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, recently appointed Head of Social Media and engagement at
WebJam, 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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