time flies
Creative Commons License photo credit: Robert Couse-Baker

You spend a lot of time working on your online community. Whether you have a predefined work day or the freedom to work when you want, there are many tasks to tackle. However, among the many hours that you spend, you will also have moments where you don’t have much time to spare.

For example, if you have 10 minutes to lunch, 10 minutes before the end of the day or you simply have 10 minutes free that you want to put to good use, you can’t start a sizable project and do anything too involved.

When you find yourselves in that moment, there are always some quick things that you can do to help your community and make it better. From cultivating deeper relationships to ensuring that content is up to date. Here are some things that you can right now:

  • The old standby: read random contributions and conversations that are happening. Contribute some thoughts if you can and if someone did something great, say so in public.
  • Pick a couple of members who have recently joined and welcome them with a private message. Automation is no replacement for a thoughtful note. Take a look at their profile and contributions (if they have made any) and if there is something that catches you eye, or if they made a great contribution, mention it. If they haven’t done anything, encourage them to join in and ask them if you can help.
  • Open a news site in your community’s vertical and find a story that will likely interest your community. Start a topic dedicated to it and add some thoughts of your own, if you have any.
  • If you manage a hosted community like a forum and also manage a Twitter profile, Facebook page, etc., pick a really great discussion going on in your hosted community and post about it on your third party social profiles.
  • Check in with a staff member you haven’t spoken to, at least on a personal level, in a while. Send them a private message or an email to see how they are doing.
  • Open up your community’s homepage and take a good look, top to bottom. Is anything out of place? Not 100% right? Could something use an update? Make any quick fixes on the spot and note anything that requires more time, so that you can take care of it later.
  • Do the same with your profiles on third party platforms. Could your Facebook page information and your Twitter bio be more up to date?
  • In your website analytics service, check your referrers and see if there are any websites sending you traffic recently that you don’t recognize or are in any way noteworthy. Did someone mention you on their blog or in an article they wrote? If it is the type of situation where it makes sense to engage with them and thank them, do so.
  • If your software allows you to, do a search for members who have made a certain number of contributions but who haven’t posted in a week or two. Identify one in particular who has made great contributions and reach out to them to see how things are going.
  • Email. Seriously. Check your email and answer a few, if you have any. You never know what might be in there and having a set time limit helps you to take care of as much as you can within that limit.

That’s 10 things. What else can you do in 10 minutes or less that will help your community?