From the category archives:

Community Building Tips

5 Community Lessons from Game of Thrones

by Deb Ng on April 23, 2012

A Game of Thrones is a not-so guilty pleasure for many of us. At the moment, many of my peers are deeply engrossed in either the books, the HBO series or both. While it’s a wonderful indulgence, Game of Thrones also offers many valuable lessons about the people who we put our faith behind, and [...]

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What Are Your Goals for Your Online Community?

by Deb Ng on February 14, 2012

I belong to several different online community management groups via LinkedIn, Facebook and email. Every now and then an aspiring community manager asks, “How do I get started.” For me it’s not a simple “Here’s what you do” type answer, because each community has a different purpose, and thus, a different set of goals. Once [...]

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Everyone is talking about Pinterest, the social “pinning” site used to share, well, anything.  It’s a little early to say, but judging by the buzz (and the amount of people posting about Pinterest on their blogs), it has a good chance of becoming the top social site for 2012 and perhaps the next big thing. [...]

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You Can’t Schedule Community

by Deb Ng on December 20, 2011

Community management is a lot of trial and error, and every community is different. However, there are a few universal things that seem to be a given no matter what type of community you’re managing. For example, scheduled updates to the social networks. When I owned my freelance writing community, I had both Twitter and Facebook accounts [...]

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5 Tips for Organic Online Community Growth

by Deb Ng on November 14, 2011

You can’t force community. If folks aren’t feeling it – either the brand, the community manager, or the people who make up the community – they’re not going to be productive members of said community. No one likes to be pressured to join a group or made to feel inferior for not participating. So it’s [...]

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The Open Ended Blog Post

by Deb Ng on October 10, 2011

Last week a blogging friend and I were talking about comments and community. She wondered what she was doing wrong because her blog posts yielded very few comments and when there were comments they were along the lines of “I agree,” or “Yes I did,” or “no I don’t.”  Responses were brief and left no [...]

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How Shareable is Your Blog?

by Deb Ng on February 14, 2011

It happened again. I read a brilliant blog post and wanted to share it with others but there were no share buttons. I had no way to retweet or post to my Facebook status. I couldn’t give it a Stumble, vote for it on Reddit or even share with my associates on Linked In. And [...]

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I’m a huge believer in the power of positivity as well as in keeping a respectful tone, even when others are anything but. Blogging has been a true test of my patience as there are times when I’m not feeling very positive after receiving a negative comment or email. Many times, the negative remarks warrant [...]

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Most successful online communities are that way because of the mutual respect between members and community management. Whether the community is a brand wishing to to reach consumers or a forum where members talk about their favorite topic, the best online communities flourish because those in charge know these environments are made up of groups [...]

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The Patrick Swayze Rules of Community Management

by Deb Ng on November 9, 2010

What could Patrick Swayze possibly have to do with online community management? I was having a discussion yesterday with a good friend  who also happens to be a community manager for a popular online forum. She was expressing her frustration with one of the community members who likes to stir up the crowd. He uses [...]

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