Building A Community For A New Web Service

Don’t start big, go as micro as you can get and build from there.

Forget the big splash. Don’t promise huge publicity. In July, Cuil made headlines in every tech media. It couldn’t convert those clicks into a loyal community. Now it’s a dying dodo.

Aim for steady growth from a loyal membership base. You want 10 members this week, 100 this month and 1000 three months from now. Keep your costs low, be patient...this takes time.

Invite 10 people to test your product and help run your community. They get free accounts for life. They can each invite 1 friend to have a free account for life. That’s twenty members. Introduce these members to each other. Launch debates and challenges for members to get involved. Every member has to know the others (and like your product!) before you progress.

Now headhunt people to join your community. These ideas might speed things up. Ask members who else will love the service. Give your old-timers unlimited invites as a loyalty reward. Give 20 points for whoever recruits the most members. The winner wins member of the month, and a worthwhile prize (not cash).

Once you get to 100, try to delegate the work you’re doing (recruiting individually, content, member of the month, events/activities) to your top community members. Coach them to do the job better.

Work on reaching 1000. Invite top bloggers and those with big social networks to give feedback on your product. Begin a dialogue with them. Create bespoke accounts/pages for their members. Talk about relevant groups in community debates. Make a linked list of people you feel would most benefit from using your service, then ask members to tell them about the list. Give members customised badges/logos they can display on Facebook/blogs etc.

That might get you started.

Remember, you don’t want users of your service, you want members of your service. You only want people who have links to other people that use your product. Using the product is merely a boundary people have to cross to join your vibrant community.

Good luck.

Comments

[Matt]

What sort of behavior to do you think separates a user from a member? Self-recruiting? Repeat visits per month?

[Richard Millington]

A user uses the product.

A member talks to other people that use the product.

[Stephen]

Great post, your ideas a very solid. Now I just need to get myself a community to apply all these ideas on!

As a side note, and I don't know how to say this non-creepily, I think I've got the same shirt that you were wearing in your blog picture.

[Greg]

Richard, this is one of the most genious explanations on communities I have read so far! Your example of CUIL is fantastic and goes to show it's not all about big money spending on marketing...

Facebook is a good example of how a community began small, expanded nationally and then burst into a global phenomenon.

[website information]

Richard, you are right, "hyper networking" cannot help you in the long run. But there are two ways in creating a network: "Fast, low quality network" or "Slow, high-quality network".

Cuil was in the media during the release but later they lost the media presence.