1. BUILDING A GREAT ONLINE COMMUNITY
1.31.2011
Michelle Heubusch

2. Whether you hope to build a community that feels like a dinner party
with friends . . .

3. . . . Or one that is more like a large club, you need to work hard to
plan and implement your community strategy.

4. Because you don’t want to build a community that grows boring . . .

5. Or one that devolves into anarchy. Building a strong, engaged
community takes planning, time and effort to execute.

6. HOSTING A GREAT COMMUNITY
• Invite the right guests
• Help strike up the conversation
• Be clear on rules of etiquette
• Be a present, generous host
• Document the occasion
• Steer clear of law enforcement

7. INVITE THE RIGHT GUESTS
• Gather research about the people you expect to join your community
– Online surveys or focus groups
– Personas
– Simmons data, Forrester Technographics
• Visit and observe communities with a similar audience
– Facebook, Twitter, blogs, community sites, online comments
– Listening tools – Radian6, Google Alerts, Social Mention
• Articulate your value proposition
• Plan to attract an audience
– Advertise (especially important on Facebook)
– Contribute to an existing community
– Leverage the social graph (i.e., people want to be where their friends are)

8. HELP STRIKE UP THE CONVERSATION
• Outline your content strategy
– Identify the kinds of content you’ll post to your community (making sure
content aligns with your value proposition)
– Strike a balance between starting conversations and pushing out
messages
– Vary the types of content – text, photos, videos
– Document the voice and tone of the content you’ll create
• Anticipate the kinds of questions and concerns you’ll get, and work with
subject matter experts to create answers
• Create an editorial calendar
– Ensure appropriate frequency
– Strike a balance between content types
– Ensure that you are aligned with other communication channels for both
messaging and timing
– Share your publishing schedules with other stakeholders

9. BE CLEAR ON RULES OF ETIQUETTE
• Create and publish community-facing guidelines
– Special K
– BoingBoing
– Gawker
• Develop robust internal-facing guidelines
– Document what is allowed and not allowed in the
community to as specific a level of detail as possible
– Give people tools to guide action within the
community
– Start with existing social media policies if any

10. BE A PRESENT, GENEROUS HOST
• Find the right community managers. They will be crucial to your success.
– Adept and actively using social media platforms
– Cares about the same things the community does
– Builds relationships within the community and with your stakeholders
• Provide coverage to effectively manage the community
– Community Management is very labor intensive
– Vendors like Vitrue and Context Optional provide tools to streamline publishing
and moderation, but you need a highly engaged person involved in your
community
– Nights, weekends and holidays
• Bring out the best in your community
– Prepare to welcome new members, answer questions and address issues quickly
– Remove haters and trolls, but allow fair and balanced dialog
• The community will often jump to your defense
– Recognize your most active members
– Accept that your community members may take the community in new directions,
and allow them to help shape the conversation

11. DOCUMENT THE OCCASION
• Keep careful records of activity within the community
– Having a log of activity and key decisions helps ease handoffs
between moderators
– Allows you to cross train moderators/managers on multiple
communities
– Enforces best practice processes
• Keep your stakeholders in the loop
– Define your key performance indicators and measure against
them
– Create a regular schedule for reporting to stakeholders
– Modify your content strategy or approach to community as
necessary
• Celebrate your successes
– Share stories as well as metrics
– Make sure feedback makes its way thru your organization

12. STEER CLEAR OF LAW ENFORCEMENT
• Remember that companies and brands are held to a different
standard in the social space than individuals
– A user can say things online – even in your community – that
you cannot
– Don’t follow user policies; look for developer policies
– The law is nascent and evolving
• Meet with your legal team early and often
– Brief them on your plans
– Seek their input and approval for guidelines and escalation
processes
– Seek approval for content
– Provide feedback if their constraints are too restrictive; view
the guidelines as a living document that can be negotiated
• The best crisis management is crisis avoidance

13. RESOURCES
IMAGES - used under a Creative Commons license
• Slide 2: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jaako/
• Slide 3: http://www.flickr.com/photos/_sml/
• Slide 4: http://www.flickr.com/photos/salz/
• Slide 5: http://www.flickr.com/photos/endiaferon/
RESEARCH TOOLS
• Forrester Technographics: http://www.forrester.com/empowered/tool_consumer.html
• Radian6: http://www.radian6.com/
• Google Alerts: http://www.google.com/alerts
• Social Mention: http://www.socialmention.com/
EXAMPLES OF COMMUNITY GUIDELINES AND SOCIAL MEDIA POLICIES
• Special K on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/specialkus
• BoingBoing: http://www.boingboing.net/2009/10/01/commenting.html
• Gawker: http://gawker.com/commentfaq/
• Air Force Blog Policy: http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2009/01/airforce_blog_rules_010909/
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
• Facebook Developer Policy: http://developers.facebook.com/policy/
• Social Media Update Law Blog: http://www.socialmedialawupdate.com/
• TechCrunch: http://techcrunch.com/
• Mashable: http://mashable.com/
• AllFacebook: http://www.allfacebook.com/