If you don't try to prevent your community from doing something bad, you're morally responsible for the outcome (perhaps legally responsible too).

It might be fun to join the Amy Baking Co fan page and watch the increasingly furious, aggressive, messages. It might be fun to let your members relentlessly hound someone they (and you) dislike.

Yet...

As part of our consultancy, we spend a lot of time reviewing a client’s existing plans for a community.

There are a variety of things we look out for. Some we’ve listed below:

Strategy

• Do you have clear, ROI, goals? i.e. not likes/engagements but one of these?
• Do you have a framework for...

Let’s try this again, we’re hiring. 

We’re looking for someone that wants to change how people build communities.

The current approach is completely wrong. It is too reactive, too focused on platforms, and too similar to marketing. As a result, most communities fail.

Even those that succeed struggle to reach their potential. By applying the principles...

Social capital is the value of the connections between members. This encompasses both the quantity and quality of those connections.

Over time, communities build up social capital.

What do you do with this social capital?

You invest it in community projects. You invest (not spend) the social capital in projects which will benefit the community in the future.

This means establishing a goal. This means asking...

Big wins are rarely in community development.

Gamification has a minimal, short-term, impact (about 5%).

Moving and changing platforms has a tiny impact (unless you’re using a terrible platform, then it has a big impact).

Adding a new feature has almost 0 impact.

If you want to significantly increase levels of participation, there are several big wins. 

1)   Attract the most interested members/narrow the focus of the...

You probably have several highly active members.

They participate most frequently. They contribute the best content.

How do you reward them?

You don’t.

These aren’t the members you need to worry about. They’re already doing what you want them to do.

Members don’t leave a community because they didn’t receive appreciation/rewards/gratitude. They leave because they don’t feel part of the group, become bored of the group, or lose interest in the topic...

You don’t compare your life against George Clooney.

He’s not in your peer group.

A-List celebrities might, but not you.

You measure yourself against those you consider your peers. You measure yourself against a relatively small group of people whom, at some point, have had the same level, interest, or held the same position, as yourself (at the same time – people don’t compare themselves to the deceased).

Early on, this was your school friends. Later, it was your...

One community manager is receiving criticism for privacy issues in his community (no, not Facebook).

Nothing in his community has changed – it’s simply a bigger community now. He’s treating his data the same way as he always has. 

However, once your community becomes big enough to matter, you become a target. 

All the minor issues become very important. One day your platform might be fully reliable and you might have no security, privacy, legal (or even...

I had the pleasure of doing a 30 minute interview with the terrific Jeff Cobet of Learning Revolution. 

We discuss communities in a learning context, how to get a community started, and potential revenue models for communities.

You can find the interview here....

If the community died after you left, you failed. 

It's misguided to brag the community was fine until you left. Proving this point with data becomes surreal. Worse still, it shows a lack of respect for the community.

If the community died once you left, it means you didn't hire a good replacement, properly train the new community manager, undertake a proper handover to the new community manager, nor put systems in place so the community could sustain and increase...