One of the reasons that words matter so much is that different words prompt different emotional reactions from people. If you call someone a spammer, they are more likely to react defensively than if you said that they were advertising. Even though, when it comes to the action, these are the same thing.

Let’s take this post for example. I would be willing to wager that, based on title alone, a good portion of those who open it will be predisposed to disagreeing with me, even before they read what I had to say, simply because I used the word censorship instead of “removing bad content” or “banning members.” Not everyone will have this reaction, but some will.

This post is partially inspired by a survey conducted by The American Assembly at at Columbia University (via Jonathan Bailey via Government Computer News). Spurned on by the SOPA (Stop Online Privacy Act) legislation, they asked 2,303 adults in the United States a series of questions.

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photo credit: jsmjr

In the United States, today is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, in honor of the late civil rights leader.

A few days ago, NBC News released a full episode of “Meet the Press” from March 28, 1965, which featured Dr. King. It is embedded below.

If you watch it, you’ll notice how calm he remains throughout. Despite the very personal nature of the topic and the fact that, at multiple times, he is essentially asked if he is a communist or a hypocrite, he remains calm. This trait was undoubtedly one of Dr. King’s strengths and one of the reasons that he was such an influential leader.

Though his cause was one of vast importance, far more than the management of an average community, a community manager is a leader and leaders of all stripes can learn a great deal from Dr. King.

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photo credit: Gord Bell

If you are like me, you have many different social streams of information that you pay attention to.

These streams usually contain information from people that you have subscribed to in some way, whether you call it friending, following or something else.

When we interact via platforms that have some sort of relationship system, where people can add you to the list of people they want to pay attention to, you can add them to your list and we are notified when people add us to their list, there is a personal dynamic.

This is because we all like to have people pay attention to us. When we say, “hey, I want to pay attention to you,” and that person then tells us, “awesome, I want to pay attention to you, too!,” it makes us feel good.

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photo credit: carterse

I received an email from a reader who has managed a good sized community for a number of years. It is the largest within it’s focused niche, growing to host meetups not only online, but also in person.

This reader will remain anonymous because although he wrote me to suggest that I write about this topic, he has not given me permission to mention who he is. But, to keep things simple, we’ll call him Robert.

Robert started the community because the topic that it is based around was a new hobby that he was passionate about. He is a web development veteran. It wasn’t really meant to make any money, as these things often start, but it did lead to him cultivating a relationship with many of the players within the business industry that exists around the topic of the community. He began to generate some revenue, though not very much.

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photo credit: ornello_pics

Josh Barraza asked if I would talk about how you can revive a “dead” online community. That’s a great suggestion.

Before we talk about the how, there are a couple of simple truths that we need to keep in mind.

The definition of “dead” will vary by person, by community and by person running the community. You may look at something as “dead” when someone else sees it as fine.

If you are running the community and you consider it dead, then that is one thing. But, otherwise, be careful how you view, and judge, other communities. They aren’t always intended to have regular activity or to grow on an activity basis. Everyone has different goals.

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photo credit: Gonmi

Treat people as you want to be treated.

I apply the golden rule to a lot of different circumstances, including how I manage my communities, with respect to other communities.

I’ll give you a few examples.

It’s not unheard of that a member of a community, not necessarily mine, but any, would complain about another one that they have joined previously and participated in and/or been banned from.

That community is the worst. The administrator is a jerk and a megalomaniac. This community is so much better.

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photo credit: M.M.Meeks

Like any management role, when you manage an online community, you’ll be faced with challenges on a regular basis. You’ll have to put out a lot of fires.

Some will be like blowing out a candle, but in other cases, a part of your house may be on fire. You then can choose one of two paths. Either you try to put out the fire or you let the house burn down.

Whatever the challenge is, as the administrator or manager, it is your responsibility to remain calm, think about the issue objectively and make the best decision that you can.

Back when Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter was the president of Def Jam, a song by Young Jeezy, one of his hottest artists, leaked to radio. An emergency meeting was called, but Mr. Carter didn’t see it as an emergency. The song, he said, was a club record and radio wouldn’t be so inclined to play it.

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photo credit: achimh

Earlier this week, William Ruzvidzo invited me to answer a question on Quora, “What does it take to be a great community manager?” Mr. Rudvidzo is a Community Manager at 49Pixels.

I thought about this for a while and came up with the following.

A great community manager has experience. I think this is easily overlooked. People think community is brand new and that no one has experience. So they look for marketing or communications converts looking to make a switch.

I’ve seen a lot of crazy job listings for community manager. There was one that required email marketing experience and search marketing experience… but no community management experience. If the job requirements read that way, they don’t want a community manager, they want a marketer.

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photo credit: Roy Montgomery

When you have a unique level of experience in a certain area, have written a book about it, author a blog on it, speak about it at conferences and events and regularly offer thoughts on the topic on other platforms, often when asked, there’s a lot of good. But, there are also a few unfortunate side effects.

I want to talk about one in particular today, which is that when you recommend something, some people take it as you saying that your recommendation is the only way to accomplish said task. And if it doesn’t match with what they do, they are offended and feel as if their knowledge and their skills have been challenged.

When, in reality, all you did was make a simple, general recommendation for a certain set of circumstances, they take it in a polarizing way, believing that you are saying that all other methods of accomplishing the goal are garbage.

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photo credit: proudcanadianeh

Happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrate it.

In honor of the day, I thought that I would take a moment to talk about a few things that I am thankful for right now, as they pertain to managing an online community.

I have a lot to be thankful for, both professionally and personally and this is not meant to be an all-inclusive list. Just some things that popped into my head as I pondered the question, “what, related to what I do with online communities, am I thankful for right now?”

Online Community Management as a Maturing Industry

When I started, the Community Manager role didn’t really exist. 99% of the platforms, tools and software that are now available – were not available.

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