How to Get an Active Community

As I explored in my post on Encouraging a Community with the carrot and stick method, I was having difficulty getting members to be active users.

My analysis found that the community I’d fostered wanted to hear stories, but didn’t want to give them. My next step was to encourage people to talk. I created an area where aspiring journalists could just talk, announcing their presence on the site. The idea is that if they’re friends, they’ll be more inclined to help each other. That might not work, but it’s had a better success rate that my previous efforts! The next step is to approach communities that want to tell their stories and enable them to meet the community of Journalists who’ve now started interacting on the site.

Here’s what I’ve learnt so far:

Don’t assume users will grow organically –make a community

The individuals are out there, but it takes effort to bring them together. Sometimes it just takes a few people conversing to give others’ the confidence to join the conversation.

Use personal relationships to ask people to become members

I asked people I was already in conversation with to help me out by starting the conversation. The people I asked were already aspiring Journalists, so I targeted people I thought would have a genuine interest in posting on the site, but knowing me already and being asked by me personally meant they were more willing to do something for me.

Build personal relationships with members

Managing this community doesn’t mean you can’t learn from them. Accept that you know no more than each member of your community. Be human. Thank them for their advice and opinions. A good community manager won’t need to force this, because we’re passionate about the people in our community.

Foster a core group of ambassadors

When Nick Lockey told me this is how Flickr started, the penny dropped! The more I’ve put it into practice, the more I’ve realized how crucial it is. I wish I’d done it sooner! The first members will set the tone for everyone else. Start by asking people you already know in that community to do something specific. For me, this was asking them to post something about themselves and what area they were looking for stories in. You could ask them to

• do a poll
• give advice or
• give their opinion.

It must specific though! People are more inclined to do something they can do in a few minutes.

So the lesson I learnt:

Don’t be afraid to ask for help. A conversation can grow organically, but a good community manager starts the conversation – even if it’s manufactured.

Have you learnt from a community you’re managing? Have you got any ideas on how I can find a community of people who have stories to tell, and how to join them with my community of Journalists? I’d love to hear your ideas in the comments box below.

Nick Robinson: a journalist fed up of community engagement

Photo: Joe Pike

BBC Political Editor Nick Robinson is one of the most well-known journalists in the country. However, he doesn’t like engaging with the online community of news enthusiasts. Because of the abuse.

I was listening to him reflect on his career last night at an event at West London’s Frontline Club.

He claims to be the first BBC political journalist to blog, way back in 2001. But although there are useful comments on his blog, the constant abuse (most of it swiftly censored by moderators) from some readers has made him weary of its benefits.

This is maybe connected to the fact that the BBC is funded by the licence fee, a compulsory tax, meaning Nick’s audience believe they have some ownership over his work and a right to make their opinions known.

Twitter

The micro-blogging service Twitter is popular among Nick’s colleagues and his opposite numbers at other broadcasters:

• Sky News Political Editor Adam Boulton – @adamboulton
• ITV News Political Editor Tom Bradby – @tombradby
• BBC News Channel Chief Political Correspondent – @BBCLauraK

But Nick Robinson isn’t interested in joining. He’s so high profile and reporting on such polarising and emotive issues that he can’t form constructive, mutually beneficial relationships with community members.

Are there any other examples of high profile figures avoiding community engagement because of the abuse? Maybe Stephen Fry who took a break from Twitter after being told he was ‘boring’ by other users.

Meg Pickard: Tending to your community

“The platform belongs to us but the conversation belongs to everybody”, says Meg Pickard, the Guardian‘s Head of Digital Engagement.

When nurturing a community, knowing your audience is key. This means knowing:

1. Their needs
2. Their passions
3. What drives them
4. What is likely to rile them (so their attitudes and approaches)
5. When and how they are logging on (are they mobile users?)
6. The pace of conversation appropriate to them

These can then be balanced with editorial requirement.

The Guardian’s structure

Key to the Guardian’s community management strategy are the new roles of Community Coordinators:

• These staff members mostly have roots in journalism
• They act as a bridge between the community and the editorial team
• They only work in certain areas (News, Comment Is Free, Development Blog, Culture)
• In these areas there needs to be somebody who can be a conduit or conductor
• They scan the conversations on the site and elsewhere and help users out

But it’s a team effort

These people are not the only ones who are tasked with keeping the Guardian’s online communities on track. Meg says it is the responsibility of:

1. Everybody who works here (approx 800 editorial staff)
2. Everybody who contributes above the line
3. Everybody who visits the site and comments on it below the line
4. Everybody who visits and doesn’t comment on it

Community members need to care about the quality of the environment and preserving it.

Meg Pickard: Getting your journalists engaging with your online community

“It’s quite difficult to persuade anybody to do things that they don’t want to do or that they don’t see value in”, says Meg Pickard, the Guardian‘s Head of Digital Engagement.

Persuading journalists to engage in online communities is easiest when you can explain where and why there is value in doing those activities. This could be:

• Finding new audiences
• Talking in new spaces
• Developing new skills
• Broadening  stories: growing insight, additional perspectives and adding ‘texture’

Meg believes that once this is explained, it becomes a compelling reason for engagement: ”Most of the challenge is helping people to understand the proposition rather than getting them to do something they don’t want to do.”

Sceptics

Forcing someone to get involved in online communities is never an option. Meg says: “In the social media world, the worst person to be on Twitter is someone who doesn’t want to be on Twitter”. If you’re having problems with some of your team keep two key points in mind:

• It takes time to work out the best way to use all this technology
• If there’s no way that it can be used where the journalists are comfortable, don’t do it

Of course some people “don’t want to learn skills and don’t want to move on in the ways we publish and the kinds of audiences that we speak to.”

Organisational change

This can be an organisational change, something that individuals shouldn’t feel responsible for. Meg believes that organisations must try to collectively recognise:

• The world is changing
• We need to work out how we can embrace that.
• Because the alternative is running away from it screaming saying we dont want to play and we don’t want to be involved. And that’s not really an option is it?

What is the Best Way to Manage a Community?

Jimmy Wales, Founder, Wikipedia

Like the vast majority of its users, I’m a Wikipedia virgin. It’s been a part of my life but only through reference; I’ve never actually engaged with its content.

Until now. I’ve just registered for an account so I can start editing the information.

The first part of becoming an active user of the web’s largest community resource is to establish a common goal. You’re told:

• Please sign your posts on talk pages by typing ~~~~, but don’t sign encyclopedic articles.
• You are welcome to start editing without learning our policies. But please, keep a neutral point of view, cite your sources to make articles verifiable, and please remember we are an encyclopedia. If other people haven’t yet covered a topic, then we probably shouldn’t either.
• We have lots of articles that still need images, Wikipedia:Picture tutorial can show you how to add pictures or become one of our photographers.
• If you have any questions, don’t be afraid to ask them: Wikipedia:Questions tells you the most appropriate place to post them.
• If you still need help, you can place {{helpme}} at the bottom of your talkpage with a question.

Now I’m on board, I have the freedom to contribute, knowing that it will be moderated and may be removed.  I feel like I know what the site is trying to do, so I don’t mind this moderation.

But I feel free. I can’t believe I have the potential to influence what millions of people read.

What provokes you to engage with Wikipedia?

I don’t feel like I can really interact with this community though. I feel like a moderator, not a participator.

And then I find Jimmy Wales’ page. His information is open to editing and he tells me so much about himself I’m starting to quite like the guy. But where has the user-generated community manager gone on from here? We’ll be interviewing Wikia soon, but until then I’d love to know your thoughts on the Wikipedia experience in the comments box below.

Have you tried to edit a post? Was it approved? How did it feel to know you could be documenting history – and may have your efforts moderated by someone else?

Bringing community management, social media and journalism together

It’s important to remember how community management can help us in journalism…after all journalism is our bread and butter and the more active our community the better our journalism can be.

Any news organisation and any business for that matter tries to build relationships with their audience, clients or users. Community management is key. Bad community management equals bad relationships – simples!

When we finally get jobs in the media (however bleak the outlook at the moment!), we will undoubtedly be using social media to encourage our audience to comment on our journalistic output. However, this useful tool should be used with caution.

Matthew Eltringham asks in his blog:

As journalists pile into social media is a consistent idea of good practice emerging on how to deal with user comments? And does it matter?

Matthew concludes that it does and I agree.

As a journalist producing articles you need to be on your best behaviour…and you need to make sure those who comment on your articles are too. The BBC has clear guidelines about the rules of engagement when it comes to comments on their articles; comments can and have been deleted. The Economist’s policy states only ‘commercial or offensive posts will be removed’.

But things get tricky when it comes to social media…

Social media, such as Facebook, is more revealing, and the rules of engagement are different. Some comments are more acceptable on Facebook than they are in the comments section at the bottom of your article. For example on my DinnerPartyDilemma facebook group I felt the comment below was appropriate for facebook, but if it had been in response to an article I had written I would have removed it.

Remember Facebook is permanent and ultimately your audience’s community.

Don’t be afraid of social media though -  it’s a valuable tool for journalists.

A few tips when it comes to your member’s comments:

Be transparent:

Your audience needs to know what you’re doing and why to prevent problems occurring as a result of your article.

Be interested in your audience’s comments:

BBC London acknowledges their audience’s contributions which some say gives them editorial advantage over its rivals. Tom Edwards, for example, who writes the blog Mind The Gap for BBC London replies to the comments he receives as you can see below.

Being transparent and interested in your members will bring your audience in and keep your community active.

For information on content moderation visit eModeration.

Let us know how you use social media with your community members…

Welcome!

We’ve set up this blog to understand and attempt to explain exactly how online community management works.

Richard Millington of Feverbee says all communities should be launched on the cheap and we agree!  We certainly don’t have the $40,000 that he mentions some people spend on their community platform!

What we do have are our journalistic skills and research techniques so we’ll endeavour to find the experts, expertise and explanations on all things ‘community management’. We’ll also be sharing our experiences with our personal online communites which we have set up over the past few months. We’ll let you know what’s right, wrong and give you some handy hints on becoming a hands on community manager and an active member of online communities.