Don’t get me wrong, numbers are good. Big numbers are a great starting point, but they do not equate to “community”. So, before I take you through my community management grid, I’d like to define what I believe “community” to be.

I’m not a sociological expert but rather tend to form my thinking from experiences that I am exposed to in life…

Being a Spurs fan and fighting off the taunts of failure from my mates, with the only other 2 Spurs supporters in my class – that was a community of three. It was then attending matches and sitting in the Paxton Road stands and feeling part of something way bigger than I could comprehend, but knowing that my voice made a difference, that I was a vital cog in the wheel. If I wasn’t chanting the team wouldn’t play as well – that was a community of 35,000.

Community wasn’t about the physical location and it wasn’t about the numbers. It was about a group of people with a common interest – a cause to follow. But more than that it was a group of people with energy, opinion and belief.

As marketers this is the holy grail. Having a group of people that provide feedback, have true loyalty and evangelize about your brand.

In order to achieve this “community” in the online space your strategy has to include following steps:

1) Enticing new potential members behind a cause they believe in
2) Convert those interested into interactors, willing to share their opinions
3) Turn interactors into followers/believers who will spread the word

In terms of the practical implementation of these steps, action needs to be considered using:

a) Content Syndication
b) Monitoring of noise and engaging in the conversation
c) Creating new opportunities for engagement

The three steps and the three types of action form what I call my community management grid, which can be used to help create an appropriate online community strategy. Below is a grid showing how the different components can make up your strategy:

Community Management Grid

Hopefully, this grid will help marketers to clarify thinking on the various critical aspects of community management, and focus on the day-to-day tasks involved.

• Mad Hatter: Online Community Manager
• Guests: Community
• Table/Party: Social Media Platform (Facebook page, Twitter account, forum, blog)
• Tea: Your product/service
• Cookies: Prizes

As the host, Mad Hatter needs to keep his guests at the table at all times chattering away and drinking tea. To keep them at the table, his guests need to be entertained. There are simple ways to do this:

1. Keep the topic of conversation interesting. Mad Hatter needs to constantly create new content.
2. Indulge in small talk. Mad Hatter needs to respond and engage with all the guests. Any guests who don’t feel welcome will leave the party. Make every guest feel important and they’ll stay.
3. Keep the tea cups filled and the cookie jar full. Your guests won’t stay for long if you leave them hungry. Mad Hatter needs to feed their appetite with giveaways and competitions. Lure them in with quizzes, polls and questions. In other words, offer your community something in return.
4. Eavesdrop on the gossip. As a community manager you need to follow every conversation about your brand. Monitor them and, if needed, join in.

Why, you ask? Why do we need to throw a tea party? To sell more tea of course!

“Online community members visited Web sites nine times as often, stayed five times as long, and represented 65% of sales, a recent McKinsey & Company survey found.”

So, keep the music playing, the laughter rolling and your tea tasty and sweet. Do this and your guests will want to take some home. If they’re satisfied, they’ll be back for more!

And now, for your enjoyment…

bozo

Yep, “Bozo” is the troublemaker in online communities. The guy (or girl) that stirs things up. Craves for attention. Has little to no social skills. In short, a community manager/webmasters worst nightmare.

Online communities are essentially about social interaction. And, as in the offline-world, where there is social interaction unpredictability is a sure thing. In fact, as Jeremiah Owyang puts it: “…these interactions are the primary drivers for troublemakers in communities”.

Ok, so the bad news first – you will always encounter Bozo within your online communities. Fact.

So, what can be done to render the Bozo-effect? There are a few options…

1. Take them head-on, either in public or in private – appeal to their better nature

2. Ban them. Option 1 often leads to this. Remove their account.

Still, option 1 and 2, are temporary solutions. Often Bozo will find other ways to beat the system e.g. create another account under a false name, find other areas of your community to cause trouble etc. So, what else can be done… ?

3. Bozo-software – a feature that is built within online communities to label troublemakers as “Bozos”. In effect, what this does it renders “Bozos” invisible to everyone else in the community – something that Bozo is not aware of, therefore assuming that he/she is being ignored or their ploy has no effect within the community. This provides the community manager with a tool to diffuse the Bozo-effect in a non-confrontational manner. Other communities that make use of Bozo-software include Mzinga and Pluck.

Ok, so this all good and well, technology once again triumphs! But is this sustainable? Which leads as to our final option, Option 4…

4. YOU. The community manager. The custodian. The brand champion. Yes folks, you are the key. Using your savvy and experience to deal with troublemakers – whether through the use of conversation, technology or getting other loyal community members to join your cause in nullifying the Bozo-effect. You need to do a bit of scenario planning and put some contingency strategies together. It is a tedious process, but a much needed one!

Here at World Wide Creative, we strongly believe that a pro-active, innovative approach is always the most effective solution to any problem!