Roundtable on Communities of Purpose (6) - Site Terms

Part Six in our roundtable discussion series on Communities of Purpose.  This time: Terms of Use.

eModeration: What are the best ways to lay out the terms of the site to make it clear to all members what the site is trying to achieve?


Ashley Cooksley: Any site will have a Terms and Conditions area that will contain the site rules, but are unlikely to be user-friendly or written in layman’s terms. We always recommend that the person who manages your community works with the legal team (or whoever wrote the Terms and Conditions) to create a House Rules or Community Rules page. These will contain a summary of the issues that you want your members to adhere to while in your community. These rules should be written with your target audience in mind. For example, a children’s site should have short, clear House Rules that a child would understand. Instead of saying “harassment or abusive language is not tolerated”, consider saying “making fun of or being mean to others is against the rules”.

These House Rules should be promoted heavily and clearly throughout the community on pages such as Registration (along with Terms and Conditions), Terms and Conditions, within the top and bottom bar navigation, Help page, Report Abuse page, and throughout your community products such as forums, chat and blogs.

Leah Williams: Although the purpose of the site is pretty clear, we have a landing page (http://www.breastcancercare.org.uk/community/) which explains what the forum is for and why people might want to join. We also put it at the top of our community guidelines, which means we can refer back to it if we feel that discussions are inappropriate for the purpose of the site.

Patrick o’Keefe: I look to community guidelines for this. Community guidelines, for me, are a vision statement. They talk about who you are and who you want to be.

My guidelines not only detail what you can and cannot do, but in doing so, they also illustrate who we are in plain language. For example, on one community aimed at martial artists, it is made clear that we’re a respectful, friendly community where anyone is welcome, as long as they participate in line with the guidelines.

Once in a while, you get someone who feels like they need to be able to use vulgar terms or say that this art or that art is stupid. And then I have to tell them that that isn’t what we’re about and that they may need to look elsewhere. Your guidelines, your publicly available vision statement, allow you to say such a thing with confidence. They always give you something to point to, that everyone has access to.

You can tie your guidelines in with an about page or a mission statement page. The type of page or area isn’t the issue, that’s just verbiage. The key is that you make your goals clean in a public area and that you make sure that those goals are vigorously pursued.

Alison Michalk: We follow a ‘stage of life’ navigation. Our research has shown that a majority of members come to the site whilst thinking about conceiving, so the top forums are conception and it progresses. We do have some of our most popular and contentious forums ‘hidden’ at the bottom of the forum as they can be confrontational for new members.

Blaise Grimes-Viort: I create a page outlining the site or community's mission statement in friendly language, and link to it from the Terms & Conditions page and Community Guidelines pages. I then try to spread little reminders throughout the tools, particularly on the content submission sections, to encourage members to follow these aims when contributing.

Our thanks go to the community managers that we spoke to and who took the time to share their experiences with us and contriubuted to our White Paper on the subject:

Leah Williams, Community and Social Media Manager at Breast Cancer Care; Patrick O’Keefe, owner of iFroggy Network and author of "Managing Online Forums"; Alison Michalk, Director of Quiip and ex-community manager for Essential Baby at Fairfax Digital Australia; Blaise Grimes-Viort, Head of Communities and Social Media at National Magazine Company and Hearst Digital and Vanessa DiMauro, CEO of LeaderNetworks.

Look out for Part 6) in this series: What are the best ways to lay out the terms of the site to make it clear to all members what the site is trying to achieve?

And our previous posts ....
Part 1) How do you engage with a community, as opposed to just informing a community?
Part 2) What is the value of that community once someone has reached their goal?
Part 3) How do you make an information-based site relevant to newbies as well as to those who’ve been using the site for a long time?
Part 4) How do you encourage experienced members to help out new members?
Part 5) How do you keep members motivated (for example in a weight loss site)?

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Facebook makes major changes to Pages

Apologies that all my posts seem to be about Facebook lately, but this one really needs flagging up. In yet another sweeping change, Facebook has announced that it will, as of this week, be removing the handy sidebar boxes from all profiles.  The "Boxes" tab, boxes on profiles and Pages, and application info sections will be going away. Additionally, all profile and Page tabs will be resized automatically to 520 pixels wide beginning the week of August 23. What does this tab width change mean? If you’ve created a custom tab, you need to change the width to 520 pixels. With all the FBML custom tabs brands are employing, this change affects more pages than you might think.

Regarding the profile boxes, a Facebook spokeswoman told AllFacebook.com: “These boxes will be removed, just as they will be from profiles, and so the page owners will need to move that info to the info page or a custom tab.” Why they are doing this, they haven't told us, except this rather gnomic declaration on http://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/399: “These updates are designed to simplify navigation for users, reduce complexity for developers, and enable us to build the next generation of tools for growing your business with Facebook.”

These profile boxes were very handy places to keep essential information, such as your House Rules (why there are important) and summary brand info which you wanted to be instantly available to your fanbase as they landed on your page.

It wasn't entirely clear which bits would be left and which removed, so AllFacebook  kindly did some checking back with Facebook moguls, and I'll republish their findings here:

Example 1: On the Coca-Cola fan page, the “House Rules” box on the left-hand panel of the Wall tab will no longer be supported.

Example 2: The privacy policy on the AT&T Facebook page - currently in a box on the left-hand side - will no longer be displayed in its current format.

Example 3: The TOMS Shoes Facebook page will keep the image that says “With every purchase. TOMS will give a pair of new shoes to a child in need. One for one”. A Facebook spokeswoman confirmed that this was in a description area rather than a box and would not be going away. She added that Tom’s also had this information on the “Welcome” tab, which was an FBML tab, and would remain. (This last example will also be impacted by Facebook's simultaneous change of panel width to 520px wide)

It's not a popular move, and one that I suspect will take many Page owners unawares, but then, when did that ever stop a Facebook change?

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Facebook's Location Services - A Good Thing?

So.  Here it is.  Amidst some fanfare and trumpeting, Facebook has announced its location services Package, called (fair enough) 'Places', and involves the more or less willing co-operation of the the other big location services.

Firstly, a disclaimer.  I don't do Foursquare or Gowalla or any of the others (although I know and respect some perfectly sane people  who do).  So it could be said that I'm not going to be the most knowledgeable or unbiased reporter.  Heck, I forget to tell my colleagues where I am half the time, so there's no way I'm going to open my life up to so much scrutiny.

Firstly: what are the changes?  If you're accessing Facebook from your smartphone, then you'll be able to check in to locations and alert friends to your presence, and see any of your friends who are nearby (or others who've left their privacy wide open). These are broadcast in status updates (oh God NO!  I hope there's some way to filter them out) and in the 'Places' page for that location.

You can tag friends who are near you, although apparently users will be able to remove themselves after they are tagged (possibly not before their boss/spouse has seen them of course ;-) ) with special privacy controls to protect minors, “Only friends will ever see when a minor checks in, anywhere. That means that even if the minor chooses to change their Places I ‘check-in’ setting to ‘Everyone,’ their check-ins will still only be visible to friends,” explained a Facebook spokesman. Although of course, as many minors are completely non-discriminatory about whom they become friends with, that wouldn't be so effective.  How about not having the service available to under 18's, then, Facebook?  Oh, I forgot. All the under 13's are lying about their age anyway ... *sighs*.

Update 23/09/10: There's a really helpful post in AllFacebook on how to customise your privacy settings - it's not quite as simple as it would first appear (why doesn't that surprise me?).  I strongly suggest you check it out.

US Facebook users need to update their iPhone Facebook app, or visit touch.facebook.com, to get access to the tool. A user then needs to select ‘Places’, tap the ‘Check-In’ button, and then a list of nearby places will come up on the screen. Facebook members then can choose the place which matches their location, and if it is not on the list, they can search for it or add it.

Each location gets it's own newsfeed, where you can see which of your friends has visited the place, even if their visit was months earlier. Even the privacy-phobe in me rather likes that bit, especially if they've uploaded comments, reviews or photos:  “Stories are going to be pinned to a physical location so that in 20 years our children will go to Ocean Beach and their phone will tell them this is the place their parents had their first kiss, and here’s the picture they took afterwards, and here’s what their friends had to say,” Facebook VP Chris Cox said.

But then again ... thinking about it ... I'm not sure I want my kids knowing what I did at the foot of the Sacré Cœur when I was twenty-one.  Thank God Facebook Places wasn't around then.


You can read more at:

• http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/08/watch-facebooks-location-sharing-announcement-live/#ixzz0x2YN04H4
• http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/19/technology/19facebook.html?_r=1
  http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/08/watch-facebooks-location-sharing-announcement-live/
• http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/facebook/7953403/Facebook-Places-social-network-adds-location-check-ins.html

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Roundtable on Communities of Purpose (5) - Keeping Motivated

We recently wrote a white paper on the issues brands face when managing a ‘community of purpose’: an online community of people with a common, clear, defined goal. In researching that paper, we had some invaluable input from some of the best community managers working in this area. Their insight was so interesting that we hosted a ‘virtual’ round table discussion, to address some of the very specific issues that arise in managing a community of purpose. Each of the community managers we spoke to addressed a specific issue as it related to their own experience.

eModeration: How do you keep members motivated (for example in a weight loss site)? Do you recommend calls to action or milestone achievements along the way, for example? Are there any other ways to boost morale for starters?

Ashley Cooksley: Providing cheerleaders within a community is a good way to keep members motivated. Basically, this could be your community manager who responds to blog posts and forum posts with words of encouragement. This must be done carefully – giving medical advice or diet suggestions should only be given by someone medically qualified to do so. However, your community manager or experienced members will likely want to see others strive and achieve their goals and will do their best to “cheer them on”.

Well known dieting and fitness sites often award badges for achieving milestones, which can be very motivational. This coupled with words of encouragement and “shout outs” for those achieving their goals will go a long way to keep your members motivated.

Patrick o’Keefe: I would suggest that you be careful to balance this out. It is a good idea to provide tools that allow people to track their progress and set goals. But, at the same time, this can’t be done in a discouraging way, either.

You also have to be careful to ensure that the achievements are not so unverifiable as to be abused for the sake of getting that cool badge or graphic under your name. Otherwise, they become meaningless and in that case, you may as well not have them at all.

Morale can also be boosted by a supporting environment and success stories. Real people with real success can be a powerful motivator.

Alison Michalk: In terms of milestones or achievements, 'tickers' or signatures are an important part in building community identity, and you'll see their use reflected in a range of forums. Our members’ 'tickers' and/or signatures may graph the progress of a pregnancy, a child's age, weight loss, giving up smoking, extended breastfeeding, an IVF journey, multiple pregnancy losses and so on. At a quick glance, another member can see the personal experience and knowledge of a member, and perhaps use this information to assess a person's opinion or advice.

Other status features such as post count, join date, recommendations etc all form an important part of a member’s status and online persona. They further their engagement, keep them motivated as a participant of the community, and - importantly - create identity and a sense of belonging. In many ways they have a tribal component allowing members' to seek out others with a shared outlook.

Over the years we've had a number of members who have said they felt a stronger sense of belonging to our online community than in real life - due to the understanding the community had of their experience. One of these woman was involuntarily childless and it'd had a huge impact on her life that very few friends understood.

Our thanks go to the community managers that we spoke to and who took the time to share their experiences with us:

Leah Williams, Community and Social Media Manager at Breast Cancer Care; Patrick O’Keefe, owner of iFroggy Network and author of "Managing Online Forums"; Alison Michalk, Director of Quiip and ex-community manager for Essential Baby at Fairfax Digital Australia; Blaise Grimes-Viort, Head of Communities and Social Media at National Magazine Company and Hearst Digital and Vanessa DiMauro, CEO of LeaderNetworks.

Look out for Part 6) in this series: What are the best ways to lay out the terms of the site to make it clear to all members what the site is trying to achieve?

And our previous posts ....
Part 1) How do you engage with a community, as opposed to just informing a community?
Part 2) What is the value of that community once someone has reached their goal?
Part 3) How do you make an information-based site relevant to newbies as well as to those who’ve been using the site for a long time?
Part 4) How do you encourage experienced members to help out new members?

Read more...

The Giddy Social Whirl...Twitter takes work.

Kate Williams ponders the world of social media, and today discovers that...

...Twitter takes work.


SQUEAL! The Social Whirl is back!

While the Lovely Tia was on her hols I was seconded, as you may or may not have noted, to @eModeration Twitter duty.

Bearing in mind the goodwill which Tia commands in the social media world, and her numerous followers, this felt like a bit of a – you know - well, I don’t want to say ‘it felt like not that hard of a job’, but it felt like not that hard of a job.

So. In my Big To-Do list for last week, I had the following:

1. Decide on flooring for ballroom at Social Towers.
2. Dye peacocks on the far lawn.
3. Tweet snippets of social and tech tittle-tattle as and when.

Turns out that Number 3 was a bit harder than I’d anticipated.

It was glorious fun, and jolly interesting, and all. But it was also Quite Hard, and Very Time-Consuming. There were moments of awkward self-consciousness - when I suddenly found it impossible to predict whether a particular snippet would be of any interest to anyone, in the whole world, ever. But also brilliant revelatory moments, when I interacted with very smart people who knew their stuff, and when I hope I passed along some chunks of social media goodness which might not otherwise have reached its target.

In acknowledgement of which truth, my first link of the season is a reminder of Mashable’s 10 Dos and Don’ts for Brands on Twitter.

Because sometimes the oldies are the goodies, and you never know how hard it is till you try.


A Bientot, Mes Amis! 

Image courtesy of Oversocialized via Flickr

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Roundtable on Communities of Purpose (4) - Mentoring

We recently wrote a white paper on the issues brands face when managing a ‘community of purpose’: an online community of people with a common, clear, defined goal. In researching that paper, we had some invaluable input from some of the best community managers working in this area. Their insight was so interesting that we hosted a ‘virtual’ round table discussion, to address some of the very specific issues that arise in managing a community of purpose. Each of the community managers we spoke to addressed a specific issue as it related to their own experience.

eModeration: How do you encourage experienced members to help out new members? Mentoring programmes / ambassadors?

Ashley Cooksley: Experienced members are key to the ongoing success of your community. These members have already proved they’re loyal to your community, and harnessing their loyalty and enthusiasm will help in a variety of ways. They can greet new members, answer member questions, and promote new features within the community and even flag up issues and developments to your community manager.

Once you have identified who your experienced members are, replying to their posts with words of appreciation and encouragement will go a long way to maintaining their loyalty. It’s nice to be recognized for adding value, whether in the real world or in an online community. Saying ‘thank you for that wonderful insight’ will make them feel appreciated and valued.

While you must be careful not to demand anything from a member (i.e. treat them like a staff member with definite roles and responsibilities), but rather create ways for them to contribute to your community where they benefit (they feel valued, are seen by other members as an ambassador, etc), where the member benefits (another member is welcoming them to the community, their questions get answered, and they feel “listened to”), and where you benefit.

Consider badges and labels to help identify these members, or even a private forum area where they have exclusive access to discuss the site and issues with your community manager.


Patrick o’Keefe: I always encourage veteran members to set the example for other members to follow. There have been numerous cases where I took a member aside and told them that their actions recently were disappointing and that, at this stage, we expected them to be a good example for members to follow – not a bad one.

Experienced members become experienced by gaining knowledge and contributing. They do this of their own free will. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be experienced members. So, many have the natural disposition of helping people and you don’t really need to encourage them, just let them be comfortable and make sure that they feel that their contributions are appreciated, through public and private appreciation.

My community staff (moderators and guides) is all volunteers. They have guidelines for their responsibilities and part of that is being helpful to members they encounter. The people on my team are all great people – they’ve made it through my screening process and that isn’t easy. So, at that point, they naturally help people and set the example that members can follow.

Alison Michalk: We have no formal procedure in place but our moderation team make a point of thanking members (usually publicly, but sometimes privately) who answer questions, offer support and so on. Our Mods will also often 'call out' a member to help. For example, ‘Sarah66’ might be able to help due to her understanding of this issue.

This approach encourages self-sufficiency among the community and acknowledges that as a community we have a wealth of shared knowledge, not a two directional relationship between 'us' and 'them'.

Blaise Grimes-Viort: We try and provide various tools and programmes, either via reputation or thanking tools hooked up to competitive ladders, or a Host programme backed up by visual badges.

Our thanks go to the community managers that we spoke to and who took the time to share their experiences with us:

Leah Williams, Community and Social Media Manager at Breast Cancer Care; Patrick O’Keefe, owner of iFroggy Network and author of "Managing Online Forums"; Alison Michalk, Director of Quiip and ex-community manager for Essential Baby at Fairfax Digital Australia; Blaise Grimes-Viort, Head of Communities and Social Media at National Magazine Company and Hearst Digital and Vanessa DiMauro, CEO of LeaderNetworks.

Look out for Part 5) in this series: How do you keep members motivated (for example in a weight loss site)?


See also our earlier posts in this series:
Part 1) How do you engage with a community, as opposed to just informing a community?
Part 2) What is the value of that community once someone has reached their goal?
Part 3) How do you make an information-based site relevant to newbies as well as to those who’ve been using the site for a long time?

Read more...

The Giddy Social Whirl: Facebook Love

Kate Williams ponders the world of social media, and today wonders... What is it with us and Facebook?


Ach, my dears, sit down: there’s something I have to tell you. I’m tired of living a lie, and you deserve the truth. The fact is - I can barely speak it – I don’t get Facebook. I don’t GET Facebook!

There, I said it. It’s out.

I don’t know what the problem is. Twitter – well, Twitter sets my heart a-flutter. My eyes sparkle, my complexion blooms. But Facebook? It’s like I’m dead inside.

I’ve tried, Lord knows. Every day I flick listlessly through my feed, going through the motions in the hope that today will be the day that I finally feel the spark. I’ve heard that you just have to really, really relax and then suddenly it clicks - but to be honest, I do it now from a sense of duty, with no real hope of the scream of social joy that sets a girl’s soul on fire. It’s just so.. static. There’s none of the back and forth of Twitter, none of the reciprocity – it just lies there, expecting you to do all the work.

And there’s something else. As an interface, it’s a bit needy, you know? With Twitter and its clients, the medium is just the medium. You could be doing it anywhere! But with Facebook, the medium is the message: Look at me, Facebooking! For something which exists in the ether, it’s far too tangible for me, and I confess this puts Facebooking on a par with scrapbooking in my, erm, book.

I can imagine what you’re thinking. Jeez, Earl. This is not the usual urbane tittle-tattle which keeps us coming back week after week, like out-of-town moths to a gorgeous metropolitan flame. It’s like she has an agenda here.  I’m so sorry, really I am. I’ve kept my feelings hidden till now, because I pride myself on the Geistiness of my Zeit. For many years now, Facebook has been the toast of the town, and to be thus at odds with the spirit of the age - well, it was more than my shallow little heart could bear.

But now it seems like I might not, after all, have been as disastrously out of step as I’d feared. Though Facebook stats are, by any measure, stratospheric, it seems you’re not all enjoying such an entirely healthy and fulfilling Facebook relationship as I’d thought.

Last week Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s velvet-cheeked CEO, announced that the global social megalith now has 500 million active users. Combine this with the faint but discernible outline of a 2011 IPO valued at $35bn to $40bn - and it was something of a triumphant week for The Zuckster and his team.

Which makes it all the more striking that this was also the week in which the American Customer Satisfaction Index ranked Facebook as one of the US’s least beloved companies. In the hierarchy of happiness, Facebook languishes near the very bottom of our love list - just a smidge above the Inland Revenue Service’s tax e-filing scheme.

Lets consider that for a moment: we love Facebook so much that we have increased its user base by an astonishing 25% in under six months - but at the same time so little that it ranks alongside the act of paying tax. 500 million users… as pleasurable as paying taxes. I’d say that these two facts, taken in conjunction, indicate that we're a little conflicted in matters Facebook, wouldn’t you?

Now some of this disaffection can doubtless be put down to the various privacy debacles which The Book likes to wade into every three or four days. Others can be ascribed to the unannounced fixing-things-that-ain’t-bleedin’-broke thing that Facebook is so fond of, and which this week saw some users unable to display their news feed chronologically. All of these are fixable, and almost certainly temporary. Lord knows, Facebook is in no danger or losing its ‘king of the platforms’ crown anytime soon – neither for users, nor the brands that want to reach them.

But the truth is that, while I am conscious that my feelings put me in a minority demographic, we might have to admit that Facebook sometimes struggles a little to bear the weight of our social expectations. And as if to demonstrate this fact, this week saw the release of the thrilling trailer for the upcoming film The Social Network, which is loosely based on the birth of Facebook.

Impressively - and despite the resolutely pedestrian nature of its raw material - the filmmakers have contrived to make the development of Facebook seem hotter, by several hundred degrees, than the final 4 minutes of 24. In fact, they’ve made Mark Zuckerberg seem a bit like the prequel to Jack Bauer, if only people could be prequels.

Have a quick look at the trailer, and then compare it to this video of the real Mark Zuckerberg, in which he demonstrates his mastery of the autocue at the launch of Facebook Stories (a slightly saccharine confection, designed to highlight the ways in which the network has been a Force For Good in the world).

You back? Boy, that is some reality gap, huh?

Now it’s true that my general outlook is formed of a grim admixture of thwarted hopes, bitter umbrage and bilious envy. Also that I am British, and therefore legally obliged to cut down any tall poppy in my path with a sharp aphorism. But despite this, I think it’s fair to propose that Mark Zuckerberg is really not Master of The Universe material. For one thing (I’m whispering now) he comes across as a bit of a prig.

The film-makers, though, have clocked the popular cultural saw which holds that this is the Age of the Geek. The idea that, after many years of having the sand of hipness kicked in his face, a chap like Mark Zuckerberg can now bestride our culture like a giant amongst men. And we’ve invested such a big chunk of our social media hopes in his platform that we’re now pretty keen to believe that its creator is a cultural colossus.

You know, maybe we just need to take a breath here. We’re tired of the old heroes, for sure - ain’t nobody going to be making a film about Wall Street Alphas any time soon. We want a new and improved model – and here comes The Social Network to tell us that, hey, maybe Mark Zuckerberg could be The One! But in our heart of hearts, don’t we know that we’re kidding ourselves? This one is never going to make it to the aisle. Try as we might, we can’t make him into a hero for our times - just like 500 million users, wildly impressive though that number is, can’t quite make Facebook into the social network to set my heart aflame.


A bientôt, mes amis!

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Facebook's ClickCEOP app: such welcome news

On 12th July, Facebook and CEOP announced that they had finally reached a compromise, and the ClickCEOP app was released, along with a new ClickCEOP Page on Facebook which, when "liked" by users, aims to help raise the profile of online safety. The page will look at topics that teenagers care about, such as celebrities, music and exams, and will link these subjects to questions about online safety. The ClickCEOP Page yesterday held its first 'surgery': a one hour live chat session attracting over 100 postings from parents and others concerned about child safety issues.

To make users aware of the existence of the new button, which they will have to consciously add to their profiles,  Facebook will be running an online awareness campaign targeting members. The campaign will include an automatic advert-message appearing on every homepage of users aged between 13 to 18 inviting them to add the application.  When installed, the app adds itself as a tab to your profile.

Although only time will tell how effectively it is being used, it seems to be an excellent gateway to any of the problems which might be facing (particularly young) online users.  The opening page takes you through to a portal offering help on cyberbullying, hacking, viruses, mobile problems and harmful content, with links thru to Beatbullying's Cyber Mentors, Childline, mobile providers, the IWF, NSPCC, GetNetWise and of course CEOP itself.

Users are reminded at each step what is, and is not, appropriate to report to each of the authorities, and that if they have a problem with their Facebook account, they should go instead to the Facebook Report Page.

During the great debate between Facebook and CEOP, we expressed some concern over whether a 'panic button' displayed on each page would be a good idea, chiefly because we felt that users woud misreport content to CEOP and so CEOP would be drowning in issues it cannot directly act on and potentially missing time-crucial grooming complaints.

This, however, seems to be a really good solution, and we hope that the app gets out to all young people, through Facebook, educational programmes, youth media and peer-to-peer 'sharing'.   Let's hope it's given the light of publicity it deserves.

P.S.  Have you turned your phone settings to 'only me' yet? Just saying ...

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Roundtable on Communities of Purpose (3) - Making it Relevant

We recently wrote a white paper on the issues brands face when managing a ‘community of purpose’: an online community of people with a common, clear, defined goal. In researching that paper, we had some invaluable input from some of the best community managers working in this area. Their insight was so interesting that we hosted a ‘virtual’ round table discussion, to address some of the very specific issues that arise in managing a community of purpose. Each of the community managers we spoke to addressed a specific issue as it related to their own experience.

eModeration: How do you make an information-based site relevant to newbies as well as to those who’ve been using the site for a long time? Can you, for example, section the community by experience to keep it relevant to everyone?

Ashley Cooksley: A newbie joining any community will have needs that a different to those more experienced and long-term members. Generally, they will need a bit more hand-holding so they learn their way around. Having specific areas of the community dedicated to newcomers can be beneficial since it gives them a “safe place” to ask questions and receive guidance. It’s also a good idea to have a community manager and/or experienced members in those community areas acting as “hosts” to help guide and answer the newcomers.

However, specifically for an information-based site, it’s important that the community can grow and new discussions and features are continuously added to please the more experienced and long-term members. Often times these developments will come directly from the community based on a need they have expressed, or from one that your community manager has identified.

Leah Williams: We have sections on the forum, corresponding to different experiences or issues, but they are all visible to everyone.

We do sometimes have to nudge people into moving into a different section – for example, a long-running thread in the ‘newly diagnosed’ section called ‘newly diagnosed – May’ can become particularly confusing for new people, especially when it comes round to May again, so we will suggest they start a new thread or that we move it for them.

We are looking into the possibility of making the experience more customisable. So, for example, people could sign up to follow certain sections or threads and the latest posts in those sections would show up when they sign in. It’s a very sensitive issue though, as some people, when they are first diagnosed with primary breast cancer, feel very strongly that they do not want to see the sections about secondary breast cancer, or ‘in memory’ threads about forum members who have died. On the other hand, some people with secondary breast cancer feel equally strongly that they don’t want their experiences to be hidden away, that it is important that people understand that what they’re going through is part of the reality of having breast cancer too.

Patrick o’Keefe: Sometimes, it’s better to create a natural organization around the topic and the resources available and then let members participate at will. The new people can benefit from the veterans, the veterans can benefit from the new people and both groups can pick and choose where they want to contribute.

On one of my communities, aimed at the Photoshop software, for a while we had a forum called the ‘Beginner’s Section’ and then we had a ‘General Photoshop Discussion’ forum. What we found, over time, was that it was difficult to apply a standard of ‘beginner’. On one hand, people feel less embarrassed that what they are asking may be a newbie question. On the other hand, it had overlap with other forums and degraded our overall organization.

In the end, we opted for new forums based on the type of question being asked and that works best for us. But, that just brings it back to every situation being different. On a community about quitting smoking, maybe it makes sense to have forums for ‘Thinking About Quitting’, ‘Trying to Quit’ and ‘I’ve Quit!’ In other words, divide them into: people who have not quit, but are looking for information; people who are trying to quit and are in the middle of that process, dealing with the challenges and the struggle; and then a third group that has successfully quit, talking about how they cope with cravings and what their life is like now. This would include success stories.

Alison Michalk: Over a decade our forums have been split further and further to ensure there are relevant areas for the breadth of needs. This approach has also assisted with huge membership growth as members still feel part of a tight-knit community through the smaller forums they participate in.

How we've scaled the subject of conception is an example of this: Thinking about trying to conceive (TTTC); Trying to conceive (TTC); long-term trying to conceived (LT TTC); assisted conception (further broken down by those using AC for the first child or subsequent children); donor support etc.

We have over 150 forums but it is worth noting we've only split these when we've felt it was beneficial to both the community and the moderation workload. In some cases having multiple forums can reduce the workload by removing a difficult element. For example those experiencing long-term infertility were often not sensitive to the plight of members new to the issue. This created tension and a sometimes unpleasant user experience. By creating an additional long-term forum it acknowledged those members experience and gave them a separate space. Those who were willing to help new members could choose whether or not they participated in the general trying to conceive forum.

Our thanks go to the community managers that we spoke to and who took the time to share their experiences with us:

Leah Williams, Community and Social Media Manager at Breast Cancer Care; Patrick O’Keefe, owner of iFroggy Network and author of "Managing Online Forums"; Alison Michalk, Director of Quiip and ex-community manager for Essential Baby at Fairfax Digital Australia; Blaise Grimes-Viort, Head of Communities and Social Media at National Magazine Company and Hearst Digital and Vanessa DiMauro, CEO of LeaderNetworks.

See also our earlier posts in this series:
Part 1) How do you engage with a community, as opposed to just informing a community?
Part 2) What is the value of that community once someone has reached their goal?

... and look out for Part 4 :-)

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'How to Avoid a Social Media Disaster' by eModeration, Yomego and Carrot Communications

On 14th July 2010, eModeration, Yomego and Carrot Communications invited around forty brands and agencies involved in social media to an exclusive workshop on 'How to Avoid a Social Media Crisis'. The seminar was held in Churchill's Secret Cabinet War Rooms in London SW1: an underground bunker whose very existence was a secret during World War II. Then, what went on in the bunker stayed in the bunker ...

But not now.

We're going to share our advice from the workshop: how to prepare for a crisis (create your virtual War Room), spot an issue before it becomes a crisis (social media montoring), how to communicate through a crisis (PR and community management), and how to judge whether your actions have been effective (back to monitoring again).

Many thanks to all who attended and we hope it provided valuable insight and food for thought.  Please do feel free to comment beneath and ask us any questions you may have following the seminar.

Here is a link to the white paper from the seminar available to download free, as are eModeration's other white papers. You can find out all about Yomego's social reputation monitoring service here.

And for those who couldn't attend, here's the presentation:

How To Avoid A Social Media Disaster (eModeration, Carrot Communications And Yomego)

View more presentations from eModeration.

And finally, here's a great 'Social Media Survival Guide' poster for you, full of handy tips and courtesy of Yomego's clever designers.  We suggest you keep it handy with your gasmask ;-)

Please get in touch with us if you'd like any more information.  

Tamara Littleton (eModeration), Steve Richards (Yomego) and  Richard Houghton and Kate Hartley (Carrot Communications)

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