photo credit: carterse

I received an email from a reader who has managed a good sized community for a number of years. It is the largest within it’s focused niche, growing to host meetups not only online, but also in person.

This reader will remain anonymous because although he wrote me to suggest that I write about this topic, he has not given me permission to mention who he is. But, to keep things simple, we’ll call him Robert.

Robert started the community because the topic that it is based around was a new hobby that he was passionate about. He is a web development veteran. It wasn’t really meant to make any money, as these things often start, but it did lead to him cultivating a relationship with many of the players within the business industry that exists around the topic of the community. He began to generate some revenue, though not very much.

photo credit: ornello_pics

Josh Barraza asked if I would talk about how you can revive a “dead” online community. That’s a great suggestion.

Before we talk about the how, there are a couple of simple truths that we need to keep in mind.

The definition of “dead” will vary by person, by community and by person running the community. You may look at something as “dead” when someone else sees it as fine.

If you are running the community and you consider it dead, then that is one thing. But, otherwise, be careful how you view, and judge, other communities. They aren’t always intended to have regular activity or to grow on an activity basis. Everyone has different goals.

photo credit: Gonmi

Treat people as you want to be treated.

I apply the golden rule to a lot of different circumstances, including how I manage my communities, with respect to other communities.

I’ll give you a few examples.

It’s not unheard of that a member of a community, not necessarily mine, but any, would complain about another one that they have joined previously and participated in and/or been banned from.

That community is the worst. The administrator is a jerk and a megalomaniac. This community is so much better.

photo credit: M.M.Meeks

Like any management role, when you manage an online community, you’ll be faced with challenges on a regular basis. You’ll have to put out a lot of fires.

Some will be like blowing out a candle, but in other cases, a part of your house may be on fire. You then can choose one of two paths. Either you try to put out the fire or you let the house burn down.

Whatever the challenge is, as the administrator or manager, it is your responsibility to remain calm, think about the issue objectively and make the best decision that you can.

Back when Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter was the president of Def Jam, a song by Young Jeezy, one of his hottest artists, leaked to radio. An emergency meeting was called, but Mr. Carter didn’t see it as an emergency. The song, he said, was a club record and radio wouldn’t be so inclined to play it.

photo credit: achimh

Earlier this week, William Ruzvidzo invited me to answer a question on Quora, “What does it take to be a great community manager?” Mr. Rudvidzo is a Community Manager at 49Pixels.

I thought about this for a while and came up with the following.

A great community manager has experience. I think this is easily overlooked. People think community is brand new and that no one has experience. So they look for marketing or communications converts looking to make a switch.

I’ve seen a lot of crazy job listings for community manager. There was one that required email marketing experience and search marketing experience… but no community management experience. If the job requirements read that way, they don’t want a community manager, they want a marketer.

photo credit: Roy Montgomery

When you have a unique level of experience in a certain area, have written a book about it, author a blog on it, speak about it at conferences and events and regularly offer thoughts on the topic on other platforms, often when asked, there’s a lot of good. But, there are also a few unfortunate side effects.

I want to talk about one in particular today, which is that when you recommend something, some people take it as you saying that your recommendation is the only way to accomplish said task. And if it doesn’t match with what they do, they are offended and feel as if their knowledge and their skills have been challenged.

When, in reality, all you did was make a simple, general recommendation for a certain set of circumstances, they take it in a polarizing way, believing that you are saying that all other methods of accomplishing the goal are garbage.

photo credit: proudcanadianeh

Happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrate it.

In honor of the day, I thought that I would take a moment to talk about a few things that I am thankful for right now, as they pertain to managing an online community.

I have a lot to be thankful for, both professionally and personally and this is not meant to be an all-inclusive list. Just some things that popped into my head as I pondered the question, “what, related to what I do with online communities, am I thankful for right now?”

Online Community Management as a Maturing Industry

When I started, the Community Manager role didn’t really exist. 99% of the platforms, tools and software that are now available – were not available.

photo credit: mikecogh

If you manage an active community, like I do, violations to your guidelines can be a dime a dozen.

Most of them are probably fairly simple – your garden variety spam, duplicate posting and what not.

Mix that in with some copyright infringement and some culture setting guidelines, like those to do with disrespectful comments and vulgarities, and you have a majority of what you have to deal with on a regular basis.

In the sea of violations, it can be easy to think “what does it matter if I let this one slide?” Some common scenarios where this may occur:

photo credit: katell717

Generally speaking, it is important for a community manager to be as unbiased as possible. They need to be able to make fair, consistent situations and not allow their affection (or lack of) for a particular person, group or object to sway them from that consistent decision making process.

But, to say that we are without bias at all is to say that we are not human. And that’s not true. We aren’t robots. However, if we are good at what we do, then we are capable of recognizing when our own bias might affect a decision and do our best to make sure that it doesn’t.

One way to do this is to ask other members of your team, if you have any, what they think, especially if they are unlikely to have the same bias. That’s a good thing to do.

In May, KarateForums.com celebrated 10 years online. I launched the forums on May 21, 2001 and have managed them ever since. 10 years, 4 months, 3 weeks and 1 day.

It may surprise you to learn that I am not a martial artist. As you might expect, this question comes up once in a while. “What martial arts do you take? None? Wow. So, why did you launch KarateForums.com?”

I’ve always been very open about this. I’ve never pretended to be a martial artist and have never been anything other than honest when the question is asked.