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Status: Tags: Links: Communities

How to Build a Community

1. Identity (MTP)
   • Consider the group of people you are trying to attract
   • Be clear in what you support
     • Tell a story
2. Designing a Community Portal
   1. Design anything as the beginning
   2. Provide directions for navigation
   3. It should be easy to join the community and register
   4. Convincing information
      • Should encourage belonging, support network,s greater influences, curiosity
   5. Put a spotlight on popular content (contests, front page)
   6. Scalability
      • Probably not facebook
3. Providing Community-Building Resources
4. Early Days of Community Building
   • People are more willing to contribute when group sizes are smaller
     1. Be the first mover
     2. Choose early members (10-15) to help build the community
     3. Make newcomers feel belonged
        • User milestones
     4. Listen to feedback
5. Creating Community Content
   • Content categories include:
     1. Future (predictions, plans)
     2. News about progress
     3. Interview of staff
     4. Advice for members
     5. Outside guests
6. Engagement and Engagement Strategies
   1. Reputation (points)
   2. Meet up (discussions)
   3. Challenges (preferrably promoting collaboration)
   4. Visuals?
   5. Connect other people to each other
7. Managing a community
   • Friendly dictators
   • Be lenient
   • Don’t be a sellout
   • Don’t neglect already existing members
   • Find people to delegate stuff
8. Driving Growth
   • Evangelism
   • Partner with similar communities
   • Incentivize competition by Planning Competitions
   • Find a rival
   • Find creative ways
   • Host events
   • Optimization tactics (adwords, advertising)
9. Monetization
   1. Be transparent with your intentions
   2. Share the proceeds with the community
   3. Sell things that others want
   4. Premium memberships

References: Bold Book