Communities and Forums

Transcript

1. Communities and Forums • Benefits and challenges of forums • Examples of successful forums • Forum technology solutions • Other ways to facilitate online community Priscilla Walkington February 2012
2. What is an online community? “An online community is a virtual community that exists online and whose members enable its existence through taking part in membership ritual. An online community can take the form of an information system where anyone can post content, such as a Bulletin board system or one where only a restricted number of people can initiate posts, such as Weblogs. Online communities have also become a supplemental form of communication between people who know each other primarily in real life. Many means are used in social software separately or in combination, including text-based chat rooms and forums that use voice, video text or avatars. Significant socio- technical change may have resulted from the proliferation of such Internet- based social networks.” (Wikipedia)
3. 4 main categories of online communities Communities of Transaction Amazon, Ebay… Communities of Interest Sharing knowledge about hobbies / professions. Communities of Fantasy Virtual reality, games Communities of Relationship Online dating / chat rooms "The real value of on-line communities," written by A Armstrong and J Hagel of the Harvard Business Review
4. Online forums “An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages.” (Wikipedia) An internet forum is defined and distinguished from other online community platforms by the following characteristics: • Written messages are archived at least temporarily (unlike a chat room). • It has a hierarchical structure of categories with sub forums containing discussion threads. • Any member of the forum can begin a new discussion thread. Any member of the forum can post a comment on a thread. (Unlike a blog, where only the author may write a new post, to which readers may respond by posting comments.) • The administrator of the forum may moderate users’ comments and may control which areas and functions users may access without being a member.
5. Categories of online forum • Educational • Professional interests • Gaming • Leisure, sport and hobby interests • Support (eg, health, life issues, etc.) • Technical support • Internal (integrated as part of a large organisation’s intranet) • Local / political (eg, a town / village / city / county residents’ forum)
6. Successful forums Mumsnet Well defined audience Clear organisation of content Well publicised Respected and well known content contributors
7. Successful forums Times Educational Supplement forum: Huge volume of content Authoritative contributors acting as advisors and mentors Content organised into logical categories, easy to search Clean design using white space and colour to define content
8. Successful forums Adobe Enables users to share expertise and find solutions quickly Input from Adobe personnel Promotes Adobe products, tutorials Users can post screenshots to illustrate comments Linked with facebook and twitter
9. Successful forums Minecraft Very niche subject and audience (ie, geeky) Set up at a time when Minecraft has gone over the tipping point Visually more appealing and well branded than many forums Clear statement of forum rules
10. Successful forums Volkswagen Camper forum: Creates an online community for VW Camper van owners Encourages brand loyalty Fulfils genuine user needs Provides customer service and support economically and efficiently Linked to the VW website – credible and trustworthy
11. Running an online forum Benefits • Be focussed on the purpose and the audience • Know your competitors - USP • Maximising revenue • Monitoring and moderating user-generated content • Outsourcing moderation • Deciding on features, eg private messaging, avatars, rating… • Creating organisational structure • Design and usability • Setting and enforcing guidelines and rules • Dealing with rogue users, spammers, etc. Challenges • Revenue from membership or advertising • PR, recognition and reputation • Drives more traffic to your website, possibly generating sales of product or service • Improves SEO • Creates a community of support • Can provide a very economical and efficient customer support service • Personal / professional interest and development
12. 3 main phases of establishing an online forum Start up Encourage early interaction Become a self-sustaining environment • Choose software • Decisions about design and functions • Establish user guidelines • Good quality initial content – writers • Lead discussions • Link in to relevant sites and social media • Monitoring • Protection from spam and rogue users • Keep up frequency of new content
13. Structure and organisation A flat structure allows users to reply only to an original thread post rather than replying to others’ posts under the original thread. This structure helps prevent confusion. Community – Category – Forum – Thread – Post/Message.
14. Structure and organisation A threaded structure allows users to post comments in response to others’ posts under the original thread.
15. Staffing a large forum • An example of some of the roles involved in running a large forum:
16. Ways to generate revue or cover cost of a forum • Advertising • Product or service sales • Affiliate programs • Subscription / membership • Donations
17. What makes a good forum manager? • Attention to detail • Strong communication skills • A mind for policy. • Good reading skills, enabling good moderation. • Being kind, fair and consistent. • Organizational skills. • Leadership capabilities are important. • Technical savvy. • The ability to participate in the community as well as managing it. • Passion for the community. • Patience and being able to laugh things off. • Comfortable with being accessible to people by email or private message. • Able to make difficult decisions. See http://www.managingcommunities.com/2011/12/08/great-community-manager- traits/#more-2726
18. Legal rights - example • SitePoint Pty. Ltd. and its assigned agents reserve the right to remove a post that does not relate to the topic being discussed in the forum. In addition, SitePoint reserves the right to organize discussion forums in order to best serve the majority of our members. For example, narrow- interest or minimal activity topics may, at SitePoint's discretion, be relocated to a more appropriate discussion forum, or deleted entirely. • SitePoint Pty. Ltd. or its assigned agents also reserves the right to prohibit or delete discussions that are thought to violate applicable law or that may be harmful to other members, the sites that comprise SitePoint, or the rights of SitePoint Pty. Ltd. or others. That said, SitePoint does not have the practical ability to restrict conduct or communications that might violate these Guidelines or the Terms of Service prior to transmission on AOL or the Web, nor can we guarantee prompt removal of offending discussion forum posts. • We also reserve the right to remove your membership from the SitePoint Forums should you violate the Community Guidelines.
19. Technology Solutions • Hand code it! See http://phpeasystep.com/phptu/12.html Aaaaaarghhhh. • Free forum publishing services like Forumotion.com provide hosting and templates with a range of ‘skins’ that enable you to set up a forum instantly. Example forum: (note the domain name contains forumotion.net.) • More sophisticated forum publishing software like vBulletin (www.websitearchitecture.co.uk/forum and http://www.sitepoint.com/forums ) offer packages ranging from $199 to $285, providing widgets and tools, member blog facilities, SEO-effective URL, security and endless other tools. • Other similar software includes phpBB, InvisionPower, Simple Machines and XenForo, which charge similar prices. (Note: Branding Removal - $250*This allows you to remove the visible XenForo copyright notice from all pages.)
20. Selecting forum design software See http://www.forum-software.org/ for helpful comparisons and reviews.
21. Some features of a good forum creation platform: • Users can signup via Facebook / Twitter, etc. and sync their profiles with social media profiles. • Supports RSS feeds – helpful for retaining users. • Reputation points and badges can be earned by users contributing good content. • Users can add each other as friends to facilitate speedy private discussion and be highlighted in each others' profiles. • Flexible Moderator Control Panel allowing different levels of tracking and moderation, eg moderate specific users’ comments. • Visual Skin Editor or more in-depth template editors to allow you control over aesthetic design. • Good range of security measures at all levels and recognition of Internet Security authorities like COPRA.
22. Participating and link building on existing online forums • Direct advertising on forums is usually not allowed and can result in banning • It is best to become a regular and genuine contributor before marketing your business or website on a forum • You can build links on forums through your signature file • Good to post comments generating discussion about products or services rather than directly promoting them