The art and craft of moderating discussion forums is an often overlooked skill. After an online community is built technically, the hard work begins of making it thrive with participation. But how do you encourage and support members? What are some of the best practice activities that a community manager can do to help a fledgling community grow? Success can often be found in a combination of factors – some sheer persistence and others in making the right moves online to create an environment where people are comfortable in taking the step to post a message, comment or review. We often forget what a big step it is for many people to make themselves visible in an online community. People will not spontaneously converse online any more comfortably than they will stand up before a large crowd and share their ideas.
Here are some suggested best practices for community moderators who are working to support their forums and social media campaigns to help bring life and engagement to their community from a book I co-authored in 1994.
Key areas covered include:
Engaging members in thinking
Engaging members in doing
How to get to know each other
Timing
Tone, and
Maintaining quality
Sometimes, the more things change, the more they stay the same! What are other best practices or guidelines for moderating that you find work? If you have any tips or suggestions share them so we can share and grow together….Thank you for reading Building Online Communities for Business by Leader Networks. We are a research and strategy consulting company that helps organizations succeed in social business and B2B online community building.
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