The Only Way To Get The Best People In Your Community

…only let the best people in.

This is a basic rule of building communities, people will recruit others like them.

The most intelligent, beautiful, successful, richest and annoying people will all attract and recruit people like themselves.

This has clear implications for creating a community.

When you launch a community, you should be picky. Extremely picky. Don’t try to recruit everybody. Pinpoint the exact people you want and spend all your efforts recruiting them. Don’t drop your standards, keep them high.

If you want an elite community, only let elite people in. If you want your brand’s biggest fans, only let your brand’s biggest fans join. If you want industry influencers, only let the influencers in.

Comments

[Peter Bekel]

Wow, that is a simple and effective rule! Thx again for a valuable thought!

[Stuart Foster]

So simple...yet so right.

Great stuff.

[Mihai]

Useful advice, but this way you'll limit your community.

[Peter Nehrer]

Isn't it more likely the case that the community picks you? :-) It's mutual, in any case.

[Richard Millington]

Mihai: I certainly hope everyone tries to limit the size of their community. Target the people you want, not the people who you happen to get.

[Danny Brown]

Hey there Rich,

Interesting take, though not sure if I agree completely. For example, you can't know who your brand's biggest fans are all the time from off the bat; sometimes they can grow from within when they've started out as doubters. So keeping doubters outside your community isn't going to change that.

By all means, encourage like minds, but don't have a closed one yourself.