The Secret Of Awesome Content

In March 2003, I was hired by the VGA (Virtual Gamers Association) to write content for their site.

The first month was dull. I researched gaming-related news from across the web and compiled it into one place for readers. It was arduous, dull and time-consuming. Few people ever read the content. Nobody replied.

One night, short on content, I reported on a small competition held in one of the gaming centres. The next day, we had 12 comments from the participants. A week later I arranged an event, reported both before and after it, the comments began to flood in.

This content expanded into profiles of the winners, predictions about the results, analysis of the games. We had stumbled upon the secret code of online community content.

The best content for an online community is content about the online community.

Stop copying content from bigger or smaller news sites. Instead, write about what your members are doing. Do round-ups of what they’re doing. Try a gossip column about the community. Report on the rivalries, the top debates and make predictions for the future. And if your members aren’t doing much, initiate things for them to do.

Comments

[Mbjorn]

I'm new to community management and this well-stated insight struck home. Thanks for sharing!

[Angela Connor]

This is a great reminder, Rich. I've done many things to highlight the community within the community but I can always do more. We had a member post today that her husband died last night. I renamed the blog: "GOLO member loses husband" and posted it on the home page as our top item. The good wishes came her way in droves and continue to come. That's not necessarily a great story, but it illustrates that members care about the lives of other members as well.