community management

Upcoming Webinar: The Community Lifecycle

Posted by Allison Leahy on August 21, 2013 at 4:32pm

The Online Community Lifecycle is the single most important thing a community manager can know. Attend our upcoming webinar on August 29th, and at the end of one hour you will have a full understanding of this concept. It might just completely change the way you approach your community.

Designing The Perfect Newcomer To Regular Journey - Step One: Awareness

Posted by Richard Millington on August 20, 2013 at 9:00am in best practices

How do people hear about your community? Do you wait for people to join or approach them? The biggest influence upon someone’s likelihood of becoming a regular participant is their level of interest in the topic.

Professional Community Course by FeverBee Now Available

Posted by Aaron on August 13, 2013 at 4:45pm in best practices and ning news

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. 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.

"Culture eats strategy for lunch" - Community Lessons from Whole Foods

Posted by Crystal on August 8, 2013 at 11:22am in quick tips

How does Whole Foods Markets balance its overall brand social media efforts with those of local markets? Director of Social Media and Digital Marketing Natanya Anderson shares insight on the overarching ideology and regional practices at BlogWell Bay Area.

The Online Community Lifecycle - Stage Four: Mitosis

Posted by Richard Millington on August 6, 2013 at 9:00am in best practices

Your goal, and the goal of every community manager, is to progress their community through the lifecycle. 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.

Back to School Community Reading

Posted by Crystal on August 2, 2013 at 9:30am in tools and tech

As August rolls around, the Back to School signs start going up and recommended reading lists start coming out. Did you spend your summer on beach reads like Nicholas Sparks and World War Z? Time to get back in the scholastic mindset. Here's our list of Back to School Reading for Community Managers.

The Online Community Lifecycle - Stage Three: Maturity

Posted by Richard Millington on August 1, 2013 at 9:00am in best practices

  If there is one single thing every community manager should know about communities, the lifecycle is it.   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.   The maturity phase of the online community lifecycle begins when members of the community are generating 90% or more of activity/growth, and there is a limited sense of community.

The Online Community Lifecycle - Stage Two: Establishment

Posted by Richard Millington on July 30, 2013 at 9:00am in best practices

If there is one single thing every community manager should know about communities, the lifecycle is it.   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.   The establishment phase of the online community lifecycle begins when the community has reached critical mass.

The Online Community Lifecycle - Stage One: Inception

Posted by Richard Millington on July 25, 2013 at 9:00am in best practices

If there is one single thing every community manager should know about communities, the lifecycle is it.   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.   The inception stage begins when you begin interacting with the target audience and ends with the community achieving a critical mass of growth and activity.

The Online Community's Ecosystem

Posted by Richard Millington on July 19, 2013 at 9:00am in best practices

Your community lives within an ecosystem. This ecosystem is the broader topic, industry, area, field, group which encompasses the community. 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.

Effective Community Moderation [Video]

Posted by Crystal on July 17, 2013 at 9:00am in community management talks

Community moderation is not just about removing the "bad stuff" in your community; it's about removing barriers to participation and facilitating motivation for members to interact with the rest of the community. By setting moderation objectives, you can more effectively mold your community's culture, resolve conflicts, and steer the community.

3 Perfectly Acceptable Ways To Invite Someone To Join Your Community

Posted by Richard Millington on July 16, 2013 at 9:00am in quick tips

You can’t mass-invite people to join your community. That’s spam. It’s ineffective and does more harm than good. Do you want a deleted e-mail to be someone’s first impression of your community? There are 3 very good and very effective ways to invite someone to join your community.

ForumCon 2013: Nir Eyal on How to Hook Your Community

Posted by Crystal on July 10, 2013 at 9:00am in quick tips

A writer, lecturer at Stanford University and frequent speaker, Nir Eyal's specialty is educating companies and consumers on habits and behaviors that help and hinder their lives, both online and off. In talking about what traits apps need to "hook" users, much of his information was directly relevant to building communities that keep members coming back .

The 90-9-1 Rule: Dead, Different, or a Distraction?

Posted by Crystal on July 8, 2013 at 10:00am in quick tips

There seem to be two different conclusions that people have come to regarding the current state of the 90-9-1: either it's completely dead or it needs to be updated. I propose a third option.

Setting Objectives For Your Online Community

Posted by Richard Millington on July 3, 2013 at 10:30am in quick tips

Fight the pressure to set clear objectives for your online community. Especially objectives with measurable metrics.

Growing An Online Community: Attracting Clusters

Posted by Richard Millington on July 2, 2013 at 8:30am in quick tips

We all gather in interconnected clusters. You’ve probably seen a cluster map somewhere. Think of it like social groups in a playground. Friends gather in circles of 8 to 12 people, but one of those people might have connections to another group of similar size.

What Does A Community Manager Look Like?

Posted by Crystal on June 28, 2013 at 12:18pm in tools and tech

The Community Roundtable surveys professional community managers annually to develop their State of Community Management reports. The 2013 SOCM was released in mid-June and contains valuable insights about the community management industry and its workforce. I found the information about today's average community manager to be one of the most interesting parts.

Understanding Conceptualization: The Process You Go Through Before You Launch An Online Community

Posted by Richard Millington on June 26, 2013 at 9:00am in best practices

Everything between the moment you establish the objectives and the moment you begin doing outreach to your members is the conceptualization phase. 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.

Special Initiatives for Online Communities

Posted by Guest Contributor on June 25, 2013 at 9:00am in tools and tech

Successful Community Managers are experts in facilitating discussions, 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.

What Julia Child Can Teach You About Community Management.

Posted by Crystal on June 21, 2013 at 9:00am in quick tips

Reading Julia Child's memoir, I found myself thinking that I could really learn a lot from her - and not just as a cook. Her life experience is amazing and her writing is full of tidbits that can be used as life lessons. I found that some of her philosophies can even be lessons for community managers.