BlogHer: Building Community
It’s still early in the day one of BlogHer but community and camaraderie are huge buzzwords. It’s a bit overwhelming at times — this conference is the largest gathering of bloggers worldwide — regardless of gender. Consider this — it’s 90 percent female. I have not been the company of this many women at once and it’s –wow — and I mean this the best way, a bit of an estrogen overload at times. I am having a great time, learning a lot and meeting some really fascinating people. (More on that later.)
Right now I’m in a session listening to Carol Lin, a CNN anchor who built a community of people dealing with cancer. Inspired by her own experience of her husband’s battle with cancer, and her life as a journalist.
So, some thoughts on building online communities:
Create a safe space to share stories and challenges and to ask for help.
Online communities that turn into offline communities are incredible — they have that extra “glue.”
Depending on the community, accountability and credibility are important. Since Lin’s community deals with cancer patients, there’s a code of conduct and requirements from members to share a bit about themselves, to keep the integrity of the community. Lin’s connection to CNN gives her the added responsibility to uphold the brand of the news organization as well as her own journalistic integrity.
If building a community is for a business — make that clear from the beginning.
Use your connectors both on and offline, and be aware of the power of voices and communities.
Comments shape a community and it’s important to join in and respond to the conversation.
“Out” the lurkers — ask, who are you and why are you reading my blog? Ask the community what they want and need — give them the chance to provide input.
Tags: BlogHer07
July 31st, 2007 at 9:10 am
When you say “out” the lurkers, what do you mean? I like participating in delurking day, but not necessarily being called out. I used to visit a blog (before I discovered readers) and one day, the author decided to call “out” her lurkers by noting the company from which their ISP was linked in one of her blog posts. I used to comment, so I wouldn’t say I was a lurker, but she didn’t know where I worked and never made the connection so when my company was named, I never returned because it freaked me out.
Forcing your lurkers to interact will only drive them away. No one is a true “lurker” with all of the site trackers that are available these days anyway.
July 31st, 2007 at 9:43 am
I think, in the context this was recorded, it referred to writing a post where you ask your readership to come on out and comment. You want to know from them what they’d like to be reading on your blog. You want them to tell you what they’d like to see more and less of and maybe what questions you can answer for them, particularly if it’s a service-oriented blog. I don’t think there was any hostility involved or really “outing” people, it was just a way of encouraging interaction and finding out from the community developed whether you’re serving them the best way that you can.