Top Tools & Tips to Start, Run & to Promote Successful Online Community
Sites. Most Common Mistakes & Problems by Karo Yegyan
Promoting & Marketing Forums, Chat Rooms, Bulletin Boards, Discussion &
Message Boards By Karo Yegyan -"TIFD" (Top International Forums
Directory- http://www.TheyAboutUs.com/ForumsDirectory.htm);
"Flat World" Forum (http://www.TheyAboutUs.com/Forum.htm
) & TheyAboutUs.com (http://www.TheyAboutUs.com
)
Following article covers dos-and-don'ts of starting and building a successful
Online Communities (Forums, Chat Rooms, Bulletin Boards, Discussion &
Message Boards), but this is only a general guideline. Every community is
different, and every administrator of a community is different, so an aspiring
community leader needs to adjust accordingly. Building a website into an active
community filled with many contributors is very difficult and is impossible to
break down the exact steps, however following Tips can help you a lot.
Issues to Consider You probably have a pretty good idea why you want to build a
community and what sorts of visitors you have in mind. If you think about it,
you can probably figure out what types of people would be most likely to visit,
where they're likely to be located, and what kinds of technology and internet
connection they'll have. These are crucial issues to keep in mind as you decide
what types of tools will work best to help your community members connect.
Before starting to create your online community you may need to consider some
issues such as: Will your users be visiting from home or from work? (Home users
usually have slower connections, maybe not state-of-the-art equipment, don't
have tech support available to them. Visitors coming from work may have faster
connections, probably have newer computers and software, more likely to be
Windows users, tech support may be available). Will your users be in one time
zone or not? How many visitors are you anticipating? Will most of your users
speak the same language?
Tips to Create, Start & Run Online Community Sites
1) Good & Fresh Content
After you start to get some new members and posts, be sure that you are always
feeding the forums new threads. Nobody is going to keep coming back if there is
nothing new to read. One of the things that keeps people coming back to
communities is good, fresh content. The forum should have a good number of
interesting and focused topics. The content should reflect the interests of the
target audience, and every care should be made to have well-written and
informative content that is updated regularly. This not only helps attract new
members, it keeps older members from losing interest and defecting to other
forums. In one way, your users are generating their own content by continuing
their conversations in your community space, but it sometimes helps to be able
to provide other content to them. This can be in the form of links to other
appropriate, interesting sites, articles written by you or other community
members, or discussion-starter posts from you which help to jump-start a
conversation about some hot topic or vital issue. In each of you new forums,
start a thread that ends in a question. At least definitely invite an answer.
Start with a controversial subject, one which some guests may feel strongly
about and feel the urge to become a member and post.
2) Provide Tools
More and more media is not simply being passively consumed but being re-mixed.
Give a community tools that they can use to upload artwork, create their own
blog, or join a message board. For example, if a person is able to upload a
picture of himself, dressed as a character from a game, he feels like he's
actually doing something rather than just passively viewing a trailer of the
game.
3) Trust your users
Giving your users community features means giving them power -- power to leave
their voice on your site, power to form an intimate, personal connection with
the site and their fellow users. Don't do this unless you're prepared to treat
them with respect, be honest with them, and trust them with your site. This can
be hard. As the site creator you may feel compelled to control everything.
Don't give in to the dark side! To raise a happy community, you've got to trust
its members.
4) Value added Subscriptions
Industry News can aid in bulking up the board in threads quickly - particularly
if you have auto replies from GoogleNews. KnowledgeBase: keep a watchful eye
for the "Best Threads & Posts" that answers newbies' questions without a
continuous rehashing of the same topic... have a forum specifically for these
'shadows' so mods & active posters can reference quickly... you will also
find that lurkers will congregate... that's is an advantage for advertisements
and sponsorship.
5) Rules, Policies & Guidelines
In your forum insert Rules, Policies & Guidelines, so very important
particularly because of cultural diversity. Get very specific about what is
tolerated and what isn't - it will save lots of headaches later on since your
active membership will grow and quickly point out breaches to newbies.
6) Be Innovative
Promotion, especially in the early days, will take considerable time and
effort. Forums can be difficult to start (members generally are "shy" when
there are only a few present), and the more posts that take place, the more
individuals will join. When you start a forum, it definitely has to look active
& people won't register unless they see something they want to respond to.
One of the most overlooked ideas in forum development is contributing yourself.
Register 5 or so names, and start new threads, and reply to them with those
different names. If I go to a forum and I see 1 name with 99 posts, and 100
posts total, I'm leaving. If I see 100 posts by 25 different names, then I may
stay...once the ball gets rolling, you should just use the one name you want.
Another important part of starting a forum is to get friends/family/whoever to
help you out with posts on the topic of the forum. Do whatever it takes to get
some posts up and make it look like your forum is already an active community
to someone who visits. More you and your friends post, more new members will
join. This is a "snowball" effect of forums, so marketing must be done
consistently, day in and day out, until the forum becomes more self-sustaining.
7) Easy & Friendly Forum
Take care when choosing the type of forum and forum script or software that
will be used. The forum should be easy to access, easy to use, and come with
"visitor- friendly" features. All visitors should be made to feel welcomed and
find the navigability of the forum, user friendly.
Tips & Techniques to Promote & Market Your Online Community Sites
"If you build it, they will come." Well, on the web, that's not exactly true.
Publicity and marketing are crucial to your community's success. If no one
knows about it, no one will show up. Depending on your community's goals, you
may find that one or all of these techniques are what you need to draw traffic:
1) Banner ads
2) Advertising in your email signoff signature
3) Posting on appropriate newsgroups or in other communities
4) News releases
5) Notices or links on your home page
6) Print advertising
7) Business cards
8) Networking among those you know who would be interested
9) Pay for or Exchange Posts You can either pay for posts or exchange
them. If you want to exchange posts, I suggest you take a look
http://www.adminfusion.com/forums/pfusion.php
. It'll automate the entire process for you....If you are going to pay for
posts, be very careful. Do some research - because most of these paid posting
companies have a bad record.
10) Offer Freebies/Contests
Give your visitors more reasons to sign up. You can offer some Free stuffs,
giveaways to attract users. Also, try to have something that keeps people
coming back...advice, great information, etc. A good way to get people to sign
up would be to have a contest. On one of my forums, any members with at least 5
posts are entered into a contest to win a gift. This encourages visitors to
register and once they do so, will post.
11) Participate in other forums
I would recommend you participate in other forums and make quality posts but
use your signature to promote your forum. Post something useful and don't just
plug your new site or forum; it is best to answer someone's question, proving
you are knowledgeable in your subject.
12) Registering with the forum directories It is very important to
register your forum with Forum Directories such as "TIFD"-Top International
Forums Directory (http://www.TheyAboutUs.com/ForumsDirectory.htm
)
Most Common Mistakes & Problems
Sometimes it is easier to think about what not to do, rather than what to do
with online communities. Each community has a different purpose, target
audience, and style. There are many approaches you can take. But there are a
few key poison pills to avoid. Think about it. Do you want to go to the trouble
of setting up a community only to doom it from the start? No? Read on.
1) Build it and expect everyone to come.
This is no field of dreams. You are in the thick of the "attention economy,"
and the competition is intense. Not only do you have to create a compelling
purpose and setting, but you also have to let people know that the door is open
and then draw them in. This includes marketing to your target audience and
providing explicit, easy directions on how to find and join the conversation.
Do not underestimate the time and effort this may take.
2) Control it to death.
The people who join your community are just that: people. Most do not like to
feel controlled. As the community host, you have the delicate role of balancing
order and spontaneity. You want to create an environment in which people will
feel comfortable participating. Once people start participating, they feel a
sense of ownership, which in turn motivates them to keep participating. But
remember, sometimes the good stuff happens on the margin of order and chaos.
Try to allow that emergent space to exist in your community.
3) Forget it
Ever arrived at a party and wondered where the host was? Where the chips were?
Arrived at a dance to find the hall empty and silent? If you make the
commitment to build an online space, plan to visit it very regularly -- perhaps
daily! People take their cue from you. If you participate daily, they are far
more likely to follow suit. If you are invisible, they will disappear as well.
4) Make it too complicated.
This is neither a jigsaw puzzle nor a rat maze. If your members have to wade
through too much clutter to find something of interest, they won't stick
around. Don't start with too many spaces or topics. Let the space grow
organically. This evolutionary approach gives your members the chance to
contribute. This will create a win-win situation.
5) Take it too personally
A little perspective goes a long way in online communities. This is your baby.
You dreamed it up and set it up, and now you might find yourself taking it a
bit too seriously. Keep your perspective and sense of humor. When you find
yourself overreacting to people's posts, step back and remember that sometimes
we interpret the written word differently than the spoken word because we don't
get any nonverbal cues from the speaker. Let it roll off your back. Breathe
deeply. Online communities are, in the end, an experiment in human interaction.
Jump in and explore.
6) Don't forget the content!
Community features, on their own, do not a community make. One of the most
common mistakes I've seen is to forget that people need something to talk
about. Don't just stick a chat room in a corner of your site; give it a daily
theme. Don't add a discussion tool without also adding something to discuss.
7) Don't try to control the message
A brand used to be able to carry a company through hard times. Today, brands
can't trust that anymore, because the minute a company does something "wrong,"
it's dissected online. If you decide not to put up a message board because
you're afraid people might write something negative about you, you're simply
hiding your head in the sand. Instead, learn from what is being said.
8) Don't call it a community
Community membership is a very personal decision -- it taps into a person's
deepest self-image. It's something that members have to decide for themselves
-- you can't decide it for them. So I advise my clients to build the tools,
make the content, and create an experience that is conducive to community. If
you do all this, and do it well, your members will call it a community for you.
9) Too many categories to start If you have too many categories to start
with could slow down your forum's growth. After starting a few different
boards, it's quite obvious to me that having only 3 or 4 forums is the best way
to start. If you have 100 threads spread out over 10 forums, it doesn't look
anywhere near as active as 10 threads in 3 forums. You'll get more responses,
more new threads, and more new user registrations. Wait for quite a while
before adding extra forums/categories.
About the Author
Karo Yegyan -Webmaster & Administrator of "TIFD" (Top International Forums
Directory- http://www.TheyAboutUs.com/ForumsDirectory.htm);
"Flat World" Forum (http://www.TheyAboutUs.com/Forum.htm
) & TheyAboutUs.com (http://www.TheyAboutUs.com
)
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