Top Five Community Management Blog Posts: November 2012

Some old names here and some new. All of these posts are worth a read.

1. 5 Ways to Avoid Squashing Your Community Like a Dictator

One of my first rules of community building is this: You don’t own the community, your members do. That can be scary for organizations worried about giving up control. In this post,  Sarah Robinson tells the tale of a client unwilling to give up control, warns against getting all Stalin on your community, and provides some useful guidelines for promoting meaningful member participation.

2. Borrowing Ideas From Other Communities

You know that old saying about not re-inventing the wheel? It holds true for online communities as well. Richard Millington of FeverBee reminds us that there are lots of successful communities to learn from. Take a look at what others are doing, figure out the engaging part, and create your unique take on it.

3. Mistakes Create Teachable Moments for Moderators

If you manage any large community, chances are you have some moderation help. But what do you do if your help mishandles an incident with one of your members? Getting rid of that moderator may be appropriate in some cases. But as Patrick O’Keefe of the iFroggy Network writes, it’s often best to turn the mistake into a lesson.

4. The silent majority: Can lurkers add value to a community?

A lot has been written and said about lurkers over the past few years. Once dismissed as valueless, community management professionals are now starting to realize that these silent community participants are important. In this post, Jasmine Jaume of Brandwatch recounts an online conversation about the value of lurkers and shares some interesting insights.

5. How Do You Build A Thriving Community?

It isn’t possible to pack all the knowledge you need to build a thriving community into a single blog post. But this article by Leanne Chase of the Community Roundtable is a nice overview of the basics.  Distilled from the Community Roundtable’s excellent Community Management Fundamentals presentation, this post includes tips on topics like creating value for your members, welcoming newcomers, and injecting fun into the community.

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