photo credit: music2fish2 (eric lanning)

ren asked: “What [do you] do when upgrading to new software causes a downturn in user engagement? How [do you] get it back?”

Thanks for the question, ren. For me, it relates to the general issue of change on communities and what you can do to make your changes more meaningful and widely accepted by your community. That is what I am going to cover in this article.

So that we stay focused, I am going to assume that you have given the change a lot of thought and have determined it to be worthwhile. If you have a staff, you have also asked for their feedback and improved the proposed change to a point where you are excited about it and are looking forward to rolling it out.

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I am one of the co-hosts on the SitePoint Podcast, a weekly podcast from SitePoint, one of the largest web development communities in the world.

Recently, I led a community management roundtable that spanned two episodes and featured Matthew Haughey, creator of MetaFilter; Sarah Hawk, Community Manager for SitePoint and Venessa Paech, Lead Community Manager for Community Engine, former Community Manager for Lonely Planet and co-organizer of Swarm Sydney, an upcoming community management conference.

The idea for the roundtable (as well as the selection of the people that would join me) came from SitePoint Program Director Lisa Lang.

We discussed topics like the evolving community manager job title, why forums matter, integrating various social media platforms with your standalone community, the gender diversity of the profession, the danger of community metrics and more. You can listen to the shows and read the transcripts on SitePoint, published as episodes 119 and 121.

In May, at WordCamp Raleigh, I ran into Ray Mitchell, a Winston Salem, North Carolina-based web designer, who I had met previously. SixFour Web Design is his company.

Mr. Mitchell recently shared a blog post request for me Twitter: “Special tips for managing LinkedIn Groups to build real community vs. self-promotion.” Thank you for the suggestion.

Upfront, I have to say that my experience with LinkedIn Groups is somewhat limited. I am currently a member of 10 groups (make that 8 as I just left two of them while working on this article) and I don’t actively participate in, or even read, any of them. But, at the same time – a platform is a platform and LinkedIn Groups is not dissimilar from other platforms. Much of what applies to building community on LinkedIn Groups will also apply to building on other platforms, as well.

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Empire Avenue is a stock market where you can purchase shares in your favorite individual or corporate social media presences. I’m on the service with the ticker symbol IFROGGY.

My friend Damond Nollan has been riding the Empire Avenue wave. He’s a popular user and has dug in pretty deep. I asked him to write a guest post for me and he talked about how you can build community around Empire Avenue and further engage with the people you encounter on EA.

Empire Avenue (EA) is a relatively new social network built upon gamification. On the surface, the site is about buying and selling shares in people using eaves, EA’s virtual currency. However, if you look a little deeper, you may notice a lively community that actively engages both on and off site. In this article, we will explore the Empire Avenue community and learn from existing builders.

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photo credit: Etsy Ketsy

Have you ever thought that, when you thank someone, you are building community? Well, you are.

Appreciation is one of the strongest ways that you can build community, online or off. Whether you are talking about customers, audience or registered members, retention – getting people to come back – is crucial to building community.

Why do people come back? One of the main reasons people come back is because they feel like their presence and their contributions are appreciated. People who feel unappreciated will be more likely to look to some other resource.

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photo credit:
aresauburn™

It’s one of those ever present questions from people who are looking to start their own forum: what is the best software? I’ve been asked it or seen it asked countless times.

In some way, it’s a frustrating question because it brings out the people who treat software as if it is some sort of religion and act like some sort of extreme fanatic, as if the world somehow darkens when someone chooses Invision Power Board over phpBB or vice versa.

And sometimes you have developers, some of which are just as bad. Our solution is the best! We’re not bloated like the others! We’re the next evolution of forums! We’re here to save you! Gracious. No.

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photo credit: tompagenet

When it comes to identification on an online community, usernames tend to be the convention of choice, providing people with the option of identifying themselves as they choose (within the community guidelines, of course).

But, for some communities, it may make sense to require real names or, at least, the display of real names. This can be both detrimental and beneficial and there is no right or wrong answer – it all depends on your unique situation.

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photo credit: mathrock

The forum software space is very strong. There are numerous and plentiful options, both free and paid, that are backed by resourceful communities providing hacks, styles, graphics, customizations, tutorials, support and more for free or for an additional cost. This is a great thing.

Back when I started, in 2000, this wasn’t the case. Software wise, the space was extremely young. forum-software.org’s timeline of forum software definitely takes me back. At that time, some of the major players that are well established today, were brand new.

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Lanyrd launched in September. I love Lanyrd. What is Lanyrd? It’s “the social conference directory.” That’s probably not enough. Lanyrd aims to help you “find great conferences to attend,” “to discover what’s hot while it’s on” and to “catch up on anything you missed.”

It’s built on top of Twitter (in so much as you need to share your Twitter details to unlock it’s true power) and it shows you what conferences the people you follow are attending, speaking at or talking about. As you may know, I speak a bit. Here’s my profile on Lanyrd.

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Social engagement firm ComBlu has just released “The State of Online Branded Communities,” a new 52-page report that you can download for free on their website.

It includes data from 241 online communities collectively owned by 78 corporations, and the bulk of the report discusses what tools they use and what “best practices” they follow. This data is then drilled down to specific industries and corporations are given a rating based on how well they are supposedly engaging through their online communities.

Overall, ComBlu did a great job collecting and compiling this data and offering it to us to consume – and for free. They certainly could have charged for the report and I would have never seen it unless they sent me a copy, so the fact that they are providing it free of charge makes it a must-download for anyone in the community space.

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