There are many reasons you might want to start an online community. You might want to further your brands reputation, make new friends, or solve a problem. If you have never created an online community before, it can be extremely complicated. There are quite a few things you absolutely need to have in place before beginning. But once you get them down, it is easy! Anyone can have a successful and welcoming community if you nurture it properly and prepare well before launch. "If I had known this information before now... the first three months of Desoladies would have been a lot smoother. Trust me, you don't want the extra headache when you could be focusing on delivering the unique value your community provides. " I have spent five months creating, managing, and moderating an online Discord community that quickly grew from 5 to 400 members. It is extremely rewarding! Here are ten steps to do it the right way: 10. Develop your idea I created Desoladies to solve my own problem- internalized misogyny. I disliked other women gamers, realized that was judgmental, and then found a way to create the change I needed in my life. The reason this community worked is because other people felt the same way. I got lucky. Having this project become this big and important was never my intention. If having a passionate and successful community is your goal, you need to come up with a fully fleshed-out idea. You need to ask yourself these 5 questions and come up with very specific answers.
Take out a piece of paper, or open a Word document RIGHT NOW and answer these questions. You have to think deeply, and with intention. Communities take a TON of time to manage successfully and you don't want to waste time on a useless endeavor or one that you have not thought out completely. If someone has already created a similar group-- GOOD! That is proof that this community is necessary and others will be interested! Don't be afraid of being second (or first) in line. 9. Gauge the interest of others The next step is to ask people if they would be interested. Ask family, friends, or mentors if this is a valuable investment. Are there enough people interested? Can you communicate your community's value clearly? Will your community have space to grow? Gauge the amount of genuine interest based on the idea you have created, then use the people genuinely interested to probe further and refine your idea. They are your greatest resource-utilize them. 8. Location, location, location Where will the central hub of your online community be? There are many different places and each one has its own strengths and weaknesses.
Decide which platform will work best for you, then learn everything you can about it. What does a successful community look like on that platform? Are there communities like yours already? How can you be better than them? Remember: different is better than better. If you can be unique, be unique. A community that stands out will fare much better than one who attempts to be the best version of the same thing. Once you have chosen where to place your community, create the accounts! You are on your way. 7. Mission statement Your mission statement is the reason you did all that research in step 10; it is the soul of your community. It will be an anchor to keep you on track, a way to maintain focus, and a great source of inspiration for you and your members. Your mission statement should back up every action that your community takes. It reminds each person where you are going, what you are doing, and why you are doing it. A mission statement is imperative. To develop your mission statement, look at what you wrote down in step 10. What common themes consistently appear? What themes disappeared? Then use this information to create a statement that reflects the Why of your community. For example, Desoladies mission statement is "Desoladies is a supportive, female-focused organization designed to unite, promote, and advocate for women in the Dota 2 scene." This tells people what our organization does and gives our members a reference to ensure their work is on track with the vision. Make your mission statement before continuing any further. You will need it for the next steps. 6. Leadership heirarchy Leadership is one of the most important aspects of your community. Having a great leadership team can propel your community to success or failure overnight. You need to design the hierarchy of your community before you allow people inside of it; however, you will not immediately open the leadership positions. The longer your community is up, the more people will change inside of it. People who were extremely enthusiastic when they first joined may turn out to be the least active members, and those who barely spoke a word in the beginning could become your strongest advocates. People change and that is okay. What is not okay, is assuming they will always be who they are in the beginning of your community. If you make this assumption, you set yourself up for failure. Give yourself some time to get to know people. Learn their skills, quirks, habits, and communication styles. Learn about their personal lives and passions. Once you feel comfortable that you know who your major players are, you may open the positions. Before starting the community, decide what your hierarchy will look like. How big will your community grow? Will you need 2 managers or 20? Leaving your management team open to scale is very important because communities only grow over time. There are many options for hierarchy. In my opinion, the best to begin with is a simple 3 manager system that can expand. Here is a list of my favorite style of management hierarchy. Keep in mind, your community will not begin with all of these levels. Start with the top level and proceed downward.
Aside from general leadership positions, you might have other positions like channel moderators. The possibilities are endless so if you think you need a manager not listed here-- go for it! You know what your community needs. You know the vision. Just keep in mind, start with small numbers and work your way up as necessary. Scale your management team as your community grows. As the positions get higher, they should be harder to get into and have less people involved. 5. Rules and documents Not every community is going to need documents, but documents will highly elevate your brand. Here are some documents we have found to be very useful in Desoladies:
I highly suggest everyone has some type of Code of Conduct. It is imperative to set expectations for your community. You can't expect them to behave a certain way if you have not told them how they should behave. 4. Logistics Now that you know who your community is for, what you are doing, and where your community will be... you need to decide the back-end. How will you take care of people who want to join? How will you accept advice from members? Who will take care of disagreements between members? In the beginning, you will probably do most of the leg work. Once you find out how you want these things to be handled, AND once you know your potential leadership, you can begin adding managers onto your team so that they can take care of some of the administrative work and you can work toward ensuring the community is consistently moving toward its vision. I can't tell you too much about this section unfortunately because the back-end varies a lot between communities, but you will know what you need. You are the Founder after all! 3. Content Does your community need to produce content? Which platforms should it be on? Where is your audience based? Now is the time to brainstorm. Content will come later, but when your community begins throwing out their ideas.. you need to be able to understand what you need and what you do not. Don't waste your time and effort on something that is not going to be beneficial to everyone. Take some time now to find out where you see your community contributing, but don't get these ideas stuck in your head. Your community will change and these ideas may not fit anymore. 2. Launch Today is the day! You are ready to launch! You have done the research, made the documents, figured out the hierarchy.... now is the time. Launch your community, post all of your documents, make sure everyone knows what the community is for, and enjoy your new mission with your new friends. Enjoy this moment, because the next step is the hardest of them all. , 1. Promote This part can make or break your community. When you first start this project, no one will know about it. The buzz will increase once you start asking questions, but it will still be contained. If you want to make that buzz public and get people interested in your community... you need to promote it.
You should know your audience enough by now that you know where they hang out and which platform will be best for you, but you also need to realize that promotion needs to be done differently based on which platform you choose to utilize.
Remember: it is a marathon, not a sprint and there is no such thing as overnight success. Growing a community takes time and effort but I just gave you all of the information you need to succeed in the beginning. That's it! If you have made it this far, creating a community obviously means a lot to you. Feel free to email me with any questions and I will do my best to help. Good luck, help others, and have fun. <3 Ash
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