I was listening to Community Signal (available wherever fine podcasts are sold) and Patrick O’Keefe’s conversation with famed criminologist George Kelling about applying the Broken Windows theory to community management. They discussed how behavioral demonstrations and “levels of order” can maintain a cohesive, orderly group, whether online or off. While the theory is somewhat controversial,…
Tag: Community Management
Creating a member-oriented online community
This article originally appeared at ASAE: The Center for Association Leadership. My thanks to Oona Schmid who co-wrote this article with me! Just because an association creates an online community platform and stacks it with educational material does not mean members will rush to sign up. These tactics will help you build an engaging and…
Finding your calling as an online community consultant
In today’s internet-fueled economy, it’s easier than ever to find a niche in the workforce and fill it, which is essentially the definition of what consultants do. And frankly, in the future freelance jobs like consulting will likely become the norm, if they haven’t already, for making a living. Boutique marketing consultant Caitlin Connors made…
Community manager tool kit: Metrics for tracking growth and engagement
So maybe you can’t put an exact dollar value on the content your community produces, but at some point you will be asked to show how your online community has grown in relative value and how the activity it has produced has impacted your organization. To do that, you need to consistently track your social…
The future of online communities: Knowledge pills, VR networking and community-powered AI bots
Since I moved to DC, I’ve had a lot more time to ponder and listen to podcasts as I wait in traffic on my way to/from work. While all that waiting can be torturous sometimes (every day I see someone locked in the glass box of their car like an angry mime, beating the steering…
#CMAD 2017: All good things in moderation
#CMAD 2017, Session 7: All Good Things in Moderation from 5:00 Films & Media. My thanks to Lindsay Starke at Higher Logic, Marghet Hager at Dynamic community, and 5:00 Films & Media for making me look good during the 2017 Community Manager Appreciation Day celebrations!
Creating a sense of ownership in your online community
Members need to trust that their community is a safe space to participate—whether they’re providing positive or negative feedback to their peers. Never allow members to attack someone for sharing their thoughts, and take time to consider whether or not to allow anonymity in posting or reporting content on your community. Ownership is a concept…
Community manager tool kit: Small tactics for big change
To encourage and build engagement in online communities, sometimes the smallest things make the biggest difference—I was reminded of this recently listening to a science podcast where they discussed the metabolism of medicines in mice during lab experiments. In one group of mice, the meds the scientists were testing were metabolized twice as fast as…
