Posted by Deneb on October 26, 2009, at 13:05:13
In reply to Re: maintaining Babble, posted by Dr. Bob on October 25, 2009, at 10:06:32
I also found this. I thought it might be useful for you.
http://www.communityspark.com/how-to-build-and-maintain-trust-in-online-communities/
12th October, 2009 | Community Management | By Martin Reed - Community Manager
How to build and maintain trust in online communitiesencouraging trust in online communities
A vital element of a successful online community is trust. Without it, your community wont be as strong as it could be trust brings people together; it encourages people to share information and the more they share, the more others will share. Strong bonds result in a strong community. In this article, Ill outline some of the ways you can build and maintain trust in online communities.
Who needs to be trusted?
As a community manager, it is important that your members trust you after all, youre the official authority figure, even though you should always be deflecting the spotlight onto your members. However, its more important for your members to trust each other. A community is about its members; how they interact with each other and the relationships they form with each other. The community isnt about you.
Members of online communities will often mimic the behaviour of influencers so its important that you lead by example if you want to encourage an atmosphere of trust in your community.
Be authentic
You cant fake it. Members of online communities can smell a lie a mile off. If youre not authentic, your members wont trust you. If youre not authentic, you risk breeding a culture of deception and half-truths. Youre not perfect, so dont try to be.
Share
Online communities share information. Members talk about themselves. The more information they share, and the more personal that information is, the greater the build-up of trust in the community. Measuring the success of your community by the number of discussions where members share highly personal and sensitive information is far more valuable than just counting the number of members you have.
You need to encourage information sharing. You can do this by sharing information about yourself and striving to create and maintain a positive community atmosphere with no abuse or name calling. Members wont want to share personal information about themselves if they think theyll be mocked.
Be unbiased (perhaps)
Deciding whether to get involved in discussions of a more sensitive or controversial nature can be difficult. As a community manager, you want to be seen as impartial but human at the same time. If you are always sitting on the fence, youll come across as a robot hardly the best way to encourage relationships and empathy.
Share your opinions and show you are a real person just be careful when it comes to getting involved in discussions that are likely to split the community. Some members might feel betrayed if you publicly disagree with them. Just be sensitive and you should be fine.
Be consistent
You cant earn trust overnight. New members of your online community take time to fit in existing members need to get to know them and feel comfortable around them before they will begin to be trusted. The opinions of new members count for less than the opinions of longer term members for the simple reason that they have a known history.
Its a long term process
You cant make many mistakes here. The odd slip up can be forgiven as long as you openly apologise but repeated breaches of trust can be irreparable. You can spend months creating an atmosphere and culture of trust only for it to be destroyed by one person who is allowed to get away with bullying other members or by you acting unethically.
There is a lot resting on this you need to take a long term approach. But thats what community building is all about.
------------------------------------------
I also found this and thought it was interesting. The theory is that if we make it harder for people to join, it makes the community more attractive and adds prestige for the membership.
http://www.communityspark.com/invigorate-your-online-community-by-closing-it-down/21st October, 2009 | Community Management | By Martin Reed - Community Manager
Invigorate your online community by closing it downclosing online communities
Remember that community building takes time. That being said, sometimes an online community just wont get off the ground. If you are struggling to encourage activity or if you want to build more of a buzz around your site, sometimes closing it down is the best course of action.
Close your online community down completely
Most online communities fail. Normally this is due to one of two reasons. Firstly, starting an online community is easy, so many rush to build and release a community site without a plan or strategy. Secondly, many businesses think that if they invest enough money in a community, theyll see success. Community building isnt about big budgets, though. Its about building relationships which take time and trust, not money.
A lot of online communities launch before they are ready. You need to start building your community before you launch a community website. When your site goes public, it needs to already have members, content and active discussions. New members wont join a dead community.
If you started your community prematurely, close it down and start again. Reach out to your target audience through other channels (for example, blogs, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube). Recruit initial golden members to help you get your community going. When you relaunch your community website (if indeed, that is still necessary), youll now have immediate interest, early adopters and content.
Closing an online community also allows you to reassess why you want an online community. It gives you time to figure out why your community isnt developing as you had hoped. Having no community at all is better than having a failed community.
Restrict access to your online community
Being a member of an online community is rarely a luxury. Most are free to join. Most allow members to join without any obligation to be active. The result is often a high number of ghost members they show in your member stats, but they arent active (so they arent really members).
Theres no prestige in being a member of a community that lets everyone and anyone in. The more selective you are, the more attractive your community becomes. Consider making it more difficult to join your online community. Consider making it more difficult to remain a member of your online community. Here are some ideas:
* Have a waiting list for new members
* Only allow new members to join at certain times (specific time periods, days of the week, holidays, etc)
* Only allow a certain number of new members to join each week/month
* Make being active an ongoing membership requirement
* Make membership temporary new members have to earn the right to stay
* Make completion of detailed profile information a membership requirementExclusivity is attractive
Having an open community can result in a high number of new member registrations, but this wont always translate to active, engaged members. The more exclusive you make your community, the more attractive it becomes. Consider foregoing the ego stroke of artificial member counts, and aim instead for quality over quantity. Change the perception of your online community from a commodity to a privilege. Make members earn the right to join, and earn the right to stay.
Its a bold action, but it doesnt have to last forever. If you dont think exclusive, closed communities can work, read up on the history of Facebook.
poster:Deneb
thread:913181
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20090813/msgs/922622.html