What constitutes a healthy community?
This is a big question. A really big question.
In short (although we'll deal with the long version too), it depends on what you (or your client) wants the online community to be doing, how the community feel about that, how much churn and spam there is, how the numbers reflect the KPIs set and how 'happy' the membership is.
When we say 'happy', it's important to say that we mean happy as members of the community (happy that they are safe, respected and encouraged) rather than happy as people, even the best community manager in the world can't enforce that!
Perhaps it's easier to look at what constitutes an 'unhealthy' community? Here's what my vision of an ill, ailing community looks like:
- Members' questions and opening posts go unanswered, by both other members and the community manager
- There is a visibly high amount thinly veiled spam (a loosely connect reply to a post that is stuffed with links) and a splattering of out-and-out 'buy these diet pills now' spamola
- Feuds and fights have escalated, crowding out genuine discussion; with even mild-mannered members turning decidedly Lord of the Flies
- People are leaving, loudly
- The original purpose, theme or appeal is unclear, or lost, and the community is in the throes of a panic-stricken identity crisis
- OR worst of all, it's totally and utterly barren
Notice at no point did I mention quantities, traffic or ratios of active users.
Sure, your online community should have KPIs but one person's page view target is another's irrelevant number. The number of members a broad-interest lifestyle community has will - and should - differ from a special-interest, academic knowledge-sharing community.
That's why it's very important to work out - right at the very beginning of the planning stage, ideally before - why you want to launch a community and how you hope people will use it.
There is solid value in having numerical targets and understanding how many members need to be engaging to keep momentum, but there is no definitive ideal traffic goal any more than there is one topic area for all communities to be built around.
Tara Hunt, author of The Whuffie Factor, has a lovely bite-sized definition:
The health of a community is the gauge of where various qualitative and quantitative metrics lie in relation to the goals you set.
How to encourage engagement
It's all very well promoting the community in all the right places and sweet-talking potential members into joining, but the real challenge (and the real trick) is making sure that they engage once they're there.
Think open questions, talking points
If you want to get a conversation flowing, don't ask "do you wish you were 21 again?" because the answers are all likely to be "yes!".
Instead, ask, "if you could talk to your 21-year-old self, what advice would you give?" or "If you were 21 again, what would you do differently?". The answers will be varied; they'll contain talking points that will lead to more questions and more talking points.
Keep it simple
You don't need to think up dazzling forum talking points that will show everyone how clever and well-read you are. In fact, the chances are this would frighten off all but the biggest show-offs. Keep it simple. Ask questions or start conversations that you would ask your friends over a drink, or like to know people's thoughts on at a dinner party.
There's more to engagement than posts
Don't be led down the path of thinking posts are all that count. Sure, having a healthy number of bloggers and posters is fantastic, but there's more to engagement than this. Have members rate each others' posts, upload photos, comment on blogs or even respond to images with images.
Trust your own interests
Unless you know it's a complete diversion from the interests of your community, start conversations and write blogs about topics that interest you. You won't be the only one interested and because you're speaking from your own experience, it will come across as far more authentic. Community managers are allowed to be real people too, your members will appreciate it.
Careful with current affairs
Legal matters are a whole other guide and there are many books on media law available if you want to brush up. But remember these top level rules:
- Don't play with fire. Reporting restrictions of current court cases or investigations includes message boards, blogs and forums. Do not encourage debate around ongoing court cases, except with extreme care, because once you have pulled the tiger's tail, it's very hard to get it to stop the tiger typing when it crosses a legal line.
- Defamation laws still apply to community platforms. If a newspaper prints a story saying a named known celebrity is a love rat, and it's untrue, they are subject to the same laws as if a blogger on your site claims that their named neighbour is cheating on his wife.
- Naming and shaming. It is not acceptable for any community members to talk about a named person (that they know or do not know) and tell untruths, or give away that person's private information.
- Clamp down on risky behaviour. You are giving your members a platform to communicate, to chat and to engage. They do not need (and should not want) to give out their personal email addresses and mobile phone numbers. Perhaps they just don't realise how open communities are, perhaps it's a testament to how safe and friendly you have made your community feel. Either way, you need to give gentle but firm guidance on personal safety and personal information. Eventually your community champions will take on the baton themselves and report unsafe behaviour, and set examples of good behaviour, all by themselves.
A sobering example: In 2008, a record payout was made to a social housing firm in Sunderland after seriously defamatory comments were repeatedly posted and published on an 'anonymous' news and discussion site, called DadsPlace (sic). Eventually, the owners and administrators of the site were revealed through detailed investigation and they were found to be responsible and made to pay £100,000 to the victim of the defamation.
Online communities aren't places to allow dubious behaviour to claim sanctuary.
More on this next week in the 'Moderation and safety' section of our Community Management series
Read all our posts on Promoting Community Management
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