I was lucky enough to attend a community building seminar with Darren Rowse of ProBlogger at (yup, you guessed it ;) ) - BlogWorld 2013!Here are some tips I learned on how you can build up your community for your membership site, as well as some thoughts on community building in general.
You need members to build a community so we are going to discuss just how you can attain these building materials.
What’s the Point of Community Building?
The obvious answer is: Bigger community means more streams of revenue.
However, there are additional reasons that are not so obvious. A larger, more involved community becomes a useful tool.
If you promote your membership site as providing answers, your community will offer their own answers to member problems. A more involved (and larger) community promotes wider and faster as your members talk about you on various social media sites. This doesn’t even include simple word of mouth.
Community members become advocates for your site, and thus more of these members make for a better situation.
The increased numbers of committed members increases the value of your membership site. Increased page views are always very attractive to advertisers. If the time ever comes to sell your membership site, you’ll collect more money for a site with a sizeable and active community, versus one with only a few members who aren’t really involved.
Look for Help!
In most membership sites, natural leaders will emerge.
These people, while not having a financial stake in your company, still have a desire to see your site (and their community) succeed. Offer these people author rights, give them a job within the community and reward them with some sort of benefit.
This reward doesn’t have to be monetary. Many people work hard for nothing more than gratitude and a 5K .gif image that says Community Leader.
Be the Community You Want
You’re the voice and face of your company.
As such, your members look to you as an example and to see what they can get away with doing. React poorly to comments and your members will follow your lead and be nasty in return. They may refrain from leaving comments of their own as they don’t want to receive your scorn. Neither option helps build community.
Invite positive interaction with your members and ask questions. Invite them to post comments.
The community doesn’t need to agree with each other, but a certain amount of civility creates a healthy balance. This allows disagreements to happen without turning into flame wars with heated emotion. Many times you can even turn these debates into new content (which brings in more people).
Preparation keeps your community within certain boundaries.
Decide early what policies you have in place. This keeps reprimands and punishments (when needed) consistent. A member will usually grudgingly accept a punishment if he or she believes they aren’t being unfairly singled out. Punish one person more harshly than another (or let someone get away with a violation), and you’ll have not only an angry person, but people taking sides in the debate.
Keep it even toned, fair, consistent, and above all calm, and you’ll have a community that acts the way you would like (more or less).
But what if you have community members who like to challenge the system or you just want a place for people to let off some steam? Create an “Anything Goes” section, or a section with relaxed rules. People can get things off their chest, rant, and then go back into the regular section much calmer. This also helps with sites that may be a bit too controlling.
In conclusion, building community isn’t about numbers. You want people to find use with your membership site and to feel they have a stake in their community. With these tips you will build a more involved and yes, an even larger community than what you currently have now.
If you want more community building tips, check out Darren Rowse of ProBlogger, as he always has valuable insight for you to use.
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