5 Questions to Ask When Tasked with Building an Online Community from Scratch
Tag, you’re it! One of your senior leaders has come to you and said, “We need an online community and we want YOU to manage it! Congrats!” At first, you’re probably like “wow this is awesome!” And then you’re probably thinking, “wait, what do I do next?” Because guess what? Not only do they want you to build an online community, they want you to have 2 events, turn around amazing metrics, explain it to the board, and bring in 1,000 new users all within a month’s time. And even though, for the purposes of this blog, that might sound a bit farfetched, there are new community managers being asked to do that very thing all the time because their senior leadership doesn’t fully understand how building and growing online communities from the ground up work. What’s worse, some don’t understand why they should have one. This creates an impossible situation for the community manager and if the community fails, it makes it appear as though the community manager wasn’t cut out for the job when, in fact, the expectations of those in charge were unrealistic.
To help set expectations and understand the purpose of the online community you are expected to build, here are 5 questions to ask before you dive right in.
Why?
Yep, why. This is an important question to ask. Just a bit ago I wrote about whether an online community is right for your association and what it might enable to move the needle and sometimes this isn’t always top of mind. Sometimes, senior leaders hear of other associations and organizations that have online communities that are making a huge impression on their members and increasing member retention at impressive rates. So, they need an online community too, obvi. But that’s not always the case.First and foremost, ask your senior leadership why they want to build an online community. If they can’t answer this question, do not be afraid to kindly ask them to get clear on why they are willing to move full steam ahead with building an online community. Arm them with as much research and information that you can that will help them make the best decision for the association, if it’s not something they already have. If they can answer the question of “why,” then it’s time to ask them “what?”
What are you expecting this community to do?
It seems like a no-brainer, but you would be surprised at how many executives want you to just go do without a clear understanding of what it is you’re supposed to be, um, go doing. From a 50,000-foot view, senior leaders understand what online communities can enable (to some degree) because they see it happening in other associations and they want those awesome things for their organization. But they may not have thought everything through in terms of the exact value the community is supposed to bring. Or if they have, they may not have communicated that to you in a way that enables you to take the appropriate action. I mean, let’s face it, not everyone speaks like an HBR article.If you’re asked to stand up and build an online community but you’re not exactly sure what the purpose of it is, ask. This will help you be very clear about how to go about building it, how to attract members, and how to measure success. It will also help your senior leaders get really clear on what their expectations are so that you’re both on the same page.
Where is the community going to gather?
Considering you’ve gotten past the first couple of questions, it’s time to determine where this online community is going to gather. Can any of your current systems enable online community? If not (and I’m thinking that you’ll lean towards not), what platform will you use? Are you going to build the community on social media or Slack or some other platform? Will you purchase a platform made specifically for community building? This is all information that will help inform what kind of metrics you’ll be able to track, what you’ll be able to do in terms of programming, how your members will be able to interact with each other and with your organization, and a bunch of other things that you will need to keep in mind. Make sure that you understand where you’re building community and understand whether the “where” makes sense.
A word of caution…
If your association is planning to build community on a social media platform, consider migrating it to an online community platform at some point in the future. While social media can be powerful in terms of reach, you’re at the mercy of that platform and should changes be made to algorithms, how they handle privacy, and what they allow group moderators to do, this will greatly impact how you manage that community. Maggie McGary has spent many years writing about this and other topics in her blog, if you want to check out the why behind not depending on platforms you don’t own for building online community.
How am I going to build this community?
This is less a question of skill and more a question of resources. Unfortunately, many community managers are a team of one. This means they moderate, measure, build, manage and anything else you can think of when it comes to running an online community. And just because it can be done doesn’t mean it should be done.Once you know the important information that you (hopefully) received by asking the first few questions, you’ll have more information about how you’re going to get it all done. You’ll need to think about reporting, moderation, and all of the usual things you think of when managing an online community, but there are also things to consider such as graphic design, running programming, minding the backend of the platform (considering you own it – see “Where is the community going to gather?”), ensuring the user experience is what members expect, and so on and so on. There’s no magic wand to wave that will ensure that you get ideal solutions to all of these dilemmas, but hopefully as the conversation evolves you’ll get some solid answers to help you prepare to move forward.
Who is this community meant to serve?
You can’t be everything to everyone, right? Right. It’s important to clarify who this online community is meant to serve. Is it for members only? If not, who will get access to what? Is it based on the membership model? Will there be a separate entry point, or will there be SSO integration? Is this a support community or is this more for collaboration and to facilitate greater connection to the organization? If you don’t know who you’re building the community for, steer the conversation back to “why”.
It can seem like a big task when building an online community from scratch. It’s not easy, but it doesn’t have to feel impossible when you’re armed with the right information and expectations are clear. Open the conversation and don’t be afraid to ask questions before you hit the ground running. You could spare yourself some valuable time and effort by clarifying a few things up front.
What other questions do you feel are important to ask when building an online community from scratch? Tell us in the comments below. We’d love to hear from you!