I’ve recently bought, and have been working on a forum. I thought the site would be right up my alley, but after purchasing it, I realized that it didn’t have an active community of its own, and so I am trying my best to jump start it. One of the hardest things to do in community management is to try to start, grow and manage a community that doesn’t have a product, service, or company brand to go with it. The community I am trying to build is focused on sharing information, partnering, and growing businesses online.
Unfortunately, this is a hyper-competitive niche, and is very saturated. Add to that, the normal community pitfalls of not having enough people seed discussions, and you have a community that looks like a failure due to lack of activity, and attraction of activity.
Sure, there are ways to make it look like there is an active community that exists, so that people feel more interested in joining and being part of something that already exists, but my original intent was to search for people that don’t just want to join in, but instead they want to lead. Lead discussions, lead actions, and really grow both their own business and the businesses of others.
The difference between the actions taken to build a successful community and a community that is an ineffective flop can be hard to see, but with patience, effort, and persistence, anyone can be the lightning rod that brings brilliant people, ideas and energy to their community.
Wish me luck with my own and let me know, in the comments below, how you got your community started off on the right foot.
*Shameless Plug* In case you are interested in my forum, you can find it over on EarnersTalk.com and I’ve released two free e-books based on my blogging experiences there.
{ 3 comments }
” One of the hardest things to do in community management is to try to start, grow and manage a community that doesn’t have a product, service, or company brand to go with it.”
I disagree with this a little. Most communities associated with a brand, product, or service fail. It’s the amateur communities, the one that aren’t restricted by goals, metrics and objectives that succeed.
Not being associated with a business isn’t a handicap, it’s a weapon.
Go where brands and company communities can’t go. The controversial stuff, the marketer of the month, the debates. Start forum threads for each of the top brands and invite fans to popular and discuss them against each other. Find a group you want to join and start writing about them. etc.
Richard, that’s an inspired comment. Thank you for leaving it. I really needed to hear that.
David
Launching online communities without any prior brand identity is what I do, so I appreciate what you are going through. Getting a new community off the ground without any prior goodwill or brand equity is tough, but it can be done.
Richard has given you some good inspiration! It’s hard work, but there are even more opportunities as you really are ‘your own boss’!
Good luck.
- Martin
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