How to Build an Online Community

Building an Online Community

This is a summary of succesful strategies for building and developing online communities.
What is an online community/social network?

A good community is one where people meet and have the possibility exchange ideas about specific or general topics. Good social networks provide ways for groups of people to create the sort of information to create useful affinities or ways to find the people you’re interested in networking with. For the purposes of the Internet, this is the best definition, as it does not require that the people live together, only that they have common interests.

Why do people join?

- People discover an issue or have an experience on the internet in which they have taken an interest.
- Some of these just want to learn more about a certain subject whereas others want to get actively involved in the discussion or development of the project.
- Often people will not be fully involved in contributing to the site, but will participate in ‘no brainers’ such as online polls. It is important to offer the full spectrum of communication channels from the simple to the complex.
- People can be socially ‘bolder’ in new online groups, when they would be less so when meeting people in real life.
- On a more personal level, interaction on the internet offers the opportunity for people to become acquaintances or even meet fellow-minded people in real life.
- Other reasons are gaining ‘street cred’ or just participating as a hobby and a “personal satisfying” activity.
- The benefits from signing up should outweigh the effort one has to put into signing up and participating.

How do you keep it alive?

- To encourage constructiveness: The easier it is to join a conversation, the more visitors will become contributors.
- Communities that allow anonymous participation tend to see greater numbers of initial contributions. This varies with the nature of the community.
- Allow for Members in Good Standing: Permit users that contribute well or do good works to get recognized, which others can observe (and respect).
- Cultivate the community by encouraging discussion. This way people will join the community to share their ideas and thoughts.
- An active group which exudes a sense of a healthy community will attract more like-minded individuals who seek the social rewards of participating . People like to fit in and contribute to something which has taken their interest.
- It is important to have a base of dedicated members, but they do not have to be a large percentage of the community. (Ethan Zuckermann, co-founder of Global Voices has identified that it is sufficient to have (at least) one interesting new piece of content per day)
- Anonymity doesn’t really work well with social software, but users do want their privacy respected.
- However, the history of social software (eg. online communities) has time and again pointed to the need for certain controls in a social system to be harder to access.
- Anonymous users get lower credibility and abilities than identified users, and even fewer users have the power to moderate or exercise central control. Without this, the core group won’t have to tools necessary to maintain order and defend the overall social group, and chaos would eventually reign.
- Understand the limitation of the networks by seeking out occasional face-to-face meetings to reinforce online activities.

Barriers to participating in communities

- “Busy, No Time”
- Hostile, narrow-minded atmosphere with a low quality of conversation.
- Inflated egos and ignorant, elitist remarks towards newcomers which ‘buries’ a minority
- Lack of interested
- Lack of confidence (possibly justified) in knowledge of subject matter.

Conclusion

A place where rewarding, social experiences can be readily had instead of the solitude of the one-way transmission of traditional media in the form of TV, radio, and newspapers, will grab peoples interest. Because of this the latter media forms will become dramatically marginalized until and unless they figure out how to turn their viewers into participants.