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Posts Tagged ‘Online community’

Architecture and Civil Engineering applied to Community Building

06 May

Mainimage in Applying A Pattern Language To Online Community DesignI’m a big believer in looking towards the practices of other industries for inspiration and new ideas.

I’ve said before that I’ve often referenced the practices of an online hip-hop community to inspire the creative interaction I use with software customers.

Recently I stumbled upon a community management article that does a wonderful job applying design principles from the 1970’s book A Pattern Language to online community building.

This article effectively shows that the same principles that have been used within architecture to create vibrant and effective spaces, can also be applied towards the design of online community spaces that have a focus on their desired user experiences.

Check it out. It’s pretty long, but well worth the read.

Applying “A Pattern Language” To Online Community Design

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Using Twitter to Strengthen Your Online Community

07 Jul

Twitter can be a great tool to use in support of your online community building efforts.

Here are 3 different online communities I’ve seen leverage twitter to facilitate success:

1) Adobe groups

Adobe twitter list


Adobe Groups uses a twitter list to display the activity of 450+ of their members right on the community homepage. This list is maintained by their community manager and is a great way to engage with their audience.

Using this list provides value in a variety of ways:

(1) Does a great job at exposing the personalities of community members

(2) Gives members an easy way to keep up with each other (by simply choosing to follow the twitter list)

(3) Provides Adobe Groups Community Manager with insight into the activities of their members , exposing great opportunities to engage and reward.

2) The Community Roundtable

The Community Roundtable leverages twitter through the use of an account created specifically for their community @TheCR. I love the variety of ways they use this account to support their efforts

Recruitment
CR - recruitment

Welcoming new members
CR - welcome new members

Highlighting active members
Highlight Active Members

Connecting members with each other
CR - Connecting members with each other
This is a strong example of how a community specific twitter account can strengthen relationships and expose your community to new members.
3) The Business Exchange

The Business Exchange community uses the twitter account @BXBW to support its Featured User program.  In association with displaying the Featured User on the homepage, they do a tweet encouraging their followers to connect.

Businessweek FU pageBusinessweek

As a member of the Business Exchange, I can speak first hand on the value of this program. I had discontinued being active and nearly abandoned my account, and becoming the Featured User provided me with an influx of traffic to my blog and effectively re-engaged me.

What other examples have you seen of online communities using twitter to support their building efforts?

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5 Ways to Humanize Your Community Interactions

02 Jun

Strong online communities are built on strong interactions. Here are some things you can do today to humanize your interactions and strengthen the bond between your community and its members.

1) Leverage Signatures

Often, someone with a username like LakersFan246 will end their post or comment with their real first name.  If this happens begin your response with “Hi Kevin” rather than – “Hi LakersFan246“. your user is showing a subtle sign of trust in the community and will feel good about having that sign engaged.

2) Follow Up on Any Shared Event Information

Many times when people are asking a question from a community, it’s related to a timely event.

(i.e. I’m preparing for a presentation… My son’s birthday party is next week,…I’m training for a marathon.)

Even after the original question is answered, it’s great to follow up with a comment asking how their event turned out. This shows that you are listening and care about the happenings of your members.

3) Highlight Your Newest Users

Add a panel to your community homepage that displays the names and/or avatars of your most recent members. this will (1) help those users feel welcomed and (2) encourage seasoned members to warmly welcome new users into the community.

4) Reach Out and Say Thank You.

This is a trick I’ve used a bunch of times over the years, and to be honest it’s something that doesn’t get done nearly enough.

When you see someone who is making strong contributions – send them a private message thanking them for being a part of your community.

This simple act of appreciation goes a long way and almost always solidify continued engagement from your active users.

5) Interview Your Users:

Perhaps the best way to reward your active user base is to set up a user of the month program, or by a “10 questions with…” series. (here is a good example from the community associated with hip-hop artist Tonedeff.) These actions help expose the commonalities between your users and are great ways to facilitate personal interaction.

What other suggestions do you have for humanizing your community interactions?

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