What’s an Online Community and When Does It Need a Manager?

A community is a group of people who recognize that they have something in common. An online community is what they get when they interact with each other on the Internet.

Unlike blogs which have a mostly-standardized format, online communities show up in lots of different structures. These include:

• Forums and message boards
• Chat rooms
• Email discussion groups
• Blog posts
• Blog comments
• Wikis
• Community areas (groups, fan pages) within a big social networking site
• Community-specific social networking sites
• Any number of custom-feature websites, widgets, applications that let people do stuff
• Interactions happening anywhere on the Internet

Really, if you think online communities usually come in formulaic cookie-cutter websites, please go read that list again a few times. What we’re talking about here is how people want to interact — not how we think they should.

There are three other quirky things about online communities that I want to make absolutely clear:

1) The levels of commitment people have to them vary wildly. More often than we want to admit, it’s just a fleeting interest, and that’s okay. (Example: If I have a question about my HP printer and go digging through Internet forums for answers, I become part of the HP consumer support community for about an hour. And then I don’t care anymore.)

2) The levels of interaction people get into also vary wildly. See the 90-9-1 Principle: in any online community, about 90% of the people involved are just there to read (and please don’t demean this group as “lurkers” — think of how many websites you visit that you don’t say a word on!). 9% will respond to or improve the content that’s already there. And 1% will generate new content from scratch. Yes, this is an über-simplification and will vary by structure, but I can tell you from my own experience that it’s accurate enough.

3) The uniting factor for a community can be pretty much anything. Pick any combination of people, places, things, identities, experiences, and ideas. If people have it in common, there’s a potential community there. This isn’t to say that every topic is worth putting energy into, but please: if you have a limiting idea in your head about what people actually care about, now’s a good time to ditch it.

Now this leads us to the next question: “When does an online community need a manager?”

Not always. But sometimes.

If you or your organization created the space that the community is using to interact, and if it’s important to you that the community maintains a certain level of focus or respect, then you probably need a manager.

A manager is someone who smooths out the edges, advocates for what’s most important, encourages participation, and helps people get what they need. They are not dictators. If a manager’s unchecked goal and approach is to control a community, the community will find a way to mutiny. But if they’re just there to guide it in ways that meet the goals of the group, pretty much everyone involved will be grateful.

[Originally posted on my other blog, Dopp Juice]