The ten commandments of managing online communities
At FreshNetworks we know that good community management is critical to the growth and success of any online community. That’s why this week’s Required Reading looks at some of the principles of community management.
The presentation below comes from Julius Solaris and details ten ‘commandments’ of managing online communities: from consolidating activities to having an offline presence for your online community. This is a great set of activities that I think help to define what a community manager does and what community management is. It is much more than just moderation of forums, also including strategic elements, such as considering how you monitise a community, or how you work with the different groups to grow and shape the conversations and the benefits all parties are getting.
For us, however, the most important part of community management is really to appreciate that as a community manager you can never control a community. You have to be part of it and work with people as an equal rather than trying to establish yourself as superior. These ‘commandments’ are a great starting point for shaping this kind of role and for building successful community management.
Subscribe to updates from the FreshNetworks Blog
Some more reading
- Your online community should work offline as well (freshnetworks.com)
- Communities vs network of practice (egrommet.net)
- Does Twitter Replace Face-to-Face? (converstations.com)
For social media agency support get in touch or follow us on Twitter.
Julius:
Thanks very much for the mention.
I completely agree with the fact that you have to mix with your community and the most active member within it.
That helped me a lot in shaping my everyday work.
Juliud
7 March 2009, 5:24 pmAri Herzog:
It’s hilarious that the nature of this blog post is contrary to the #1 rule. I mean, a blog?
Great list!
8 March 2009, 11:15 pmZoo chimp shows people aren’t the only planners (AP) — But As For Me:
[...] FreshNetworks Blog » Blog Archive » The ten commandments of … [...]
9 March 2009, 6:48 pmInteressante bookmarks week 11 | Bijgespijkerd:
[...] The ten commandments of managing online communities [...]
13 March 2009, 10:41 pmOur new debunking community management series | FreshNetworks Blog:
[...] The ten commandments of managing online communities [...]
14 May 2009, 11:31 am1. Introduction to community management | FreshNetworks Blog:
[...] We’re several ‘generations’ in now, with some of the newest community managers barely old enough to remember a world without mass access to the internet. But the core skills are essentially unchanged, see: The ten commandments of managing online communities. [...]
15 May 2009, 11:15 pm