john-norris.net

At first glance having strong community leaders might seem like a good way to get people to participate.  However, T Zhou finds* that far stronger determinates are  when an individual feels they belong to a group and that it shares their values.

For community managers:

• Heighten the sense of belonging to a group, perhaps with events or other shared activities.
• Be sure what the group is all about, its values, is well known.
• Less effort can be directed at getting people to participate via leaders.

Continue reading →

B Butler found* that large, active, groups were able to attract more members. However, they also lost more.  While more activity helped retain members, it was not as powerful as group size.

For a Community manager, my takeaways were:

• Spend your energy not in helping large groups communicate but breaking them down to smaller sizes.
• If you are looking to have a large churn of members, then you want to go big. A more long term membership would stay small.

Continue reading →

What sorts of posts elicit replies?

1. Not being a newcomer.
2. Post on topic.
3. Use first person, I, and convey what you are thinking and feeling.
4. Ask a question.
5. Use simple language.

Continue reading →