Community Creates Brilliant Content

It’s easy to get tangled up trying to create great content. You could spend most of your time doing it. But content isn’t as important to building an online community as we like to think.

Great content is a by-product of a good community. If you have a thriving community, the content should come easily.

You can write about what members are doing. You can write about upcoming events. You can cover the latest news about the community. You can round-up the week on the forum. You can launch initiatives and write about how they’re doing.

You should never be short of things to write about. If your content isn’t coming easily, you have more important things to worry about.

Comments

[Kari Rippetoe]

Hi Rich, great post and thanks for the link!

I certainly agree with your point here; but if you're building an online community, great content is essential. As I mentioned in my post, it's the foundation that the community is built around. Content begets community, which begets content, etc.

I suppose it's a bit of a chicken and egg question, isn't it?

[Ken Allan]

Kia ora Rich

If you've got your community already providing content, you're set. You probably won't be stuck for content to write about either, as content generates content.

It's the getting there that's the goal.

Q - How do you get the community to provide content in the first place?

A - You show them how. You must have the residual but essential leadership skills to show, at least one aspect of, how content can be presented - both through your posts and your comments.

Catchya later
from Middle-earth

[Richard Millington]

I disagree.

A community isn't built upon content, it's built upon relationships. It's built upon the connections people feel they have with each other.

Given the choice between spending two hours writing a killer article, or spending those two hours introducing people to each other or writing personal e-mails to new members, pick the latter.

[Edy]

I agree on community helps you to get an idea what to write.

It's true sometimes I get new idea to write when I read someone's post (in forum).

Community is a great way to build relationship.