Three Key Ideas to Ensure Your Online Community’s Success

The Web is full of articles about why online communities fail. I decided to survey them to see what we can learn to do right. Below is a summary of the most highly ranked “Why Communities Fail” articles, turned around as a pith strategy for success.
 

1. Reverse the question. Stop asking what your community can do for your brand, your balance sheet and your business. Instead, focus on what you can do for your community, according to Tomi Ahonen, co-author of Communities Dominate Brands. Ahonen states that “communities can only be successful if you know what your members need to be successful, happy and more. The most powerful way of achieving that: understanding their needs and most of all their communities or customers.”  

The article lists over a dozen other pitfalls to avoid, including:

• Not giving the community enough time to develop
• Not reaching out to all the stakeholders
• Failing to provide value for members
   

2. Conceptualize a Framework. According to online communities guru, Richard Millington, “If you get the concept right, your community will explode to life.”

In this short article and video presentation, Millington asks the five key questions below, and presents a matrix showing exactly what decisions must be made and how to decide. This is a must-read for new community managers, those thinking about starting a community, as well as those managing communities that need a shot in the arm.  

• What will the community be about?
• Who are we going to approach?
• What type of community will this be?
• What is the purpose or goal of the community?
• What will happen in the community?
   

3. Build a Relationship Infrastructure. “In order to make online communities successful we need to pay attention to the relationships not just the technology infrastructure. We need to help people find each other and connect around shared interests,” according to Naava Frank, communities expert. Her article gives one main reason for community failure and offers one easy-to-implement solution for turning things around. She flips the usual approach – technology training – on its head and offers a brilliant and simple protocol for developing relationships instead.

1. Pair people up into teams
2. Send them to the platform with an assignment
3. Name three ways the platform can help you
4. Name two technology improvements you would like to see for the platform
5. Name one surprise from the experience
6. Post the responses on the site
    

Success is inevitable when you value community enough to get to know one’s stakeholders, take the time to build a well thought-out framework, and consistently work to build relationships.