In this class we explore a range of potential issues and strategies for growing a thriving online community.

1. COMP 113
Social Media & Online Communities, Summer School 2012
5: Happy users 

2. This week (Week 3!)
 Tuesday (day 7):
– Getting the best out of your user communities
 Wednesday (day 8):
– Facebook Pages (advanced)
 Thursday (day 9):
– Privacy, terms, and identity
 Miscellany:
– Blog assignment 1 marks (Wednesday – latest)
– Blog assignment 2 due Friday
– Project: Idea selected, research underway, page
created
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3. PART 1: Keeping the
peeps happy
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4. Recall  “We want a growing and
thriving community!”

5. So, how can we encourage behaviours such as
 Finding new users
 Move users around online community cycle
 Looking after and nurturing existing users
 Retaining users
 Word-of-mouth promotion by users
 Keeping users busy and discourage lurking
 Prevent undesirable behaviours
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7. Your job: Construct a user community strategy
1. Get into your groups at one table
2. Go to the Wiki and navigate to today’s class
3. Examine the images on the slides:
a) Suggest a possible problem or behaviour
represented by the image
b) Suggest an action(s) to mitigate (if bad) or
encourage (if good)
4. You have 40 minutes

8. Time for a short commercial break
Go on, get outside!

9. CLASS DISCUSSION
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30. END OF PART 1

31. What are your top 5?
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32. PART 2: Project research tips
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33. Key questions to address
1. What are you going to do?
2. Why are you doing it?
3. Why would people be interested?
4. How is your idea different?
5. What are the benefits?
6. What potential issues are there?
7. How will you resource the operation?
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34. Project research tips
 Use multiple resources (e.g., Google, survey)
 Search widely (outside target area)
 Narrow focus of idea (apply limits)
 There will be competition (indirect vs direct)
 Think about a specific audience (target)
 Factor in project constraints (time, experience,
platform, …)
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35. Got any suggestions?
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36. One sentence pitch
“my group, _(insert name of group)_,
is developing _(a defined offering)_ to
help _(a defined audience)_ _(solve a
problem)_ with _(secret sauce)_”.
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38. THE END
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