Kickstarter.com — a social fundraising tool for creative projects — now has a reputation among social media enthusiasts as THE Magical Way to Raise Money. People have told me it works better than other methods, and it attracts more attention (probably true). I’ve also been told that anyone can use it for anything (not true), and that you can keep all the money you raise even if you don’t reach your goal (nope!). One person even informed me that Kickstarter personally MATCHES and DOUBLES financial contributions (definitely, definitely not true). There is a growing mythology about this tool.
Five facts about Kickstarter
Let’s set a few things straight:
- It’s smart, attractive, clean, awesome,
and the first of its kind [see comment discussion below]. Yes indeed it is.
- It ONLY allows funding for creative projects. No business funding.
- You ONLY receive funds if your project reaches its funding goal. (This a core feature of their service, and an alarming number of “Kickstarter is awesome!” chorus members don’t seem to know this.)
- Because of their growing popularity, you now have to submit your projects to Kickstarter for review, and wait to be approved or denied before you can start your campaign.
- At the end of a successful campaign, Kickstarter will take 5% of the total amount you made, and Amazon payments (their payment system) will take an additional 3-5%. That means that if you raise $5,000, you will pay $400 – $500 in fees.
Consider the Innovations
Most of Kickstarter’s magic mojo is simply that they made a game out of raising money. Here are the rules to that game:
- Set a deadline. Let people know there is a limited time to this campaign.
- Set a minimum funding goal. “If we don’t reach this number, the project won’t have enough funding to happen.” Figure out what that number is.
- Enforce the deadline and the funding goal. The campaign STOPS at the deadline, and if you didn’t meet the goal, the project DOESN’T happen. (This is where Kickstarter is most valuable: they play bad cop about the rules of the game, while you get to play good cop and try to get people excited.)
- Set up tiered levels of giving, and promise people different thank-you gifts for each level.
- Let the fundraisers keep full ownership of their projects. (It’s not investment; it’s sponsorship. It’s pre-selling. It’s generosity.)
Kids, you can totally try this from home. You don’t actually need to be on Kickstarter’s lawn to play this game. (It just helps. Sometimes. That’s all.)
It’s not the only way.
Personally, I am all for Kickstarter. I think they’re a good, sexy, internet-loving company that’s doing amazing things for people, and doing them well. But I also find it disturbing that people are so excited about them that they spread false rumors about their particular form of magic. And I think it’s important that everyone know: there are other ways.
IndieGoGo, for instance, is a blatant Kickstarter clone [see comment discussion below] has three major differences:
- There is no approval process or waiting period to get started.
- You can list any kind of project — creative, business, whatever.
- You get to keep all of the money, even if you don’t reach the goal.
(Note: This doesn’t necessarily make them better. If anything, it removes a lot of the game and heat that makes Kickstarter projects so exciting. But it does make them a solid alternate option — especially if Kickstarter’s rules aren’t working for you.)
Another option is to use a PayPal-based fundraising tracker, like ChipIn or Fundrazr.
I went DIY.
In December, I launched a crowdfunding campaign without Kickstarter. I used the giving widget offered by PayPal Labs to track donations (mostly because I thought it was prettier than ChipIn). I also used a Tumblr site to manage the campaign, and Google Checkout to catch a bunch of contributors who hated PayPal (guess what? There are many).
I set a goal of $5,000 in 30 days and laid out some perks for contributors based on donation amount. At the end of the time period, I had raised about $8500 from nearly 300 people. I had more control over the campaign and I paid lower fees on the money I raised (about 4% instead of 9%) than I would have if I had used Kickstarter.
And I will tell you all about how I organized that fundraiser and why my community made it successful in another post.
[photo credit: "Tip Jar" by Dave Dugdale]
Photo by Mike Fryer (Solidstate76) used by Creative Commons License
Back in the early days of blogging, readers of especially popular blogs started competing with each other to see who could be the first to comment on a post.
“FIRST POST!” would come the digital shout, the equivalent of a big of blog commenting graffiti, sort of like a tagger plastering his name on a wall. Nothing actually was said. It doesn’t relate to the post at all. The poster has just established that they were here first.
Folks typing FIRST POST miss a huge opportunity, because as the first commenter they have a lot of power. It’s important to understand how the first comment on a post has the ability to define the mood of the entire conversation. It’s the first comments that I tend to watch most closely in my moderation process.
Here’s one example: A couple months ago, we wrote a sponsored post on Offbeat Mama about an online baby registry tool that allows parents to register for cash they can use for services and experiential gifts. The very first comment was from someone who simply wanted to say that they hated the idea of registries. They had no opinion about this specific registry tool, but were against the whole concept of registering for gifts anywhere.
Every commenter after that first comment felt the need to weigh in on how THEY felt about baby registries. Were they ok for the first child? What about the fourth? Was a cash registry any less tacky than any other registry? Because the first comment was A) negative and B) focused on a meta-issue, the discussion was completely derailed from the specifics of the product we were talking about … of into a sneaky spiral of snarking over big picture issues.
The very first comment was not in accordance with our commenting policy, but since we didn’t catch it in time, the entire thread of comments slid off track. (both my editor and I were busy for a few hours that afternoon — that’ll teach us to EVER leave our laptops! Heh.) The first commenter effectively said, “I don’t really care about this specific post, but I’d like to use this comment section to debate a larger issue.”
When you’re publishing a post on a topic you know is going to be controversial, you can actually step in and make the first comment yourself. On Offbeat Bride, we recently ran a guest post criticizing the state of many wedding photographer’s websites. The post was constructive, but I anticipated and negative pile-on in the comments, and so immediately after the post went live, I left the first comment myself:
Offbeat Brides, you know we’re not about bashing anyone here. So please keep your comments constructive. Photographers are our friends, and we want to help them make their websites better — not bitch about them.
In this way, I made it clear in the context of the comments exactly what kind of discussion we WEREN’T looking for. (Of course, after 100+ comments, the discussion eventually went there anyway … but at least we got in 100 comments before the inevitable snarking began!)
As I’ve mentioned in past posts, comments on my sites are moderated aggressively — they’re high traffic sites, and the positive tone of posts and comments is part of my branding. This is all to say, not every blog will need to watch their FIRST POST! comments quite as closely as we do on Offbeat Bride and Offbeat Mama … but especially if you’re posting about something controversial, watching that first comment carefully is a worthy use of your time.
Photo by Veesees, used by Creative Commons license
So you want to build an online community, and you don’t know what platform to build it on. The good news is that you have a lot of options. The bad news is that (probably) none of them are perfect. Here are the likely candidates.
Sites People Already Use
These are great options when your main goal is to facilitate conversation and networking. These are not good choices when you need a lot of technical and design control over your community space.
Facebook — is more or less ubiquitous right now, so there’s a good chance your community members are already using it. You can either create a Page or a Group (look at examples of each to decide). The upside of Facebook is that you won’t need to ask people to sign up for a new account anywhere, and you’re using a system they’re familiar with. The downside is that Facebook has been known to change how they do things without warning.
Other Big Sites – Most large-scale social networking sites will allow you to make groups and foster your own community space. MySpace, for example, is still going strong. (And oh hey, remember Friendster? Okay, never mind.) Twitter, unfortunately, doesn’t have much to offer in this area besides general organic conversation (I don’t think “Lists” count as a community structure), but some of its third-party app providers might, if you dig.
Niche Sites – If your community is topic-oriented, go find out what other large sites exist to gather people to that topic. It’s entirely possible that it supports the creation of groups, and that your community members are already in the system. DeviantArt (arts) and LinkedIn (careers) are great examples.
Open Source Community-Oriented Content Management Systems
That title’s a mouthful, but it’s worth understanding: Open Source usually means free software that’s constantly being improved by the people who actually use it. A Content Management System (otherwise known as a CMS) is website software that lets you manage your content in an admin panel without touching code or your website’s design. And Community-Oriented is the kind you’re looking for (though they might not call it exactly that).
A word of warning: these systems require you to have a decent amount of technical knowledge, or to hire a developer. They may tell you they work properly straight out of the box, but most non-programmers I’ve talked to have been frustrated with the setup process. On the other hand, this software does come with a lot of functionality for free, and they’re constantly being improved by huge communities of volunteer programmers, so if you can get over the tech configuration hurdles, you have a good chance of success. Consider…
Drupal – The running favorite.
BuddyPress – Built on WordPress to act like Ning (more on both those names below), but still young and under-developed. I have high, high hopes for this software, but please don’t approach it without a fearless programmer at your side — preferably one who’s dealt with the system before.
OpenSourceCMS.com – for demos and ratings on the (literally) hundreds of other options out there.
Growing Your Own
If you’re very particular about the functionality you want — and you have the cash to back it up — you may want to hire a reliable development team to build it from scratch. It will cost you an arm and a leg (and you’ll need to keep an ongoing budget for maintenance and growth), but it’s really the only way to get exactly what you want. And if you do it right, (and you have a significant community to support,) (and your business goals can validate the expense,) then it’s absolutely worth it.
Classic Forums
Great for high-volume conversation spaces. Not great if your community doesn’t exist yet — it will feel like a large, cold, empty room. Bring in a forum when a community calls for it. Consider…
phpBB – the old-school favorite.
Simple Machines – the other old-school favorite.
Vanilla Forums – the younger and slightly cuter cousin.
Mailing Lists
Who needs a website for community when you live in your inbox? Mailing lists, if you can keep them small enough or establish some practical etiquette for them, are a great platforms for building community. The usual suspects right now are…
Mailman – an old-school software program that comes included with many web hosting plans.
Google Groups – my personal favorite. You can also view archives and interact with the discussion directly on the Google Groups site instead of receiving emails.
Blogs
Blogs aren’t always the first thing people think of when they talk about building an online community, but there are absolutely opportunities here. You can…
- have a group blog where all community members are authors
- accept and post content submissions from your community
- maintain a lively discussion area in the site comments
The major players for blog software right now are…
WordPress – There are two ways to do WordPress. One is to get the free software from WordPress.ORG, install it on a hosting plan with some basic tech skills, and customize the heck out of one of the thousands of themes available. The other option is to get an account at WordPress.COM, which is faster and easier to get started with, but can be very limiting in the long run.
Blogger - Easy to get started with, but very limited options for configuration.
Typepad – Lots of features, a long history, and likely to cost money if you plan to make it fit all your needs.
Hosted Community Software
If you’re short on cash and tech skills but want a full-featured community, your best option may be to use a hosted service. Take a look at…
Ning – a service that lets you build a stable, standard-featured community site (profiles, groups, discussions, photos, etc) about whatever you want, branded however you want, for a monthly fee. Those who use it tend to have complaints — little things that bug them that they can’t change — but to be fair, it’s probably the best service we have available right now.
What else?
Here’s where I need your input. Have you found other affordable (or better yet: free!) solutions that seem reliable and functional, and don’t require advanced tech skills to set up? Let’s pool our research. Please comment below with your findings.
Thanks to Flickr user m&m2009 for submitting
this photo for the Offbeat Bride Flickr pool.
There’s nothing more exciting than having an online community that’s growing to the point where your members are invested and excited about your brand. So excited, in fact, that they start sharing their ideas for what you could do next.
“What if you sold headbands?”
That was the gist of an email I recently received from a reader of my site, Offbeat Bride. “I make these headbands,” her email went on to say. “I’d like to partner with you to sell a custom line exclusively for your readers.”
To be fair, they were lovely headbands. My readers and community members would probably really like them … but I’m a web content producer. I am not a retailer. I had to stop and ask myself, “Do headbands help me achieve my mission of helping non-traditional brides plan their weddings?”
Suggestions from readers and community members can be a wonderful gift. It’s remarkable to have a hive mind of members giving you clear feedback about what they want from you and your community. That said, with larger communities (I’m at 15,000 registered members and 200,000 monthly readers) the sad truth is this:
You can’t be everything to everyone. It can feel like an admission of defeat, but instead view it as a rallying call to do what you do with impeccable laser focus. Be your one thing to a few people.
Print it out. Repeat it to yourself often: You can’t be everything to everyone. I hope that anyone even considering an online community knows this simple truth, but it’s one of those things that’s easy to say and hard to live by, especially when you’re in a community growth cycle.
My members have made it clear that they enjoy my online wedding community because I work hard to maintain it as a positive, constructive environment … an atmosphere that can be difficult to find in online communities. Because of this, some members wish the community’s tone could be applied to non-wedding topics — recent suggestions have included a sub-group dedicated to discussing medical and health conditions, and a sub-group about home decor.
These subjects would doubtless make for fascinating discussions, and I have no doubt that a few of my members could really benefit from them — just like a few would love headbands. But ultimately I’m in the wedding business, and my skills are aligned to that work.
If I broaden the focus of my community to include medical issues and interior decorating and headbands, the purpose of my community starts to get lost. Suddenly the on-topic discussions are buried in a sea of chatter about fibromyalgia and shag carpeting — both interesting subjects, but not related to my mission of supporting women in planning their non-traditional weddings.
When I get receive these requests and suggestions from members, I always take the time to acknowledge them. I thank them profusely for taking the time to share their idea with me, and then explain that, in order to keep the community functioning at its best, I’ve chosen to keep it (and me!) focused. I always make a point to acknowledge that this doubtless means I’m missing out on wonderful opportunities, and encourage them to pursue the idea on their own.
In one instance, an article on my site Offbeat Mama prompted a reader to ask me if I would start a community dedicated to nontraditional military families. I explained I didn’t have the resources or background to do so, but offered to link a Facebook group, if they decided to start one. (Which they did!)
Because, repeat after me: you can’t be everything to everyone. It can feel like an admission of defeat, but instead hold it up as a rallying cry. Stay focused on being one really great thing to a few dedicated people.
…Even if the headbands are pretty.
Photo by Chris Palmieri
“So, do you wanna help?”
“Yeah, totally!”
When you’re doing something big and interesting (like, oh, say, organizing an online community) and are looking for people to help, please, for the love of niches and all that matters to you, understand that not all yeah totallys are created equal.
Here are some of the ones I’ve come across:
“Yeah, I totally think what you’re doing is great, and I’m going to be super supportive whenever you talk to me about it. I’ll even Twitter about it!”
“Yeah, I totally want to hear more about how I can help. Please give me more info so I can think seriously about the details.”
“Yeah, totally, I’m excited to help in whatever way you need! But you should know that I get excited about lots of things, and something else might be more exciting to me next week, and that might take up some of the time I’m promising you. You understand, right?”
“Yeah, I totally want to help, but only if I find the work satisfying.”
“Yeah, I totally want to help, but only when I’m available.”
“Yeah, I totally want to help, but only if it’s something I’m really good at.”
“Yeah, I totally want you to feel supported. I also know that you know I’m really busy, so by ‘help,’ you’re just asking me to be interested, think about it sometimes, and offer a hand or idea if the moment seems right… right?”
“Yeah, totally. And that job description you just asked me to commit to seems fair enough. But I also know you contacted me because I’m bringing my own skills and interests to the table, so I’m just going to adjust it to fit what works for me. That’s cool, right?”
“Yeah, totally. … and by ‘help’ you mean ‘sleep together,’ right? Oh, I knew you were looking at me that way for a reason. Of course! Just tell me where I ‘sign up’ *wink wink*.”
“Yeah, totally. And that means you’ll help on my project just as much, right?”
“Yeah, totally. I’m committed to your project and I trust your judgment. I’ll let you know if your requests don’t fit what I’m able to do, but overall, yes, I’m in. Tell me where and how.“
That last one is gold. But it’s not the same as all the ones before it, even if you want it to be.
And here’s the real kicker. The person saying “Yeah, totally” probably doesn’t know which one they mean. All they know is that they’re interested. Chances are they need to know what committing will feel like before they can affirm what they’re in for. It’s your job to help them feel it out.
It’s also your job to stay alert to the possibility that their yeah totally might mean something other than what you’re hoping for, and to work with that whenever their real interest is as soon as it becomes evident.
Accept their real interest. Be grateful for it. Don’t get bitter about it.
Unless they’re just trying to sleep with you. Then you can slap them.
Editor’s Note: I’d like you to meet Ariel Meadow Stallings, the unstoppable writer behind Offbeat Bride. She’s generously agreed to write a series of articles about her experiences managing the large online communities that have gathered around her work. I hope you enjoy this first post as much as I do! ~Sarah Dopp
Thanks to Kate DePalma for submitting this photo for the Offbeat Bride Flickr pool.
Photo by Stephanie Saujon Baltz at La Photographie.
In 2007, I created an online community component for my website, Offbeat Bride. The goal was to give women planning nontraditional weddings a venue to network, share inspiration, and compare notes … and it quickly grew to 15,000 members.
Inevitably, I knew some of the notes being compared would be frustration and anger. Planning any wedding can be a difficult process, but when you’re planning a non-traditional wedding, there’s the added challenge of family conflict and swimming upstream against cultural norms and traditions.
I knew that I wanted to keep the community from spiraling into a cess-pool of negativity, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on why. “Let’s keep things constructive!” I’d shout into the growing storm of venting and rants. I worried that new members joining the community would be walking into the digital equivalent of a grumpy shouting match, and that instead of inspiration they’d be finding a chorus of people shouting “Everything suuuuucks!”
It wasn’t until I read a New York Times article about a psychology concept called “co-rumination” that I finally had a word to attach to spiral of negativity that can drag down online communities:
The term researchers use is “co-rumination” to describe frequently or obsessively discussing the same problem. The behavior is typical among teens — Why didn’t he call? Should I break up with him? And, psychologists say, it has intensified significantly with e-mail, text messaging, instant messaging and Facebook. And in certain cases it can spin into a potentially contagious and unhealthy emotional angst, experts say.
The research distinguishes between sharing or “self-disclosure,” which is associated with positive friendships and positive feelings, and dwelling on problems, concerns and frustrations. Dwelling and rehashing issues can keep women, who are more prone to depression and anxiety than men, stuck in negative thinking patterns, psychologists say.
While the article specifically addresses how young women are prone to the dangers of co-rumination, I strongly believe that the concept can be applied to any online community.
Co-rumination is highly contagious. When your members see each other using your community as a platform to vent and rant, they want to join in either by chiming “me too!” or by practicing grievance one-upsmanship, with members crowing, “Oh, you think YOU’VE got it bad!? Take a listen to this…”
Before you know it, your online community can morph from a platform for sharing and networking, to a circle jerk of complaints and anger, filled with tooth-gnashing and arm waving at the awfulness and injustice of absolutely everything.
Now of course there are some communities where this kind of conversation is perfectly appropriate — groups supporting people in times of grief or loss, or consumer communities about tracking frustrations. In some communities, commiseration is just fine.
But in many online communities, co-rumination can lead the tone of the group into a downward spiral, creating a grumbling, grinching negative space where more interesting conversation is ignored in lieu of “Yeah, I hate that too!” and “Listen to how bad *I* have it.”
I dealt with the challenge by creating a very specific sub-section of my online community for negative discussion. The sub-group is called “Bridal Bitching,” and I’m clear with all my new members that THAT’S the one place where they can vent and complain all they want. I wanted to recognize that there is some community value in commiseration — the “us vs. them” mentality isn’t always great, but there’s no denying it can foster a sense of camaraderie.
So while the bulk of my community remains focused on brides supporting each other and celebrating inspiration, the “Bridal Bitching” sub-group is the darker corner of the website that members can enter at their own risk. They know what they’re in for when they click into the group. And when members post negative rants outside the sub-group, my moderators have a place to direct them — it feels important to have a release valve, rather than just saying “YOU CAN’T DO THAT HERE, AT ALL. EVER!”
No denying, this method requires pretty hands-on moderation — especially initially. I found that if I explained my motives to members (I even linked the co-rumination New York Times article!) people generally understood the logic behind the policy, and within a month or so most members were self-policing, directing new members to the “Bridal Bitching” sub-group when needed.
In a bit of divine comedy (because how the fates do laugh at my attempts at moderation. HA HA HA!) it shouldn’t be any surprise that “Bridal Bitching” is the most popular sub-group in the Offbeat Bride community.
But by keeping the negativity in its own little corner, I encourage members to focus their frustration in constructive ways. For instance, instead of complaining, “My mother-in-law doesn’t understand me! Why does she want me to spend $10,000 on the flowers when I just want to use blooms from our garden??” I encourage members to focus on what they’ve learned from their challenges, i.e., “When my mother-in-law wanted us to go big-budget on our flowers, I found that talking to her about why I wanted to for a more sustainable, less flashy option wasn’t working. Instead, I needed to show her a spreadsheet of our budget.”
Encouraging members to focus on what they’ve learned keeps the tone of the group more positive, and I hope I’m making the group more useful to members. People love complaining and sharing their frustrations, and it would be a thankless task to try to eliminate negative discussion completely. But by giving your members a safe way to approach it, you can avoid dragging the rest of your community down.
There’s a great article on Mashable today called “HOW TO: Manage a Sustainable Community,” which introduces the concept of Community Mitosis:
Mitosis: Core community members become disenfranchised with new participants who don’t share the same values. These core community members seek more focus as they gravitate towards specific topics and relationships. Successful communities enable this and allow the community to split into smaller nodes, thus returning to an Established phase and repeating the life cycle process.
While the value of the community to its creators increases as membership increases, the value to individual members may diminish. Disregard for, or lack of understanding of these behaviors can lead to the failure of a community.
The author, Rob Howard from Telligent, offers a community lifecycles infographic and everything:
This is absolutely real and true and okay. When something gets too big, it stops being what a lot of people were looking for. You can either stop caring about those people and let them leave (and probably blog angrily about what a sellout monopolizing set of jerkheads you are), or support them in creating new, smaller spaces within the eco-system. The latter is more awesome.
Howard also lays out the three cardinal sins of mindset, often committed by community builders:
- “If you build it, they will come.”
- “Once I’ve launched it, I’m done.”
- “Bigger is better.”
Any of those can break you.
Go read the whole article. It’s good.
(Sent my way by Jenka of Social Creature. Thanks!)
Have you seen this great video from Zadi? Online Community 101, classy video-blog style…
Main Points:
- Online Communities are based on common interests. Tap into what you’re most interested in.
- Engage on the major sites: YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, etc.
- Make media! Share something of value.
- Prepare yourself for both positive and negative feedback. Learn. Move on.
- Get new perspectives. Align yourself with others.
- If the community you’re looking for doesn’t exist yet, GO CREATE IT.
And here’s her hot list of spots to find interest-specific community (including some neat ones I hadn’t heard of before):
Thanks for making this awesome video, Zadi! You just earned a new fan.
(Sent my way by both Melissa Gira and Heathervescent — thanks, guys!)
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