Discussions
What qualities should have a good community site?
Posted by MrsBlog • 2/13/09 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: community, social media
I have seen many communities at the web, some of them are very successful - not even talking about giants as Facebook or twitter, but some smaller ones like ... BC for instance or 'small' ning communities e.g. babble, twittermoms, etc.
And at the same time some others are not successful at all: dead or half-dead.
What do you think are the main qualities of a successful community?
What makes people come back and use the community on the everyday basis?
User Comments
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I come back for the insanity.
And that TonyB dog. He's kinda cute in a flea bitten sorta way.-
thanks for the hint about TonyB - what a dog indeed...
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I think the most important quality is the members and how they interact with each other.
What makes them come back? For some members I have no idea why they come back and have given up trying to guess. I come back because I have met some really interesting people and learnt a lot about blogging in the process. -
true and agree. but sometimes, even if the people are there, the reason is there, they do not really care and the community is dead. cannot get it , why?
I think must be also about the design. BC is neat and easy - that is a part of the success. and great, functionable widets as well.
I discovered for instance MyBlogLog at the same time as BC (2 days ago!) and never go back there as it confuses me a lot... -
A sense of belonging and support.-
actually I think these points are absolutely true. think a lot about it since you have written this
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Most of the time, people here don't participate in discussions much but they just leave their blog links and say "Please check and comment." and then when you do comment, they don't get back to you most of the time. Some people are just really selfish.
Plus, I think it would be a great idea if Blog Catalog's Discussion area is more like a forum with proper areas for Music bloggers, Movie bloggers and so on so people would get to know each other much better. -
I think it's important to understand these things.
(1) Blog Catalog is a premium blog directory and social networking site with approximately 200,000 members. It is NOT designed to drive traffic to blogs it's designed to send readers to blogs.
(2) Most of BC's members do NOT post to the forum.
(3) Although one does need to submit a blog to BC to become a member there is no requirement that it must be maintained. In other words, this is a diverse community that includes some members, who are primarily focused on blogging and networking, and some who are primarily focused on socializing.
(4) Most posts made to the General Discussion forum in any given day are not related to blogging issues; it is primarily a social forum.
My Blog Catalog experience has been beneficial in the following ways:
* By using the features and utilities I have located many new and interesting blogs, some of which are related to my own;
* I have made many new friends, learned how to network, and I have formed blog centered relationships with other BC members;
* I have learned a great deal from other BC members about how to promote my blogs and increase traffic to them;
* I have exchanged blogging tips, tools and resources with other BC members;
* My blogs have experienced an increase in organic traffic that has translated into more comments and faithful readers;
* I have enjoyed opportunities to participate in the Bloggers Unite campaigns;
* I have enjoyed opportunities to exchange opinions with other members in the social and political discussion forums and in groups.-
thanks!
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As you can tell I'm a dedicated blogger and
I'm really happy with all the features and utilities we have at BC.
The dashboards are well designed. Whether you are referring to directory searches, discussion searches or social searches the search utilities here are outstanding. The widgets are also cool and useful too and there are just too many features to list.
Everything we need to help us become bloggers who are effective social networkers with strong blog centered relationships is here for us to use free of charge. The admin members are great people too and that's why I ♥ it here at BC.
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1.Just make sure you know what is your blog about.
2.Do not care about your visitors , this is your blog , not their.
3.Some people prefer simple blogs , others - so advanced , you can't suit em all - thats fo sure.
4.Look ----> 1. -
@MrsBlog
I'm interested to know what you mean by "dead" in relation to social networks. Digg, reddit, stumbleupon, fuelmyblog are not dead. As far as mybloglog goes it sends me no readers at all and I frequently wonder why I bother having an account there. I removed the widget because the code did not validate and slowed page loading time, and it took up sidebar space, without delivering any readers to my blog.
FWIW I do not consider the BC community to be wholly constituted by the minority of folks who currently post to the forum(s). IMO the foregoing are only a part of the community as a whole. I believe "community" is the result of making multiple blog centered relationships and I have many such relationships with BC members who rarely if ever post to the forum(s).-
mybloglog is full of crap
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I was just thinking about the smaller, interest - communities, e.g on ning.com or others of that type. What makes them work? What big should be proportion of the active (in that case I mean 'visible') members vs. passive?
And thanks for very interesting points in regard to the BC! -
@mrsBlog
I have a blog on ning for about a year for my fundraising through the American Cancer Society Making Strides Against Breast Cancer and I have had ZERO success, no visitors that I can see. I have had much better results on BC with my other blogs.
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civility -
great points. Thanks.
I have established the community of female international bloggers mrsbloginternational.ning.com. That is why I can really use some feedback on communities as such.
You are welcome to check it and join - I hope myself it has a potential to become something special, but need to work on it.-
I am not saying ning is not good for communities with like interests, it certainly is but, as far as visibility is concerned, I have better experience elsewhere...I am new at this though so I may be missing something.
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woul love to hear about your experience with ning. I recently discovered e.g twittermoms or momlogic or babble - have an impression that they are doing pretty well.
May I ask, where is your best community experience?
(Must say that mine is actually on BC! it makes me simply come back - I do not now even why!)
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have visited...really nice, design an´d forum is perfect - and in beta. neat and optimistic!
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Taking nothing away from BC. I think MyBlogLog is also good infact 60% of my readers belong to it. -
One where the rules are firmly defined and encourages respectful interaction no matter how profound or stupid the topic of discussion is...-
great point, thanks!
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Discussions, comments and opinions need to be varied and interesting. If everyong agreed with eachother, there'd be nothing new. People need to be respectful of opinions opposed to their own. A cat fight might make for a little excitement, but after awhile it's just rude and unwelcome and a turn off. Some people end up being hated and picked on. Some people quit because they are rudely treated or don't like what's going on with other people. One thing that's good to have is good old fashioned silliness and fun. We are here to have a good time, not to stress out. -
People take stuff very seriously most of the time and I don't know why is that! Guess they are hot headed most of the time lol.
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HalfCrazy, I agree with you.
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Great people and great content. Prettiness and technological sophistication don't matter as much as the first two. The more great people you have the more content that gets produced. The more content you have the more people you get. Add in an easy to use interface with tools that work and you have an excellent site.-
thanks so much - great points - obvious in a way but think the most difficult is to keep it simple and clear
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A named that begins in B and ends in logCatalog is a good quality
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You are so insightful!
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agree
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