Growing Communities - macrosites

Building macrosites community

1.

Define your community identity

You should do everything in your power to help create and foster a strong community identity.

Create a unique name for your community. You can't have an identity without a name that represents you.

Finding a good web domain will help a lot.

Use the community's tone of voice in content and copy.

The stronger the community identity, the more stable the community. Members won’t leave for another platform. This identity will be distinct from the organization's, and this is a good thing.

2.

Choose your modules

Select which of the many available macrosites modules will your community need. You may for example want community with Forum, Blogs, Ecommerce, Classifieds, Articles and Galleries.

Name the modules and areas of the community after members/activities/symbols specific to community members.

3.

Select template or build your own visual

Give the community a unique home.

You can use one of our predefined community templates or better create your own unique web design of your community site.

4.

Invite and engage members

Define your hook. What is a compelling enough reason for members to come back to your community site every day?

Invite contributions to a community constitution defining the community's purpose, personality, beliefs and governance. Be specific about what input you need.

Create an epic history for the community. Record what happens in your community and create a narrative for members both new and old to read.

Promote the community through external channels. Refer to the community in literature. Seek out representatives for feedback and advice.

Introduce a newcomer’s ritual. Don't do this for members that have just registered, do it when members reach an important milestone. Perhaps their 10th post. Establish a barrier people cross to feel an accepted member of the community.

Include in-jokes on internal content material.

Make special mention of community milestones and achievements. Send out news releases and issue congratulations on behalf of the organization.

5.

Grow it

While you may see lots of activity on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, it’s only on genuine community platforms, like macrosites, where you get the context, flexibility, and customization tools to create a tailored experience for you and your members.

By building and growing your own online community, you can forge lifelong friendships and create a dedicated place for people to connect around the topics they’re most passionate about.

This is what makes a community unique. It’s not a crowd, audience, mob, or gathering – it’s a co-created experience. As such, communities tend to thrive on platforms, where the focus is on fostering member engagement in addition to traditional publishing.

ENCOURAGE

Your goal for the community to take on a life of its own where members bring in new members, write content and initiate and moderate forums. That's what happens when your members get engaged then it becomes their community. You can also reach outside the community to recruit new influencers: bloggers, writers, speakers, prolific Tweeters and other experts who are talking about your topic either online or offline.

Keep your site fresh and active by featuring popular blogs and forums on the homepage and in your email newsletter. The community will tell you what they like through their engagement and you can also discover new voices and promote them.

You will also, from time to time, need to remove content and possibly members who are a bad fit for the community. Don’t panic, this happens in every community. We provide tools that make this simple.

PROMOTE

It takes time for visiting a community to become a habit. Until then, send out regular emails to remind your members to visit and entice them with the newest and most interesting content and conversations. Create a schedule for new content to help your contributors get in the habit of adding new posts and blogs regularly..

GROW YOUR COMMUNITY

As the community grows, announce your community via social media channels, email newsletters, and encourage existing members to invite friends. You can also Create a Facebook App and Twitter App for your community. These allow your members to automatically post to Facebook and Twitter when they post to your community. If you have an email newsletter, include your new URL in your email footer, so that every time you send an email you promote your new site. Even better, highlight something specific taking place in the community that newcomers can participate in. Improve your SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Make your community easier to find on Google and other search engines.

5.

Monetize it

Once you reach your goal in establishing live and fast growing community you will at certain point need to think how to find resources to maintain it in professional way.

You will need other people to help you to maintain the good culture in your community, moderate forums and create content, grow the community features etc. Running large communities can be demanding and expensive.

macrosites provides numerous ways how to monetize your successful community in a way that won’t be disturbing for your community members.

You can charge your members for premium memberships, special features, content, ads, classifieds, e-commerce shops, sales and many other ways.

macrosites allows your community members to earn money and gives you tools how you can participate on their success.

Contact us to discuss the available options for your particular community.

Make another step.