The Online Community Meetup kicked off 2012 with Bill Johnston, head of Global Community at Dell; Gail Ann Williams, community director at Salon / The Well; Rachel Luxemburg, group manager, Community at Adobe; and Thor Muller, chief technology officer, Get Satisfaction.

Together the panel shared their “secret sauce” tips to building engaged online communities and even took the time to look at some of their failures. The discussion ended with the panelists discussing what they look forward to in online community management and inviting the audience to contribute to the discussion.

Community Management "Secret Sauce" Ingredients

Panelists each contributed their own tip, or ingredient, which taken together were meant to give audience members a powerful secret sauce for online community managers.

• The first secret sauce ingredient was shared by Luxemburg, who advises community managers “to choose your battles wisely.” She recounted a boss who advised her to wait 24-hours before answering an email from a community member. Although this went against her instinct to respond immediately, she found she didn’t need to when the community stepped in to help the email sender. The lesson she learned was to spend her time on what mattered and trust her community to help with the rest.
• Williams advises community managers to be mindful of using any form of ranking system on their platform. Implicitly or explicitly creating competition will impact members on an emotional level. Ranking systems can drive competition by driving up engagement but this doesn’t work in all contexts. For instance, ranking can be off-putting when attached to personal stories. Community managers interested in incorporating ranking and gaming dynamics within their communities should consider what will actually motivate members.
• Johnston believes that the key to good communities is to build ones that strive for a higher purpose. Johnston uses his company as an example, recounting how Dell first built an online community forum and later built upon that with a blog. Johnston also advises community managers to identify and engage their advocates and make their platform provider their best friend.
• Muller’s secret sauce ingredient is to give community members a sense of meaning. Giving community members a sense of meaning and belonging drives people to the community. Community managers should broadcast their purpose in everything they do; over time this will help build trust in the community.

Community Management Failures

Just as is important as knowing what works for building online community, it also helps to learn what hasn’t worked.

• Williams found that making an exception to immediately answer an angry email in an effort to be nice backfired. The lesson learned was to let the situation cool off before responding.
• In an effort to address the layoff of a community manager, Luxemberg used an image for emphasis in message to the community. Unfortunately, the image was misinterpreted and the ensuing laughter sidetracked the conversation.
• When Muller’s company was met with a critique of a design flaw, there was some pushback from the community. Fortunately, GetSatisfaction responded quickly, in an apologetic and transparent manner, minimizing fallout.

The conversation then turned to what the guest experts are looking forward to in the online community management space – opening up the floor for audience members to share in turn.

Audience members also had the opportunity to share some community secret sauce ingredients they’ve discovered in the course of both serving as community managers and community members. Hoping to pass off the collective wisdom shared at the meetup, notes from the discussion were collected live and can be found here. 

Photo: Online Community Meetup