Too many community managers see cliques as a bad thing (Tommy tried to stamp them out completely). Doing this can bring a community to its knees and strip it of its personality.

Cliques are a good thing for an online community. When members form smaller groups, it makes a community stronger. By trying to stamp them out and making all your members ‘equal’, you’re crushing your community’s spirit.

Cliques make online communities exciting and vibrant. Arguments, debates and rivalry are the fuel that keep communities alive and keep them interesting.

Yes, cliques can make a community seem intimidating to new members – but that’s a good thing. The harder it is to join your community and integrate within the existing membership base, the more committed and dedicated to your community that new member will be.

Instead of worrying about cliques, encourage them.

Questions are vital. Asking questions keeps community discussions alive. Asking questions keeps a community manager in touch with the community. You should never stop asking questions – especially when you don’t know the answer.

Recently, a member of Female Forum complained about some of the jokes that were being posted in the ‘Just for Fun’ section of the forums. The jokes in particular were ones that poked fun of specific nationalities and political systems. As jokes go, I didn’t find them offensive – but I could see how they may be to some.

The problem with humor is so much of it is based on issues that, if spoken about seriously, would be offensive to one or more parties. I recognize this fact, but I didn’t want Female Forum to become a place where jokes could no longer be posted, or members wouldn’t want to post jokes for fear of upsetting members or getting their content removed. Furthermore, I didn’t want to add stipulations for the kind of jokes we would or would not allow in the community within the community guidelines.

As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t like seeing long community guidelines – especially when they’re hidden within terms and conditions, disclaimers or other legal mumbo-jumbo. First, it’s impossible to cover every single potential ‘infraction’ or word you don’t want to see in the community. Second, nobody will read the guidelines if they’re too long or too hard to find.

So, I reached out to the member that was reporting the posts with the following message:

Hi

I’ve noticed that you have felt uncomfortable with a few of the jokes being posted to the forums of late (I know you’ve hit the ‘report’ button on a couple of them).

To be honest, I’m not sure how to proceed – normally I immediately delete all posts that are reported, but I am not sure how far to take this when it comes to jokes and other forms of humor.

Do you think we should be censoring or disallowing certain types of jokes? I’d appreciate hearing your opinion.

- Martin

Instead of making a decision as one person without consultation, I asked the member in question what her thoughts were. We had a discussion about the issue, and came up with the compromise of adding a ‘Sticky’ post in the ‘Just for Fun’ forum with the following copy:

The Just for Fun forum is a place for you to share jokes and other humorous stories or anecdotes. When it comes to humor, everyone is different – what one person may find funny, another may find offensive. Therefore, please think carefully before sharing them in this forum.

We won’t be banning or chastising people who post jokes that may be seen as offensive but we may remove these type of posts (at our own discretion).

As a general guideline, consider this before posting your joke or story:

If you were the individual/group being poked fun at would you still find the joke funny?

Generally speaking, it may be a good idea to avoid posting jokes that are political in nature. It’s also worth reminding yourself that we have members from all over the world here at Female Forum, so jokes that make fun of particular nationalities or ethnic groups may not go down too well.

We don’t want to stop people sharing jokes – humor and laughter help to bring people together, and that’s what Female Forum is all about. All we ask is that you think twice before posting some of the more potentially offensive or risque jokes.

Thank you!

In the end, I was satisfied, the member who complained was satisfied and we didn’t have to complicate the existing community guidelines. I was initially unsure how to proceed, but by asking questions, a solution was found.

A satisfactory conclusion, then – all because a community manager reached out and asked for input from a member, rather than acting in an arbitrary manner.

Remember – you don’t have all the answers (not all of the time, at least). Recognizing this will make you a better community manager.

A great community manager can build a great online community. That being said, a community shouldn’t be reliant on one person for its success. Yes, it needs a leader – but it shouldn’t depend on that leader for its daily survival.

Here’s a quick and easy way you can determine just how independent your community is – find your community’s total post count, and figure out how many of those posts were made by you.

When you’re building a new community from scratch, it will be largely reliant on its manager – you need to encourage the development of existing conversations and get new ones started. In the early days, it’s likely that you’ll contribute up to around 75% of the community’s content (perhaps even more).

As the community develops, you want to get this percentage down.

• Insomnia Land is two years old. 22% of forum posts were written by me
• Female Forum is three years old. 4% of forum posts were written by me
• Just Chat is twelve years old. 0.17% of forum posts were written by me

There’s an obvious pattern here – the older the community (and typically, the stronger it becomes), the less it relies on contributions from the community manager. As a community grows, more of your work as a community manager shifts ‘behind the scenes‘. That being said, it’s important to interpret these numbers correctly. Your aim isn’t to get your contribution percentage as low as possible.

Insomnia Land is two years old, but it’s clear that it still relies on my contributions to keep it going. This community is one of the most challenging I have ever built, yet I am seeing a clear trend as the community ages – I see more members posting as the days and week go by, so I know the community is on the right track.

Female Forum is three years old and it’s clear that this is a community that is now self-sustaining. That being said, it’s important that I remain involved and visible as the community manager.

Just Chat is a strong, well-developed community with its own culture and dedicated members. That being said, the fact that only 0.17% of forum posts were written by me suggests that I need to be more visible in the community.

It’s impossible (and perhaps, irresponsible) for me to tell you what percentage of contributions should be made by you based on the age of your community. Run the numbers yourself and see if you’re happy with what they say.

Movie-Vault does a great job at highlighting its weaknesses. Take a look at the homepage; as of Wednesday January 11th, in the left column we see 67 RSS readers and 55 Twitter followers. In the articles section, we are repeatedly reminded that nobody is commenting on the articles -there are four articles all with a large button proclaiming ’0 Comments’ (apart from one article lucky enough to attract the attention of a spammer). Furthermore, on every article we have the opportunity to be the first to ‘Like’ the content on Facebook.

Not all online communities have the audience or level of interaction to support the social proof tools we commonly see online today. Unfortunately, because they’re so prevalent, the temptation to integrate them into our own websites or online communities can often be irresistible. It’s worth thinking this through for a bit first, though.

• Why draw attention to the fact nobody comments on your content?
• Why draw attention to the fact your audience is (or appears to be) small?
• Why give another website (such as Facebook or Twitter) space on your site to draw attention to the fact nobody is engaged with your content?

Move-Vault has drawn attention to the following weaknesses:

• Nobody comments on their content
• They have a small readership
• There is no active community management
• The site attracts spammers (and potentially, scammers)

Get rid of the social proof tools that are only highlighting your community’s weaknesses. If you really need them (they can be great for cross-promotion and sharing) then remove the numbers if they’re only going to show a zero.

Social proof is all about numbers (and big ones at that unless you’re operating in a tight niche). Only use the tools if you have the numbers to play the game.

Woot does a great job with its online community.

Not only does the community content appear prominently on the homepage, the site highlights what it considers ‘quality posts’ – only posts it deems to be useful, interesting or otherwise valuable to the community make it to the homepage.

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Furthermore, when you delve into a product discussion thread, things look a little different. Before you even see the discussion thread, you see the quality posts.

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If you scroll down further, you get to the actual discussion thread. In a typical forum you’ll see a member’s username, title, avatar, location and post count. Woot does things differently. The post count is very different to what you’d expect. We only see ‘quality posts’ tallied under the username. Only when you hover over the shapes under each username do you see more of the ‘traditional’ statistics.

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Woot does a great job at giving its community the respect it deserves. They’re proving how much value they place in their community by giving it pride of place on the homepage. They’re also ensuring they recognize quality over quantity – a community culture that should always be encouraged, but is still relatively rare.

Is your community recognizing (and rewarding) quality or quantity? The former is better than the latter.

UPDATE – December 7, 2011

Yesterday, Woot had a 2012 calendar for sale. Each month features a member of the Woot community and brings attention to significant dates in Woot history. What a fantastic way of recognizing community members and building a community history and culture by drawing attention to milestones. This kind of recognition also gives other members motivation to ‘up their game’ for a chance to be featured in the calendar for 2013.

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Woot is a leading example of community building in an ecommerce environment done right.

It’s impossible to be a great community manager if the community you manage doesn’t have a mission statement. Without a mission statement, how do you know what kind of culture you’re trying to develop? How do you know what kind of content should be encouraged? How do you know what kind of members you want to attract?

A mission statement is critical if you want to build a successful online community. The mission statement will influence your community’s rules and guidelines. It will determine how you grow and it will remind you (and your members) of the community’s purpose.

So, how do you come up with a mission statement? I like to come up with the mission statement myself when building a community from scratch. As the community grows, I’ll revisit it and see if it needs to be adjusted (normally, it will).

At this stage you can also invite members to band together to write the mission statement themselves.

However you do it, just make sure your community has one.

One of the most important traits of a good community manager is patience. You need to be patient with members, you need to be patient when encouraging relationship building and you need to be patient waiting for conversations to develop.

Unfortunately, patience is rarely seen on the list of desirable skills for a community manager (normally because employers want quick results). Consequently, I come across a large number of online communities where the community manager is effectively running the show.

As a community manager, you shouldn’t be at the top of the ‘Top Posters’ list. You shouldn’t be the one starting all the conversations. You shouldn’t be the first (or only) responder to every conversation. A good community manager is more involved ‘behind the scenes’ – they’ll alert members to relevant discussions and encourage members to get involved instead.

If you’re the loudest voice in your online community, vow to make a change (yes, you can do this even if your community is small). Instead of responding immediately to new discussions, reach out to other members and invite them to respond instead. If you think of a good idea for a new discussion topic, nominate another member to share their thoughts on the subject and get the conversation started.

Don’t be the loudest voice in your online community. Work hard to make sure you don’t become your community’s most important member. Patience and being able to wait are powerful (and rare) skills.

The mindless criminality in England has now spread from London to Manchester, Salford, Liverpool, Nottingham and Birmingham. Unrest is taking place exclusively (according to news reports) in the cities. Where are the reports of small coastal communities being ransacked? Where are the reports of cars in rural villages being set on fire?

The fact is, disorder is far more likely to take place in huge communities – places that afford anonymity. If you misbehave in a community where most people are strangers, you can’t be ostracized. There is no perceived social stigma attached to your actions since you don’t know the people who disapprove of what you’re doing. Why should you care what strangers think?

This is one reason why keeping your online community small is a good idea. If you can’t resist the temptation to grow, make sure you have a robust strategy for growth. A small community where everyone knows each other is always going to be a far more positive environment than a large community full of strangers.

If you manage a large community, work hard to bring members closer together. Divide the community up into smaller groups to maximize the number of relationships that are formed.

Relationships are the key to your community’s survival.

Home Brew Talk is a great online community for those who enjoy brewing their own beer. Unfortunately they’re wasting time when they wish their members a happy birthday. Here’s the email they send:

Hello,

We at Home Brew Forums would like to wish you a happy birthday today!

There’s nothing unique or personal there – all they’re doing is reminding the recipient that it’s their birthday. This email won’t make a member feel special. In fact, it’ll probably been seen as more of an annoyance than anything else.

When your community is small, you should be sending personalized birthday messages. As it grows, this can become more difficult, but not impossible. Remember, you don’t need to do all the work yourself.

Here’s a better email:

James

I just wanted to wish you all the best on your 43rd birthday! I hope you managed to find the time to brew that Whiskey Barrel Porter that’s been on your ‘to do’ list for so long! It would be great if you could post a review when it’s finally ready to drink!

Thanks for being a member of Home Brew Talk!

[Your Name]
Community Manager

Oh, and make sure the email comes from a real email address.

Want to go even further? To make a member feel extra special, send something in the mail (keep it simple; a card or a hand scrawled note is perfect).

If this all sounds like too much effort, here’s a simple action you can take. Stop sending automated birthday messages. You’re not fooling anyone. You’re just wasting time (and opportunity).

Add this to your community manager ‘to do’ list – bring back one inactive member every single day. Instead of trying to attract new members, focus on getting existing members to return and contribute.

A few ways you can do this:

• Find a discussion you think they’ll find interesting and tell them about it.
• Find a discussion about a subject they’re an expert in and encourage them to share their wisdom.
• Find other members they formed friendships with and get those members to drop your AWOL member a line.

You can even bring the entire community in on this. Let’s say a particularly prominent member disappears – make it a community goal for that member to be lured back. Get other members to compete to see who can bring back the most members – special prominence goes to the member who can bring back the really valuable members who have drifted away.

Even if you can’t bring every member back, you’re likely to end up with some valuable feedback.