Tag Archives: follr communities

3 Key Ingredients Required To Build a Vibrant Fan Community

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Building a vibrant fan community takes a lot of great ingredients to make it happen. To see it grow, flourish and thrive is the result of many single initiatives.

For today, let’s review three of those recommended ingredients to build an amazing community.

If you consult those who have grown successful fan communities online they will give you many top ideas for building and engaging. Sharing the recommended elements for success in developing any community, no matter the focus, is our goal here at Follr Communities. To help our Community succeed and thrive.

It’s impossible to cover all of these recommended ingredients in a single post, over time we will touch on a few per post to reinforce some of the basics, often forgotten and far less glamorous ingredients to successful community building.

Time. It takes time, lots of time.
Nothing successful has ever appeared overnight, it only appears that it has to those of us on the outside. I have watched some of the top people in the social media spaces, many my friends and peers for many years, grow from new users fumbling about to Forbes top social media types, national media stars and authors in high demand to share their wisdom.

This takes many years and a large portion of that effort was the time dedicated and focused on community building. The time ingredient feeds into the second of today’s suggested ingredients.

Effort. Nothing worth doing is done without effort.
I have used the analogy before, a community is like a seed, if you don’t consistently nurture it, water it, feed it, prune it, and otherwise monitor it’s growth, you will not ever see lavish leaves or bloom of flowers.

The effort can’t be in one huge sweeping gesture, it must be dispersed over time.

Consistency is the final ingredient for today’s three.
Do it regularly, be predictable and dependable. Your community will come to rely upon this and then the habit of regularly returning to engage with the other members will be established.

Consistent effort over time (see how they tie together?) will lead to the result – a solid, engaged, dedicated and vibrant community. Making the community a priority and scheduling the time to be there, engage and nurture it is essential in the early stages. As the community begins to take shape and grow into it’s own self-sufficient organism, you will be able to pull back a bit, watching the natural leaders rise and help guide the evolution.

You will then have the opportunity to admire this vibrant and lively community, to reflect on the process, and when you are ready, set out to do it once again.

How to Set Expectations for Community Growth and Success

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Setting expectations helps to secure success in life and business. Online communities are no different.

By setting expectations you help to establish community guidelines and direction, giving focus to the purpose and mission of your community.

To help those building new communities we want to focus today on some of the simplest ways to help set expectations in a new community. These proven suggestions should help to grow engagement, build community interest and establish a solid foundation to grow from.

One of the easiest ways to set expectations is to provide guidance on using the community resources, whether posting questions or topics of discussion, setting standards for interaction and behaviors help to make a community a comfortable place for people to engage with one another.

Community Engagement comes from establishing positive community expectations.

Community Standards
Establish some basic community standards. Suggestions as to the tone of posts, responses and conversation being focused on positive contribution helps to encourage open and creative communication.

People will disagree, people will debate, but as long as the communities remembers to respect the views of others and the community the contribution of those involved will flow much more freely.

Post Forum Topics
Set some basic forums within the community for people to post in. Ideally include a general topic area, questions and answers, and an ideas section. The ideas section will be where your community can provide their ideas for new topics for forums, or even potential opportunities for community involvement or growth through outside connections.

Make It Predictable, Therefore Comfortable
Be certain to seed your community with conversations, questions and shared content. This will encourage others to do the same and help establish the value of the community engagement.

Part of that is establishing a regular posting schedule, a daily topic section or similar style areas to encourage the community to come back regularly and establish a “habit” or checking in.

With these few simple steps you will be on your way to growing an engaged and dynamic Follr Community. How are you helping to set expectations and encourage community interaction?