0jSc7ubJPa474RmmZnG5bskm2Hfr2c8LCsuHcsAcsQuBJfuwZlvFL9C4e2uAH3lE6LT-8SVvUk5J/internationalsurveyorsweek2013.png?size=139&crop=1:1" class="align-right" width="164" height="164"></a></em></p>
<p class="p1"><strong>What response did the event have last year and what response are you expecting this year?</strong></p>
<p class="p1">Last year, with only around 2100 members on the Land Surveyors United network, we had around 1450 participants; and we are learning from our mistakes. Our submission form timed out for around 440 submissions because we were using a Jotform/Dropbox form that I hacked together. Last year (2012) was the very first year for two Ning-powered global events for land surveyors: Survey Earth in a Day 1.0 happened on Thursday June 20th, during the first annual <a href="http://landsurveyorsunited.com/events/international-surveyors-week-2012" target="_blank">International Surveyors Week</a>.</p>
<p class="p1">This year, with well over 5400 members, we have close to 3700 people registered to participate, which should mean a HUGE boost in submissions. We've put a lot more social media promotion into this year's event, and our network activity and membership has more than doubled. International Surveyors Week 2013 is a bit more focused than last year, and <a href="http://surveyearth.com/"><span class="s1">Survey Earth in a Day 2.0</span></a> is going to be live and streaming.</p>
<p class="p1">Survey Earth in a Day 3D is planned to take place on June 21, 2014. Data from all three years will be layered and mapped, giving us some ideas related to changes and shifts in the Earth's surface over time -- not to mention the growth of our global surveyors community. Pretty exciting stuff, even if you're not a land surveyor, I'd say! And as an anthropologist and the only person on my network who isn't a land surveyor, I am most excited about the strength and sense of community that this event is bringing to the land surveying industry.</p>
<p class="p1"><strong>How can non-surveyors contribute?</strong></p>
<p class="p1">I ask and encourage readers to share and post about this event in your own networks and blogs.</p>
<p class="p1"><a href="http://www.surveyearth.com/get-involved" target="_blank">Get involved</a> with the Survey Earth in a Day project. Connect with Survey Earth on <a href="http://twitter.com/surveyearth" target="_blank">Twitter</a> and <a href="http://facebook.com/surveyearthinaday" target="_blank">Facebook</a>.</p>
<p><a href="http://landsurveyorsunited.com/page/new-lsu-member-map" target="_blank"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281766?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" class="align-center" width="750"></a></p>
<p><a href="http://landsurveyorsunited.com/events/international-surveyors-week-2013" target="_blank"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281877?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" class="align-center" width="750"></a></p>
<p><em>Images courtesy of <a href="http://surveyearth.com/" target="_blank">Survey Earth</a></em></p></div>Tickets to ForumCon 2013: The Ultimate Event for Anyone Involved in Creating Communitieshttps://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/win-a-ticket-to-forumcon-2013-the-ultimate-event-for-anyone-invol2013-06-03T18:21:52.000Z2013-06-03T18:21:52.000ZAllison Leahyhttps://cultivate.ning.com/community/allisonleahy<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2208281?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=400"></div><div><p><span class="font-size-3">Today marks ten days until <a href="http://www.forumcon.com/" target="_blank">ForumCon 2013</a>, and what better way to start the countdown than by giving you, dear readers and community cultivators, the chance to attend. We have just a few tickets to share, so please submit your nominations to Lucy at lucy@viglink.com by Friday, June 7th for a chance to attend. <span>(</span><span>Yes, </span><em>you can nominate yourself</em><span>!)</span></span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">ForumCon 2013 will take place on Thursday, June 13th at San Francisco's historic <a href="http://www.jdvhotels.com/hotels/california/san-francisco-hotels/hotel-kabuki/destination/map-and-directions" target="_blank">Hotel Kabuki</a>. The focus this year is <em>Connecting, Collaborating, and the Future of Forums</em>. The <span>conference is dedicated to the business of forums and online communities, and <span>attracts top technology partners alongside emerging and successful forum owners, moderaters, and community managers. Companies attending include Ning, Flipboard, Livefyre, Twilio, Google, <span>Huddler,</span> CNET, Disqus, Greylock, 99Designs, Adobe, and many more.</span></span></span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Expect a mix of keynote presentations, panel discussions, breakout sessions, and a healthy dose of collaboration. Bring plenty of business cards and practice your <a href="http://www.sheltoninteractive.com/blog/how-to-create-a-great-elevator-pitch-elevator-pitch-examples" target="_blank">elevator pitch</a>, because first up is </span><span class="font-size-3">a round of speed networking, where attendees will be encouraged to meet 10 new contacts in 30 minutes. </span></span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><span class="font-size-3"><a href="http://www.viglink.com/about/team/executives" target="_blank">Oliver Roup</a>, Founder and CEO of VigLink will introduce the day, leading into the first panel presentation on forum monetization. </span></span><span class="font-size-3"><span class="font-size-3">The following talk, Building Your Community: From SEO to Social, <span>will be led by Search Engine Journal's </span><a href="http://searchenginewatch.com/author/2189/john-rampton" target="_blank">John Rampton</a>. Later sessions</span></span><span class="font-size-3"> include: The Importance of IRL: Connecting Your Community In Real Life with Anthony Marino, President Audizine; Effective Strategies for Forum Moderation with Dave Cayem, VP Delphi Forums; Hooked Model: How to Make Social Work with Your Forum, with Ted Rheingold, VP Social Say Media. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Atwood" target="_blank">Jeff Atwood</a>, Co-founder of Stackexchange.com and Discourse.org will deliver the keynote address, to be followed by a networking reception. If that's not enough to grab you, take a look at the full <a href="http://www.forumcon.com/agenda" target="_blank">agenda</a>.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">There will be plenty of opportunity to meet this year’s <a href="http://www.forumcon.com/speakers" target="_blank">speakers</a>, sponsors, backstage team, and other attendees. </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">If you know of anyone who would be interested in joining the conversation and would like to <strong>nominate them for a free ticket</strong>, email Lucy at lucy@viglink.com<span> on or before Friday, June 7, 2013.</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">If you plan to attend, tweet at @Ning with the hashtag #ForumCon. We'd love to see you there.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Follow the latest ForumCon updates on </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/ForumCon" style="font-size: 12pt;">Facebook</a><span style="font-size: 12pt;">,</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><a href="https://twitter.com/forumcon" style="font-size: 12pt;">Twitter</a><span style="font-size: 12pt;">, or</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><a href="http://www.linkedin.com/groups/ForumCon-3974365" style="font-size: 12pt;">LinkedIn</a><span style="font-size: 12pt;">.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><iframe width="640" height="360" style="font-size: 13px;" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/58228148?byline=0&portrait=0&color=c9ff23" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="" mozallowfullscreen="" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></span></p>
</div>Types of Community Growthhttps://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/types-of-community-growth2013-05-29T16:30:00.000Z2013-05-29T16:30:00.000ZRichard Millingtonhttps://cultivate.ning.com/community/RichardMillington<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2208232?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=400"></div><div><p>How you persuade new members to join a community isn't as interesting as <i>why</i> you are persuading new members to join a community. </p><p>Making a community bigger won't necessarily make it better. In fact, evidence suggests that making a community bigger will <i>decrease</i> the level of participation. It gets noisier, harder to follow, and less personable than it used to be.</p><p>Think of the friendship groups you're in, perhaps even the successful communities you're a part of, would you like a flood of new members to arrive?</p><p>There are three types of community growth:</p><ol><li><b>Replenishment</b>. Replenishment is the essential <i>growth</i> all communities need to survive. New members are required to replace departing members. On a long-enough time scale, all members will eventually leave. New blood ensures the long-term survival of the community. Replenishment growth should have a clear target number (matching the average of those who go inactive from a community each month). In many communities, replenishment growth is organic.</li><li><b>Expansion</b>. Expansion is deliberate growth beyond current numbers. Early in a community, expansion helps reach a critical mass of activity. Expansion can also help the community adapt to a change in the broader eco-system (if the current interest is fading) or it might be driven by the ambitions of members to grow bigger or be seen in a certain light.<i> Expansion should not be the default setting</i>. Expansion should be used as a response to extraordinary (out of the ordinary!) events or activities inside or outside the community. Specific growth for a specific reason.</li><li><b>Organic</b>. Organic growth is growth which is not directly stimulated by the organization/community manager. This will usually be in the form of a referral or mention of the community in other popular channels. Organic growth is the <i>ideal </i>passage of growth.</li></ol><p>Most organizations will ignore this and pursue their expansion plans regardless of whether it will affect member participation. You can worry about participation rates tomorrow, right? Which is true, except it's far more difficult to reinvigorate inactive members than keep members active altogether. </p><p>You can make a community better without making it bigger. </p><p>(<i>Image: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/adselwood/2463634924/">Growth</a>, a Creative Commons <a rel="nofollow" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en">Attribution (2.0)</a> image from adselwood's photostream</i>)</p></div>BandPage + Ning: A Destination for Your Band’s Biggest Fanshttps://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/bandpage-partnership2013-05-28T15:40:00.000Z2013-05-28T15:40:00.000ZJohn McDonaldhttps://cultivate.ning.com/community/JohnMcDonald<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2208211?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=400"></div><div><p><span class="font-size-3">Today, we are excited to announce that we’ve partnered with <a href="http://bandpage.com" target="_blank">BandPage</a>, the most authoritative, up-to-date content in the music world. Bands can now create a custom fan community in minutes, combining publishing, community and their BandPage content in a way never before seen.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">BandPage was launched in 2010 as an application that allowed musicians to create customized fan pages on Facebook. It has evolved to become the central profile more than 500,000 musicians use to automatically update their music, tour dates, photos, videos, and About content on other social channels such as SoundCloud, Twitter and Pandora, as well as their website or WordPress blog.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">BandPage teamed up with Ning to bring robust community features to bands that are ready to go beyond Facebook, a static website or blog and let their biggest fans take center stage. Unlike other social platforms, Ning lets bands and fans connect, converse, and create content together through tools such as band- or fan-led: blogs, forums, photo sections, and more. And Ning gives bands complete ownership, access, and control of their branded online communities, where they can nurture, cultivate, and empower their most loyal admirers.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><strong><a href="http://ning.com/bandpage" target="_blank"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/365588?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="300" class="align-right" height="167 /><style="></a>A fan community in minutes. Really.</strong></span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">This new partnership makes setting up a fan community super simple and fast for BandPage users. A band initiates the process by connecting its BandPage account to Ning. Ning’s technology transforms that content into a unique social site with a news blog, fan forum, music, tour dates, band photos, band videos and an About page. The band then uploads a header and background image and, if needed, makes adjustments to copy font and color. That’s it. The band is now ready to invite their most fervent admirers and start the conversation.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><a href="http://runrivernorth.ning.com/" target="_blank" style="font-size: 12pt;">Run River North</a><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> is a great example. They approached us last Thursday about building a fan community on Ning. Within a day, they had launched Runrivernorth.com and were already inviting fans to join them and make their new community a destination. <a href="http://brightmomentscommunity.ning.com/" target="_blank">Bright Moments</a> is another artist who was keen to add a dynamic community element to its social and web presence. In just a few clicks, the Bright Moments Community was born. Check out these new sites – and join if you are fan!</span></span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">Chris Wiltsee, director of business development at BandPage, says about this unique partnership, “bands want feature-rich flexible social networks and are eager to integrate their unique content into those networks. Ning is clearly striving to meet this need and BandPage is pleased to welcome Ning into its growing base of content partners.”</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><strong>The possibilities are endless</strong></span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">Bands who want to engage with their fans on a deeper level can take advantage of the power and flexibility of Ning 3.0 to add features and custom pages on the fly: fan photo section, individual band member blogs, a private street team forum, contests, and more. In Dada Life’s <a href="http://dadaland.ning.com/" target="_blank">Dada Land</a>, for example, Citizens can climb the member ranks and become Ambassadors by completing missions. The possibilities really are endless.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">We invite you to try Ning for free for your band by going to <a href="http://www.ning.com/bandpage" target="_blank">www.ning.com/bandpage</a>.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><a href="http://dadaland.ning.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281735?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="750" class="align-center"></a></span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"> </span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"> </span></p></div>Create Content That Your Community Will Love [Video]https://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/content-and-community-webinar-recording-with-richard-millington2013-05-15T14:59:50.000Z2013-05-15T14:59:50.000ZAllison Leahyhttps://cultivate.ning.com/community/allisonleahy<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2208229?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=400"></div><div><p><b id="docs-internal-guid-0a99ba80-a4d5-11a9-528a-4fb5903d9b53" style="font-size: 12pt;">Publish content that your community will love and you may never be a victim of writer's block again. </b><span style="font-size: 12pt;">This sounds like a paradox, but it is the reality of creating a terrific content strategy.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span class="font-size-3">With media consumption on the rise, it's increasingly important to publish stories that are hyper-relevant to your audience. For a community manager, this effectively means creating content about your community. "<span style="font-size: 12pt;">The best content for an online community is content about the community," <a href="http://www.feverbee.com/" target="_blank">Richard Millington</a> explained in his recent <a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/community-management-talks" target="_self">Community Management Talk</a>. <span>Your community wants to know about its most popular discussions, trending topics, and influential members. </span></span>Watch the full presentation on Content and Community below, and read on to discover the key concepts this recording contains.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><iframe width="740" height="463" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/66199737" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="" mozallowfullscreen="" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">A community manager is like a brand journalist. She must tell the story of her community, and do it in an organized, consistent manner.<span><br></span></span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong><span class="font-size-3">What does terrific content do?</span></strong></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span class="font-size-3"><a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/the-secret-of-awesome-content" target="_self">Terrific content</a> increases participation, establishes a social order, fosters sense of community, and creates a narrative for members to follow. <span> Before you dive right in and begin to create an arsenal of content, you must define your writing style. Take on a tone that is compatible with your community's demographic. For example, if you're writing for scientists, you can incorporate a scholarly vernacular. Conversely, if you are managing a community geared to teens, you will want to adopt more laid back lingo. Whichever slant you take, make it dependable. </span></span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong><span class="font-size-3">Soliciting guest contributions</span></strong></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span class="font-size-3">Guess what? All that terrific content doesn't have to be created by the community team. <a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/20-conversation-starters-that-will-get-your-community-talking" target="_self">Encouraging contributions</a> from your members will provide them with a sense of influence and remove much of the burden. To f</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">acilitate member contributions, set up an email address for members to submit news and opinions. Call them out when their story is published and link back or refer to it when the opportunity arises. </span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span style="font-size: medium;">You can generate additional outside interest in your community by inviting more established professionals to contribute their thoughts on a topic, as well. While it stands to reason that members of your community are invested and motivated to share knowledge, subject matter experts can be swayed by the same tenets of social psychology -- the desire for recognition and the opportunity to improve their personal brand. For ideas on how to solicit expert contributions, Richard recommends reading Tim Ferriss' lengthy article <a href="http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2012/12/18/hacking-kickstarter-how-to-raise-100000-in-10-days-includes-successful-templates-e-mails-etc/" target="_blank">How to Hack Kickstarter</a> -- it's full of useful tips that will help you build relationships with <span>influential people<span>.</span></span><br></span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><strong>The end goal</strong></span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span class="font-size-3">The line between editorial, advertorial and commercial content is thinly drawn, but the end goal of any content strategy remains the same. The posts you write for your community should inform, inspire, delight, entertain, and add value. Keep this top of mind, and your community will show its thanks through higher engagement and increased activity.</span></p>
<p><a href="http://feverbee.com/ning.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281731?profile=RESIZE_180x180" width="150" style="padding: 9px;" class="align-right"></a></p>
<p></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">For more community management best practices, </span><a href="http://www.feverbee.com/ning.html" target="_blank" style="font-size: 12pt;">download</a><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> half of </span><em style="font-size: 12pt;">Buzzing Communities: How to Build Bigger, Better, and More Active Online Communities</em><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> for free, then thank </span><a href="http://twitter.com/richmillington" target="_blank" style="font-size: 12pt;">@RichMillington</a><span style="font-size: 12pt;">!</span></p>
<hr>
<p>Content and Community is the sixth in a series of <a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/community-management-talks" target="_self">Community Management Talks</a> with <a href="http://feverbee.com" target="_blank">FeverBee</a> founder Richard Millington, who has spent the last 10 years mastering a range of social sciences, refining key community management skills, learning how to use and apply data, and amassing a collection of case studies to tackle every situation. Richard's previous webinars with Ning cover topics including strategies for generating activity, managing growth, facilitating member engagement, <a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/converting-newcomers-into-active-community-members" target="_self">converting newcomers into active members</a>, and the science behind it all. To be alerted of upcoming Community Management Talks, <a href="mailto:ningsocial@glam.com" target="_blank">email Allison</a> with the subject line "Add me."</p></div>How To Help Members Overcome Their Fear of Participationhttps://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/how-to-help-members-overcome-their-fear-of-participation2013-05-02T19:00:00.000Z2013-05-02T19:00:00.000ZRichard Millingtonhttps://cultivate.ning.com/community/RichardMillington<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2208160?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=400"></div><div><p>If you could increase the number of members initiating discussions, the level of activity and engagement would rise sharply. </p><p>The percentage of members who initiate discussions is usually small. This limits activity and the level of engagement members have in the community.</p><p>Members need both the motivation to initiate and to overcome their fear of starting a discussion. Their motivation to initiate will be to either learn something (e.g. <i>"Does anyone know how to....?"</i>), to impress others (e.g. "<i>does anyone else think business class travel isn't as great as it used to be?</i>") or to bond with others (e.g. "<i>I'm upset Kelly got fired from the Apprentice</i>").</p><p>Motivation comes relatively easy in active communities. It's social anxiety which prevents most members from initiating discussions. This social anxiety comes in three forms:</p><ol><li>I might ask a dumb question or make a dumb statement.</li><li>My comment won’t receive any reply and I will appear unpopular.</li><li>I might be criticised by members of the community.</li></ol><p>A community can overcome much of this anxiety in a few simple steps:</p><ol><li><b>Regularly ask members who write a good response to publish it as an initiated discussion</b>. This creates a habit for members to start discussions. </li><li><b>Feature highly active discussions prominently on the landing page</b>. This showcases the potential rewards (popularity) for initiating a successful discussion and acts as social proof to overcoming the fear of no responses.</li><li><b>Send members the unwritten rules of the community when they join</b>. Make sure they know how to start discussions, what discussions are usually about and a few tips on how to make a good impression. Automatically edit/correct any questions which are a little off the mark.</li><li><b>Respond to discussions which have not received a response in 24 hours</b>. The appearance of a community in which every discussion receives a response reduces the fear. You may also contact members directly to respond to these discussions. Another option is to have an 'unanswered questions' box. You can even congratulate the initiator on thinking up a question that your community's experts haven't yet been able to answer.</li><li><b>Make heroes of initiators</b>. e.g. <i>"Also this week Joe Smith started an interesting debate about....if you have some expertise, be sure to let him know".</i> This, again, acts as social proof within the community platform and helps other members to know that it's safe to participate.</li></ol><p>Social anxiety within a community platform is low compared to offline situations. Yet, it is still high enough to persuade most members never to participate at all. You should be actively working to overcoming this fear. </p><p>(<i>Image: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/ryanready/4829673528/">worried sidewalk</a>, a Creative Commons <a rel="nofollow" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en">Attribution (2.0)</a> image from ryanready's photostream</i>)</p></div>Converting Newcomers Into Active Community Members [Video]https://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/converting-newcomers-into-active-community-members2013-04-22T20:54:47.000Z2013-04-22T20:54:47.000ZAllison Leahyhttps://cultivate.ning.com/community/allisonleahy<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2208149?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=400"></div><div><div class="description_wrapper">
<div class="description" data-expand-tooltip="Click to expand description" itemprop="description">
<p class="first"><span class="font-size-3">Some community managers wait for visitors to stumble upon their community, then throw the kitchen sink at them to keep them active. This approach seems like it might be helpful, but it can actually overwhelm newcomers and scare activity away. According to a <a href="http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~jaime/ArguelloCHI06.pdf" target="_blank">study</a> on the foundation for successful online communities, 68% of members will post just one message. Research also shows that many prospective members will sign up for a community just to gain access to the information there. They don't even anticipate involving themselves in the conversation -- the social and emotional aspects of the community. As community managers, our challenge is to help newcomers overcome any social fear of participation. We must motivate them to contribute by engaging</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> them from the start, then continuing to encourage collaboration and its related affinities. There are plenty of tools and techniques to help us dial it in.</span></p>
<p class="first"><span class="font-size-3">In the following webinar, FeverBee's <a href="http://www.feverbee.com" target="_blank">Richard Millington</a> reviews key elements of the conversion process and shares a data-based approach for crafting the ideal new member experience. Watch this presentation to learn how to optimize a new member's journey from registration through the first major milestones and how to combine social and technological processes to boost conversion rates. (The Q&A is available <a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/optimizing-the-new-member-experience-q-a-with-video?context=category-community+management+talks" target="_self">here</a>.)</span><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/IhHjS8BolvQ?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">Not for the faint of heart, this lesson requires you to roll up your sleeves and dive into community data using stratified sampling techniques to better understand your current conversion ratios. You will be tasked with using Google Analytics and community metrics to:</span></p>
<ul>
<li><span class="font-size-3">Find the number of unique, new IP address (visitors) and compare that with how many new members registered for your community within the previous 30 days. (Hint: 9% is average for new communities that do not apply any of these optimization techniques.)</span></li>
<li><span class="font-size-3">Calculate the number of newly registered members that convert into active participants within the first 30 days.</span></li>
<li><span class="font-size-3">Generate a systematic sampling of 100 registered members within the past month and find out whether those members made contributions and/or where they dropped out.</span></li>
<li><span class="font-size-3">Identify when and where members drop out, so you can pinpoint when and where you should intervene in order to keep members on target to hit milestones that will help them through their first three months -- the point at which newbies transition from participants into regular, long-term members of the community.</span></li>
</ul>
<p><span class="font-size-3">Now that you have an idea of how many (or few) members stick with you to create and comment on a few posts, it's time to make some changes! There are many tools at our disposal, and we can plan a variety of interventions to increase initial participation. We can...</span></p>
<ul>
<li><span class="font-size-3">Tinker with the notification system by modifying its subject line, altering the content, adjusting the number of messages or the time they are delivered,</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> and changing who the notes come from.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Increase community response time, so that anyone who posts a comment or new discussion will receive a response within 12 hours.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Modify the characteristics of each response to align with that particular member's journey.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Create more robust new member guidelines and include more pointers on how to participate, and information on the culture and history of the community.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Get creative and iterate.</span></li>
</ul>
<p><span class="font-size-3">What kinds of programs do you have in place to make your new member journey <span>that prepares newcomers to participate and motivates them to remain active?</span></span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><a href="http://feverbee.com/ning.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281731?profile=RESIZE_180x180" width="150" style="padding: 9px;" class="align-right"></a><span style="font-size: 12pt;">For more community management best practices, </span><a href="http://www.feverbee.com/ning.html" target="_blank" style="font-size: 12pt;">download</a><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> half of </span><em style="font-size: 12pt;">Buzzing Communities: How to Build Bigger, Better, and More Active Online Communities</em><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> for free, then thank </span><a href="http://twitter.com/richmillington" target="_blank" style="font-size: 12pt;">@RichMillington</a><span style="font-size: 12pt;">!</span></p>
<hr>
<p>Converting Newcomers Into Active Community Members is the fifth in a series of Community Management Talks with <a href="http://feverbee.com" target="_blank">FeverBee</a> founder Richard Millington, who has already shared strategies for generating activity, managing growth, <a href="http://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/content-and-community-webinar-recording-with-richard-millington" target="_self">creating content</a>, facilitating member engagement, and the science behind it all. Richard has spent the last 10 years mastering a range of social sciences, refining key community management skills, learning how to use and apply data, collaborating with over a hundred different organizations, and amassing a collection of case studies to tackle every situation. </p>
<p>To be alerted of upcoming Community Management Talks, <a href="mailto:ningsocial@glam.com" target="_blank">email Allison</a> with the subject line "Add me."</p>
</div>
</div></div>Why Businesses are Embracing Branded Community Siteshttps://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/why-businesses-are-embracing-branded-community-sites-12013-04-08T18:32:59.000Z2013-04-08T18:32:59.000ZAmita Paulhttps://cultivate.ning.com/community/AmitaPaul<div><p><span class="font-size-3"><strong>Moving Beyond Facebook</strong></span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281690?profile=original" class="align-right" height="317" width="312"></span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">Many of us following Facebook’s ongoing updates to News Feeds are convinced that the new rules, filters and algorithms are making it harder for businesses to reach their audience without spending big money on sponsored posts. Given the rising costs and unpredictability of reaching their fan base with organic content, brands and business owners are considering to limit their reliance on Facebook as their core social media platform, and are more likely to continue using Facebook for it’s 1 billion+ users, primarily as one of their many distribution channels. A recent NYTimes article by Nick Bolton <a rel="nofollow" href="http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/03/disruptions-when-sharing-on-facebook-comes-at-a-cost/">“Disruptions: As User Interaction on Facebook Drops, Sharing comes at a Cost”</a> brings up these issues, with a very relevant example. The desperate monetization attempts of Facebook (costs of audience acquisition, engagement and reach etc ) and, the concerns of privacy and control, are few of the many reasons that are forcing businesses to move away from Facebook as a destination site and, are encouraging them to embrace alternatives, available in more controlled, and privately owned community sites.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><b>Audience Size and Quality</b></span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">Social Media experts and marketers have been ranting for long about the need for businesses to have a sizable audience on Facebook to have any meaningful existence. This directly translates to investments in getting consumers to like their page. These investments would make sense, if there were a guaranteed formula to correlate the likes on a page to the engagements they would drive. Unfortunately there is no such magic formula. The audience thus cultivated or rather, bought does not ensure quality. In more cases than not and, with targeted investments, this audience does not give the assurance of any long-term commitment.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><b>Audience Engagement</b></span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">Further investments need to be made to reach even a small fraction of this audience and, businesses are required to promote their messages. Then again, Facebook model favors content producers. Not all businesses support this model. This inherent assumption in the design impacts such businesses in getting visibility with their fan base, and, deems Facebook not the preferred medium to build a thriving community. Why would businesses pay to acquire fans, when they have to pay to reach them?</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><b>Ownership and Control</b></span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">Finally, after investing in fan acquisition and in engagement, there is very little that business owners can do <em>with</em> their audience. There is no straightforward way to reach out to the audience they've acquired, without any intermediary (which, is Facebook) or through any other channels like, email. There is little to no ownership of audience data. Facebook knows more about your hard-earned audience than you as a business owner do.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><b>Fragmented Social</b></span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">Yes, Facebook dominates as the largest generic platform. But, the media environment is fragmented and consumers will subscribe to a truck-load of niche platforms that are rich in content like Path, Pinterest, and other content-based websites. I predict that we will witness a shift where businesses and brands will place less focus on the channels and more on the pathway of content communication that is most linked to the desired outcomes, thus making such sites as mentioned earlier to be distribution channels, rather than destination sites. </span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><b>Embracing Niche Community Sites</b></span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">Niche community sites that can be built using platforms like Ning 3.0 offer power of participation and group-think, which keeps the community thriving, without any external stimulus.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">Businesses are willing to invest in members and are increasingly interested in creating communities that can be nurtured and developed to produce long-term commitment. By focusing on vertical niches, business efforts can be directed towards building high yielding destination websites. A members-only community facilitates relationship building without concerns of privacy and it presents more direct ways of engaging with a member-base.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><a href="http://www.ning.com/customer-story/national-peace-corps-association/" target="_blank"></a><a href="http://www.ning.com/customer-story/national-peace-corps-association/" target="_blank">Erica Berman</a>, who is the Director of Communications for The National Peace Corps Association, and manages a thriving community powered by the Ning Platform, shares her experience:</span></p>
<blockquote>
<p><span style="color: #000000;" class="font-size-3">“While Facebook was good for us at the beginning, now it feels like fewer and fewer people are seeing our content. We can’t afford to promote posts and even if you do, there’s no guarantee members see them. If I send something out in the Ning community I know they see it. Plus, it’s easy to export our membership data for our monthly email newsletter. When we send a message out to our Ning community, we always see a bump in responses. We sent out a survey to many places asking members about their service and life after the Peace Corps–the Ning community was the most responsive."</span></p>
</blockquote>
<p><span class="font-size-3">The Peace Corps still uses the reach of other social networks, including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn, but the Ning site is the core of its online efforts. Read more about Erica Berman’s success and others at <a href="http://www.ning.com/customer-story/national-peace-corps-association/" target="_self">Ning.com</a>. </span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"> </span></p></div>Ning 3.0: Own and Take Control of Your Social Channels. Reach, Cultivate and Empower Your Fans When You Want, How You Wanthttps://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/announcing-ning-32013-03-11T14:00:00.000Z2013-03-11T14:00:00.000ZJohn McDonaldhttps://cultivate.ning.com/community/JohnMcDonald<div><p>When we first began offering full-featured Ning Networks in 2007, MySpace was the clear leader in social networking, Facebook was 1/10th the size it is today and Twitter was celebrating its first birthday. Ning was the place for early social innovators to create online communities of people with similar interests or passions.</p>
<p>Today, social media has become an essential part of the world. A Facebook Page is required for anyone with anything to say or sell. Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest and Instagram have exploded in growth, and people and organizations have accessed the broad reach of these social channels to quickly attract fans and followers in ways never imagined.</p>
<p><a target="_self" href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281640?profile=original"><img class="align-right" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281640?profile=RESIZE_480x480" height="115" width="400"></a>And yet, the proliferation and adoption of these social channels has fragmented instead of fostering the best parts of online communities. The bands, authors, artists, experts, advocates, non-profits, brands and others who’ve built strong and active social presences on Facebook, Twitter and other channels—people we call “social leaders”—now increasingly find those same platforms limiting how they can cultivate, contact and empower their online communities.</p>
<p>We’ve learned from the more than 2 million communities that have launched on Ning in the last 6 years, listened deeply to our customers and today we’re thrilled to unveil a top-to-bottom redesign of Ning to specifically address the needs of social leaders: Ning 3.0.</p>
<p><strong>On Ning 3.0, today’s social leader can create a place where they own and control everything, a place to communicate and engage with their most loyal fans or customers when they want and how they want—on the largest, most scalable, and most integrated social platform of its kind.</strong></p>
<p>This is Ning reimagined. Reflecting our heritage, this redesign combines publishing & community in a way never before seen, featuring design customization and tools that are a step-change in site flexibility and functionality.</p>
<p><strong>Publishing + Community</strong></p>
<p>With Ning 3.0, you can create multiple instances of social features such as blogs and forums, each with a distinct audience, contributors, commenting system and privacy. This flexibility and control gives social leaders the ability to clearly distinguish their “official” content from user-generated content, and to integrate both in unique ways. For example, a band might create an official blog and photos page where non-members can comment using Disqus and only band members can contribute. Their fans could join the community to upload their own photos and post discussions on a public fan photos page and forum. And the band could invite their superfans to join their street team and gain access to a private forum to interact directly with band members. All of these social features would be integrated into one Ning Network.</p>
<p><a target="_blank" href="http://divaliciousblog.com/"><img class="align-center" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281661?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="750"></a>We’ve also completely rewritten and redesigned our publishing tools in Ning 3.0 to meet the expectations of social leaders today. Blogs are elegantly presented, with lead photos, excerpts, categorization and custom URL. Photos look sharp, clean and professionally arranged. We’ve added a new Social Channel feature to integrate videos from YouTube or Vimeo channel. And if you want to give non-members the ability to interact with your published content, you can choose Disqus or Facebook for commenting on that feature.</p>
<p>Want to see what we mean? Check out these two new communities launched today on Ning 3.0 by actress <a href="http://elizapatriciadushku.com" target="_blank">Eliza Dushku</a> and <a href="http://divaliciousblog.com/" target="_blank">Divalicious</a>, the community of beauty/fashion expert Lauren Cosenza.</p>
<p><strong>Beautiful design made easy</strong></p>
<p>It’s always been easy for a non-technical person to set up a Ning Network with a simple design. But to create a stand-out, stunning design, you’ve needed extensive CSS skills. With Ning 3.0, truly anyone will be able to create a unique, beautifully designed home for his or her online community. Our Design Studio now includes new themes, more than 1,400 background images, balanced color palettes and cool translucent options. Header customization can now be done by simply dragging and dropping navigation, logo and other images.</p>
<p><a target="_self" href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281672?profile=original"><img class="align-right" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1281672?profile=RESIZE_480x480" width="409"></a>We made a more fundamental change with Ning 3.0 to make the platform much friendlier for expert designers as well. We completely redesigned the HTML of all user-facing pages using an updated, responsive 960 pixel 16 column grid that is familiar for any designer who has spent time working with Bootstrap. Designers will find it easy to design 1, 2, 3, 4 or even 6 column designs. Column padding and other detailed customization is now straightforward and flexible.</p>
<p><strong>Responsive design: mobile app not required</strong></p>
<p>Tablets and mobile phones are rapidly overtaking and sprinting past the desktop browser in terms of usage. Ning 3.0 was built using responsive design and HTML5, resulting in beautiful design and fan experiences on any device – smartphone, tablet or laptop.</p>
<p><strong>Get started today for free</strong></p>
<p>We invite you to experience the new Ning by going to <a href="http://www.ning.com/" target="_blank">www.Ning.com</a> and starting a free trial right away to experience the increased flexibility, beautiful design and improved publishing capabilities. Current Ning customers should also visit our <a href="http://creators.ning.com/page/ning-3-0-the-re-imagining-of-our-product" target="_blank">Ning 3.0 FAQs</a> to learn when and how they can upgrade to Ning 3.0.</p>
<p>We’re incredibly excited about what it means for social leaders looking to take the next step in cultivating their online communities. We hope you are just as excited about the possibilities Ning 3.0 holds for your community of fans, members, customers, followers, supporters or readers.</p></div>How to Increase Activity in Your Communityhttps://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/how-to-increase-activity-in-your-community2013-02-28T08:08:31.000Z2013-02-28T08:08:31.000ZRichard Millingtonhttps://cultivate.ning.com/community/RichardMillington<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2208224?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=400"></div><div><p><span class="font-size-3">The majority of communities struggle to sustain high levels of activity in their communities. We typically only hear about the rampant success stories. It’s fun to believe that a community will just attract members and explode to life.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">Unfortunately, that’s probably not going to happen. It’s going to take a lot of hard work, an understanding of why people participate in communities, some principles of activity, and a clear plan of action.</span></p>
<h3><span class="font-size-4"><strong>Why do people participate in communities?</strong></span></h3>
<p><span class="font-size-3">People participate in communities to satisfy their informational and social needs. The mistake most organizations make is they focus on the former and ignore the latter. The problem with the former is once someone has gained the information they need, they leave. Your challenge is to focus on their social needs.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">To increase activity, you need to apply proven community building techniques. These techniques include content, moderation, relationship development, and events/activities. The best communities are able to use all four to sustain extremely high levels of activity.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-4"><strong>Principles for high levels of activity</strong></span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">Before we get tactical, let’s cover some basic principles of successful activity:</span></p>
<ul>
<li><span class="font-size-3"><strong>Activity should be planned</strong>. Don’t wait for activity to happen by chance. Proactively drive the level of activity in your community. This means have a clear idea of what activity will take place when. Everything else is a bonus.</span></li>
<li><span class="font-size-3"><strong>Good activity –vs– weak activity.</strong> Good activity is when members interact via discussions, blogs posts, or another medium where they can meaningfully share their thoughts, feelings, and experiences with one another. Weak activity are poll votes, likes, clicks, and anything that doesn’t allow other members to know each other better. Focus on driving good activity<strong>.</strong></span></li>
<li><span class="font-size-3"><strong>Group identity</strong>. Communities with a strong group identity and sense of community also have sustained high levels of activity. If you can build a strong group identity, you will have high levels of activity.</span></li>
</ul>
<h3><span class="font-size-4"><strong>Develop a community management plan</strong></span></h3>
<p><span class="font-size-3">Put together a template community management plan that highlights what content, activities, and discussions will take place in your community over the next few months. Try to have some sort of sustained narrative or broad themes to cover. If you run the 50 Cent community and there is a new 50 cent tour/record coming out, then you might be planning 3 big discussions a week:</span></p>
<ul>
<li><span class="font-size-3"><strong>Monday</strong><em>: On a scale of 1 – 10, how would you rate 50 Cent’s New Album?</em></span></li>
<li><span class="font-size-3"><strong>Wednesday</strong>: <em>What’s your favourite song on the new album?</em></span></li>
<li><span class="font-size-3"><strong>Friday</strong>: <em>So who has tickets to see 50 Cent in {city?}</em></span></li>
</ul>
<p><br />
<span class="font-size-3">Then you might plan 2 online events that week. For example:</span></p>
<ul>
<li><span class="font-size-3"><strong>Tuesday</strong>: Live chat with tour manager (it’s not as hard to arrange these as you imagine).</span></li>
<li><span class="font-size-3"><strong>Thursday</strong>: Community discussion of the week: Theme – best places to buy 50 Cent tour tickets</span></li>
</ul>
<p><br />
<span class="font-size-3">Then you might schedule regular content for example:</span></p>
<ul>
<li><span class="font-size-3"><strong>Monday:</strong> Interview with a community member</span></li>
<li><span class="font-size-3"><strong>Tuesday:</strong> Community predictions for next 50 Cent album</span></li>
<li><span class="font-size-3"><strong>Wednesday:</strong> Poll:<em>What was the best 50 Cent song ever</em>?</span></li>
<li><span class="font-size-3"><strong>Thursday:</strong> 50 Cent crazy fan of the week…</span></li>
<li><span class="font-size-3"><strong>Friday:</strong> Roundup of the week’s 50 Cent news</span></li>
<li><span class="font-size-3"><strong>Saturday</strong>: Welcome the newcomers.</span></li>
</ul>
<p><br />
<span class="font-size-3">Note that the best content for a community is content <em>about</em> the community. You want content that involves you proactively going out there and interacting with members. Imagine yourself as a local reporter and the community being your local beat. Go out there and find stories about what your members are doing.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">Now you have fresh activity taking place every day in the community. You’ve given members a reason to continually return and visit your community every day. You might need to individually nudge a few members in the beginning, but over time you will see it taking off.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-4"><strong>Practical tips</strong></span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">In addition to having a great plan, there are also a number of practical tips you can implement to increase activity.</span></p>
<ul>
<li><span class="font-size-3"><strong>Remove the dead areas</strong>. The appearance of success is crucial. If you have posts with no replies, areas of the community that aren’t used, features that don’t get much activity then remove them. You want your community to appear as highly active as possible. This leads to...</span></li>
<li><span class="font-size-3"><strong>Concentrate activity</strong>. Just because you can have blogs, pictures, chat boxes, groups (especially groups!), doesn’t mean you should. This dissipates activity throughout your community. This does a lot of harm. Initially you want to concentrate activity in as few areas as possible. For most communities, just a forum is enough.</span></li>
<li><span class="font-size-3"><strong>Prioritize interactions over content</strong>. Too many communities prioritize content over interactions and then wonder why people come to read instead of participating. This is a mistake. Make sure the latest discussions between members occupies the key position in your community. The Rock And Roll Tribe does this well.</span></li>
<li><span class="font-size-3"><strong>Highlight what’s popular</strong>. Social proof is a powerful thing. Members want to see what other members are doing. Make sure you highlight what’s popular in your community. If you have a popular discussion, turn it into a sticky thread for other members to see and participate in. Then send an e-mail out to members asking for their opinions/thoughts on the issue as well.</span></li>
<li><span class="font-size-3"><strong>Highlight the contributions of members</strong>. Remember that members want recognition and the feeling they have influence over the community (or could have). If you regularly recognize the contributions of members (by name!) in content, blog posts, newsletters, e-mails, and discussions, you will encourage more discussions.</span></li>
</ul>
</div>20 Conversation Starters That Will Get Your Community Talkinghttps://cultivate.ning.com/ning-blog/20-conversation-starters-that-will-get-your-community-talking2013-02-28T08:12:53.000Z2013-02-28T08:12:53.000ZRichard Millingtonhttps://cultivate.ning.com/community/RichardMillington<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2208123?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=400"></div><div><p><span class="font-size-3">Are you struggling to stimulate activity in your online community? Do you have lots of members but little participation? Try asking the sorts of questions that stimulate discussion in every online community.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">Here are 20 to get you started:</span></p>
<ol>
<li><b style="line-height: 1.714285714; font-size: 1rem;">What is your favourite ………. ?</b><b style="line-height: 1.714285714; font-size: 1rem;"> </b>Asking members about their favourite anything will stimulate a response. Try it.</li>
<li><b style="line-height: 1.714285714; font-size: 1rem;">What is your average day like?</b><b style="line-height: 1.714285714; font-size: 1rem;"> </b>People love to talk about themselves. Ask them what their average day is like and they’ll tell you. They’ll also compare it with anyone else that answers.</li>
<li><b style="line-height: 1.714285714; font-size: 1rem;">What do you think about ……….?</b><b style="line-height: 1.714285714; font-size: 1rem;"> </b>Giving opinions is human nature. When you ask for opinions you’ll get a lot.</li>
<li><b style="line-height: 1.714285714; font-size: 1rem;">What advice would you give to the person above you?</b> Careful about these. Can stimulate a lot of activity, can also get way out of hand. Useful for a light-hearted touch to your community efforts.</li>
<li><b style="line-height: 1.714285714; font-size: 1rem;">Can anyone recommend ……….?</b><b style="line-height: 1.714285714; font-size: 1rem;"> </b>People like to be helpful and show off knowledge. Asking for recommendations will solicit knowledge and engagement from users.</li>
<li><b style="line-height: 1.714285714; font-size: 1rem;">What is the worst thing that has ever happened to you whilst ……… ? </b>Self explanatory. Let members share their stories. It’ll almost certainly boost activity and return visits. Members will slowly get to know and like each other.</li>
<li><b style="line-height: 1.714285714; font-size: 1rem;">Can anyone fix ………. ?</b><b style="line-height: 1.714285714; font-size: 1rem;"> </b>Present a difficult problem, let members try to suggest ways to fix it.</li>
<li><b style="line-height: 1.714285714; font-size: 1rem;">What is the best/worst ………. ?</b><b style="line-height: 1.714285714; font-size: 1rem;"> </b>Opinions, opinions, opinions. Solicit them in as many different ways as possible. Pick a sub-category and ask people for their best/worst suggestions.</li>
<li><b style="line-height: 1.714285714; font-size: 1rem;">Who do you most admire?</b><b style="line-height: 1.714285714; font-size: 1rem;"> </b>Pick someone in your niche you most admire and tell others why.</li>
<li> <b style="line-height: 1.714285714; font-size: 1rem;">Is {x} really better than {y}?</b><b style="line-height: 1.714285714; font-size: 1rem;"> </b>Make it controversial. Pick an issue members will be split on – but not divisively so. Ask questions about it. Let people take sides.<a href="http://blog-o.ning.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Puzzle-Pieces-Conversation-Starters-by-Horia-Varlan.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://blog-o.ning.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Puzzle-Pieces-Conversation-Starters-by-Horia-Varlan.jpg?width=640" width="640" class="align-center" /></a></li>
<li><b style="line-height: 1.714285714; font-size: 1rem;">If you weren’t ……… would you ………. ?</b><b style="line-height: 1.714285714; font-size: 1rem;"> </b>Create a hypothetical situation in which all members can give their opinion on something radical.</li>
<li><b style="line-height: 1.714285714; font-size: 1rem;">Who/What are your top 5 ………. ?</b><b style="line-height: 1.714285714; font-size: 1rem;"> </b>Ranking is addictive. Ask people to rank their top 5 anything and then try to create an overall ranking based upon the community.</li>
<li><b style="line-height: 1.714285714; font-size: 1rem;">How would you handle {topical issue}?</b><b style="line-height: 1.714285714; font-size: 1rem;"> </b>If your members in charge, how would they handle a topical issue in your sector?</li>
<li><b style="line-height: 1.714285714; font-size: 1rem;">What ………. do you use?</b><b style="line-height: 1.714285714; font-size: 1rem;"> </b>Relevant in almost all online communities, ask people to compare what relevant products/services they use. Companies love this information too.</li>
<li><b style="line-height: 1.714285714; font-size: 1rem;">Does anyone know how to …… ?</b><b style="line-height: 1.714285714; font-size: 1rem;"> </b>Does anyone know provokes interest, the how to can be broad or specific. People are likely to participate.</li>
<li><b style="line-height: 1.714285714; font-size: 1rem;">Has anyone tried</b>……….<b>?</b><b style="line-height: 1.714285714; font-size: 1rem;"> </b>Again, has anyone is all-encompassing and people are likely to share their experiences.</li>
<li><b style="line-height: 1.714285714; font-size: 1rem;">Is ………. right about ………. ?</b><b style="line-height: 1.714285714; font-size: 1rem;"> </b>Take someone’s stance on a topical issue and throw it open to comment by the entire community.</li>
<li><b style="line-height: 1.714285714; font-size: 1rem;">What would you do if ………. ?</b><b style="line-height: 1.714285714; font-size: 1rem;"> </b>Create a hypothetical situation, perhaps a problem lots of people face, and ask members what they would do. Life problems work well here.</li>
<li><b style="line-height: 1.714285714; font-size: 1rem;">What should every newcomer know about ……….? </b>Well, what should every newcomer know about something relevant in your sector? It’s great advice – perfect for a sticky-thread.</li>
<li><b style="line-height: 1.714285714; font-size: 1rem;">Share your pictures/top tips here. </b>Sharing advice and pictures can be an easy win for stimulating activity. Try it. I suspect you will find it easy to gain lots of valuable insights.</li>
</ol>
<p><br />
<span class="font-size-3">Your mileage with any of these questions will vary depending upon the topic sector and the progress of your community. However, if you’re looking to generate some activity, you can try a few of these basic conversation starters to get going.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">The more open-ended the question, the more everyone can participate. When you post a question, try prodding a few members to reply and get the activity started.</span></p>
<p></p>
<p><em>Images courtesy of <a title="View profile" href="http://www.geograph.org.uk/profile/15898" rel="cc:attributionURL dct:creator">Zorba the Geek</a> and <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/bobaliciouslondon/" target="_blank">bobaliciouslondon</a><br /></em></p>
</div>