Many people face similar problems when launching an online community. They get the technology, staff, and policies in place, and wonder why in six months the community is ailing faster than a blighted plant. The good news is that this is entirely avoidable if you stay away from this top 10 list…
Here are 10 surefire ways to guarantee your online community will fall flat on its face:
1. When members cast criticism, become very defensive and shut them down in front of other members.
2. Don’t celebrate anything about the community – new members, great blog posts, riveting discussions – nothing.
3. Build your community website entirely in flash.
4. Never send a broadcast message – keep your members in the dark.
5. Don’t add welcome messages to new member pages.
6. Eliminate every kind of leaderboard. Discourage every form of competition.
7. Encourage members to write up blog posts pushing their products and services.
8. Let the spam messages run rampant and don’t apologize when they end up on your members’ profile pages.
9. As blog posts are contributed, never “like” or comment. Let them fester in the 0 comment zone while the owner fidgets uncomfortably determining he must be unpopular.
10. Ask members to pipe in blog posts on all sorts of unrelated topics.