Best Practices for Managing an Online Community

Building and Managing a Community
Jordan Viator, Convio

An interactive group of people joined together by a common interest
What is an online community?

Profiles
Discussion Threads
Groups
Events
Tagging
Widgets
Blogs
Multimedia
Ratings
Elements of an Online Community

Openness and transparency
Trust
An organization that truly listens
Active engagement
Welcoming new members with open arms
Being open to feedback and responses (yes, even the negative ones)
What makes a community thrive?

What do you want to achieve with your community?
What resources do you have to leverage?
What is your strategy for the community and how does it fit into your overall communications strategy?
Who is your audience and what will THEY get from being a part of your community?
How much time are you willing to spend nurturing this?
“If you build it they will come” attitude
does not work here
Where to start: Strategy

1. A well-defined audience or tight-knit group
Why choose to build your own community?

2. Sensitive Topics

3. Passionate Supporters

Login
4. Specific Functionality
Interactivity
Profiles
Take Action
Events

Integration with other online entities
Website
Other social media: Facebook, Twitter, etc
Email campaigns
Direct Mail
In-person events
Essentially, every touch point with a constituent is good to help spread the message of your community!
Promotion of your community

Focus on the community members
Sincerity is of the utmost importance
Make it about the people participating, not you
Engage with community
Treat everyone as an equal
Honing in on key skills of:
Patience
Networking
Facilitating
Marketing
Communication!
Principles to live by:

Set expectations about what you can achieve in the community early
Have a strong understanding of why you want a community in the first place
Define your success metrics
Make it about your constituents and provide the tools and information most important to them
Be genuine and show a humanistic side in all community efforts
Be participatory and responsive
Practical Tips for Community Management

Common Knowledge blog http://commonknow.typepad.com/blog/
Connection Café blog www.connectioncafe.com
ThePort Blog http://theport.com/blog
Common Knowledge Resources libraryhttp://commonknow.com/html/resources
Convio Research www.convio.com/our-research
ThePort Resources libraryhttp://theport.com/resources
Resources

http://www.connectioncafe.com	48
http://www.slideshare.net	22

Best Practices for Managing an Online Community

by Jordan Viator on Jul 13, 2009

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