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I Asked My Members Why They Stay on My Online Community (and Here’s What They Said)

Posted by Patrick on November 14th, 2013 in Community Cultivation, Managing the Community, Thinking
Hakone Ropeway @ From Sounzan to Owakudani @ Hakone
Creative Commons License photo credit: *_*

When KarateForums.com hit 500,000 posts, one of the things that we did to celebrate was to conduct a series of interviews with the most influential members in the history of the community. They were taken from various eras. It included members who have been with us for more than 10 years, for 5 years, for 2 years – all different time spans. Some members are still active, some come and go, some left a while ago.

In all, it was 26 different members and these 26 are members who have contributed a lot. They are the ideal members. People who are kind and post great content. They are the members we can never have enough of.

One of the questions that we asked them was: after you found the community, why did you stay? For community managers, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at the answers they provided, as it provides an understanding of why people continue to come back and contribute to a community. I am going to include the answers in full, without editing them and identify some of the common themes. Any emphasis is mine.

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How I Build Credibility Within an Online Community

Posted by Patrick on November 11th, 2013 in Managing the Community
DSCF4614
Creative Commons License photo credit: davispuh

I recently spoke to students from Arizona State University about forums and how to get the most out of them. One of the topics that we touched on was building social capital within forums. I talked about how I build credibility within the communities that I manage. There are 5 keys to it.

Participate

Participating in the community as a contributor, outside of your role as a manager, in a genuine way helps your members to see you as a person – not as a machine in a dark room deciding the fate of the universe. This makes it easier for them to emphasize with you, which can be really helpful to furthering your goals as a community.

People don’t emphasize with machines, they don’t feel compassion for machines – they simply want them to work. I don’t want my members to see me this way.

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Having a Small Online Community Allows You to Focus on What Matters

Posted by Patrick on November 7th, 2013 in Community Cultivation, Promoting Your Community
coming out
Creative Commons License photo credit: loop_oh

Being small is generally seen as a bad thing. We want to be bigger, we want to have as many members as possible. But if you are small, while you are small, don’t lose sight of the fact that you are provided with a laser sharp focus on what really matters.

When you only have 3, 5, 10, 15 regularly active members, you have a great opportunity to make sure that they are enjoying the community, that they are appreciated and to see if there is anything that you can do from them. You have the time to do so because they are truly all that you have.

That is how communities grow. 1 by 1. For some it is faster than others, but it is always 1 by 1 and the members that you have now form the foundation for future growth.

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I Presented a Great Member of My Community with a Physical Award

Posted by Patrick on November 4th, 2013 in Interacting with Members, Managing Staff

KarateForums.com Award for HeidiKarateForums.com is currently celebrating due to the community reaching the 500,000 posts milestone. Yesterday, as part of that celebration, I presented a long term member with a physical award.

The idea for it was planted back in June, when Heidi (ninjanurse on the community) marked 10 years as a member of my staff. I have been managing forums for more than 13 years and I have never had a staff member that experienced that type of longevity. It is very impressive. As such, I decided that we would honor her again when we hit 500,000 posts.

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High and Medium (Not Low) Quality Forum Posts Both Offer Value to Your Community

Posted by Patrick on October 31st, 2013 in Community Cultivation
P365x52-281: Westfield Mall
Creative Commons License photo credit: kurafire

With forums especially, you have a crowd who has a distaste for what they feel are low quality forum posts. I don’t want to use the term “low quality” for the posts I am about to describe because they aren’t low quality. Instead, I’ll call them “medium quality.”

You have on-topic posts, off-topic posts, detailed posts and short posts. Where a given contribution intersects with these categorizations will often determine how people judge the quality of it. But, even if a post is considered “low quality” by those who manage forums or by community professionals, that doesn’t mean that members of the community do not receive value from it.

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The Benefits of Buying an Online Forum Instead of Starting One

Posted by Patrick on October 28th, 2013 in Community Cultivation
Tom Butterfly Final
Creative Commons License photo credit: JoshDobson

I recently discussed the benefits of starting a forum instead of buying one, so I wanted to flip that around and talk about the benefits of buying one as opposed to launching a new one. All of the benefits can be summed up with one word: maturity.

An established community is already launched. This means that it can already have a good domain name, a nice design and software that is installed and configured. It is receiving traffic, has a database of members and contributions and active members who are adding more content every day.

One of the benefits to starting a forum instead of buying one is that you can help shape the culture. But if the community already has a great culture, that’s a big benefit. In fact, that is one of the things I look for when considering buy a forum. I don’t want to have any major philosophical differences. I don’t want to buy something that embarrasses me or makes me look bad or isn’t fun for me. If there is a culture match, that’s a great benefit and then I can help further what is already in place.

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Reflecting on Reaching 500,000 Posts

Posted by Patrick on October 24th, 2013 in Thinking

KarateForums.comKarateForums.com hit 500,000 posts yesterday. When I started the community, 12 years, 5 months and 3 days ago, I had no idea how proud of it I would become.

When I sit back and take a breath and think about where it’s been, plenty of memories flash by. Happy moments, challenging moments. But more than anything else, it’s the people who have made a difference. Not all the people, just the great ones. Most people are a blur, but the great ones stand out.

The number is awesome, but the number isn’t the thing. The thing is the culture and then the numbers fill that in. I’ve never been all that bothered with numbers, but I suspect I cared more about them when I started managing communities nearly 14 years ago. The thrill of watching the numbers. Posts per day, unique visitors, active members, new members, bounce rate, whatever it is. As I’ve matured, that has changed. Numbers are still cool and useful, but they aren’t what community is about.

New community managers fall in love with numbers. Veterans fall in love with people.

The Benefits of Starting an Online Forum Instead of Buying One

Posted by Patrick on October 21st, 2013 in Community Cultivation

Over the years, I have considered buying numerous forums, some that I saw for sale and some where the owner approached me directly. Though I have carefully considered a few opportunities, I have never gone through with it.

It’s not because I have anything against buying and selling forums – I don’t. It’s not that the forums weren’t valuable. It’s not that they couldn’t have made me money. I do love money. But there are a lot of things I could do for money that I don’t do. If you only do it for money, this article won’t really apply to you.

The biggest reason tends to be that I am not liking the culture of the community. The tone, the atmosphere, how people speak to one another. What they are or are not allowed to get away with – illegal or otherwise. I could always buy a community and change it substantially, but why do that? Why buy something I don’t think highly of as is? The members are used to a certain thing, why change it?

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Rick Rubin-Inspired Thoughts on Community Management

Posted by Patrick on October 17th, 2013 in Managing the Community

Rick RubinI really enjoyed Andrew Romano’s interview with Rick Rubin for Newsweek. It’s really an inspirational read. I have a lot of respect for Rubin and his body of work is incomparable.

You don’t get to work with all of the people that he has worked with, across all of the different genres of music, without knowing what you are doing. I really appreciate his philosophy and his approach.

In short, I want to be the Rick Rubin of online community. Ha.

Reading the interview, there were a few points in particular that hit home and I wanted to talk about them.

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My Online Community is Struggling with Member Self-Promotion: What Can I Do?

Posted by Patrick on October 14th, 2013 in Managing the Community
Funny Internet Spam for eMail and Websites is Spicy
Creative Commons License photo credit: epSos.de

I received an email recently from someone who manages a large online community, looking for some input regarding the “struggle” that they were having with member self-promotion within their forums. We’ll call her Laura.

It wasn’t so much a problem with recognized businesses, who were doing a pretty good job of confining themselves to a dedicated area for members to promote their businesses. It is more an issue with members asking people to visit their blog, like their Facebook page, etc. They have allowed random one-offs, but now it is getting more problematic.

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