How to Build Online Communities

To be able to come up with a social network or online community there are
certain factors that one can keep in mind. The most important aspect of the
software has to be its ability to generate a two –way communication with the
uses of the networks and adapt to the required changes. The community members
now want to interact and communicate rather than being at the receiving end of
the information flow.

The first step is to choose fitting software for the community users depending
on the kind of community you are creating. There is a range of web applications
that allow present communities to interact and communicate. These include blogs,
wikis, forums, bulletin boards etc. Mostly these are very user friendly and
allow an easy way for them to online conversation developments. Many a times
they lack some advanced features like the facility to rate other user’s
comments.

Continuous improvements and moderation is important for an online community as
it plays a strong role in making sure that the community gets an opportunity to
flourish. This is very evident in the way continues success shown by communities
like Criagslist, eBay and Wikipedia. Plain and simple message boards, on the
other hand, are many-a-times are equated to glorified e-mail threads which most
of the times are very difficult to follow. A very good example of evolution of
the available online community tolls is Slashdot. It features a complicated
Karma system with facilities for users to rate comments in which they themselves
may or may not be involved. Sites like Kuro5hin allow user to vote for hiding
their own comments.

It is very important to protect your community from miscreants and thus a proper
care is important while editing the posts onto the community forums. Section 230
of the Communications Decency Act says: "No provider or user of an interactive
computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information
provided by another information content provider." Usually the publisher do not
take responsibility for message board postings. Your privacy policy should be
clear to communicate that though the anonymous postings are allowed as a right
to them, however the posting records may be submitted to the authorities in
extreme cases. It is very important for the publisher of the online community to
keep himself updated of the latest legal rulings

Knowing the people in an online community is another key aspect of building a
successful social network. As the community developer you need to know the kind
of people joining your community and the reason why they will contribute to the
community listings. Most of the times people want to contribute because they
gain status and build a reputation for themselves in a community, to build
connections with people with similar interests, to keep themselves informed and
keep their community members informed etc.

Continuous moderation of the community is a crucial factor that will steer any
online community towards its good management. The problem is that mostly the
moderation aspect boils down to one or two people and since a social network
requires constant attendance, it becomes increasingly impossible to babysit your
users and actively moderate it. There are various ideas that are being generated
to cater to this problem and one of them is using volunteer moderators who will
crop up from within the community.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Written by Lee Asher of
Eclipse Domain Services and Auction
Super Sites. Lee is also the developer of
MagniBar, a software tool that
everyone has a use for and 7 Dollar
Dazzlers where we pay All our affiliates 100% Commission on all their sales.