Grow and Manage Your Community
If you want to cultivate a thriving community, you have to make things happen in the community. This means you have to recruit people to join, initiate discussions, organize activities, and create content. Here is a simple process you can use.
Recruiting members
Communities need to have a stable source of new members. Over time, most members will come naturally. For now, you need to invite people to join. Here’s how:
- Identify people on social media channels who talk about your topic.
- Reach out to them and ask if they might like to join your community.
- Invite them to participate in a specific discussion.
- 5 members per day is enough for most communities.
Initiate Discussions
Initiate regular discussions and activity for people to participate in. Keep the community fresh with good debates.
- Try to initiate 3 to 5 new discussions a week.
- Pick topics that people spend a lot of time doing, problems people face, or things people are emotive about.
- Invite your current members to give their thoughts.
Events and Activities
Regular events and activities give members a come back and participate in the community. Consider hosting one or two a month. This might be an interview with a VIP in your sector, a quiz, a challenge, a problem-solving event, or a live discussion using a chat feature (coming to Ning 3.0 networks this summer).
Content
Good communities need good content. Content doesn’t have to be difficult. Sure, you can write an epic advice-column, or you can do a quick interview with a member of the community. Some tips:
- Write 2 to 3 pieces of content a week.
- Write about what’s happening in the community.
- Consider news updates about the topic, interviews with members/VIPs, previews/reviews of products/services/events, or guides to newcomers getting into the topic.
