MANAGING ONLINE COMMUNITY

Managing an online community especially if it is created around a brand or a product requires careful thinking and planning. It also requires active involvement of the community manager. The things to pay attention to while managing a community include:

• Finding a purpose to keep the community together. It is important to have a clear goal with which the members are aligned.
• Constantly remind the members of the purpose of the community through emails, communications, blogs, chats, etc.
• Use good content that is relevant to the purpose of the community to keep the interest level high. Encourage the members to create and post content and initiate dialogue and discussion.
• Have patience; it takes a while for a community to take off.
• Be friendly and approachable to the members.
• Do not be afraid to kick out members who do not adhere to the community guidelines, are trolls, or like to create dissension.

Encourage Participation

In order to have a thriving and vibrant community, it is important to encourage participation by the members. Successful community builders do not build communities for entities that exist in cyberspace, but they create communities keeping in mind that there are real people behind the community handles and that these people have real needs, feelings, emotions, desires, aspirations, etc. It is imperative to understand that people are not alike; they each have their different perceptions and personalities. While encouraging participation, community managers need to keep in mind that not all members in a community will participate in an equal manner. In any community, the participation is as follows:

• A majority of members never participate. They observe and read but rarely post comments or contribute to the community. These types of members are called lurkers and constitute 90% of users.
• Some of the members read, observe and comment, but not very often. These members only comment occasionally. These members constitute 9% of users.
• Most of the comments and contributions are made by only 1% of the members of any community. It is from this 1% that all the leaders and influencers of the community can be identified.

Based on the types of behavior observed we can categorize the members of any community in the following categories:

• Public: Anyone who is looking for some information or answers.
• Subscriber: Person who signs up for a newsletter, email or other such services provided by a community.
• Prospect: A person who shows interest in a community and wants more information or details about the community and downloads extra information.
• Customer /Member: A person who joins the community and becomes a member either by buying something connected to the community or signing up to become a member.
• Loyalist: A member who is loyal to a brand or community.
• Advocate: A person who will advocate for the community and promote it.

By Segesela Blandina

  BAPRM 42663