How To Build An Online Community - The Ultimate List of Resources (Updated)

This is a collection of my favourite and most popular posts from the last three years. It should give you a great overview about both the strategy and the process of creating an online community from scratch.

The Online Community Basics

1. A Primer About Successful Online Communities
2. The 11 Fundamental Laws of Online Communities
3. Building An Online Community: How You Start With 0 Members
4. How Do You Build An Online Community?
5. 7 Contrary Truths About Online Communities
6. Don’t Start A Community For Any Of These Reasons
7. Basics Community Building Principles
8. What Is An Online Community?
9. Different Types Of Communities
10. The 4 Fundamental Things A Community Provides Its Members

Strategy & Planning

1. How To Write A Practical Online Community Plan
2. Setting Objectives For Your Online Community
3. Settings Targets For Your Online Community
4. How Big Should Your Community Be?
5. Which Communities Tend To Succeed?
6. Why Will People Participate In Your Online Community?
7. Getting The Appeal Right
8. A Simple Formula For A Successful Online Community
9. They Already Do It (Or Want To)
10. Base Your Online Community Around Real People
11. Don’t Target The Wrong People
12. How To Make An Accurate Membership Projection
13. Naming Your Online Community
14. 12 Ways To Doom Your Community Before You Launch
15. A 3-month Pre-Launch Strategy

Building An Online Community Website

1. Test Before You Invest
2. How To Design Your Online Community
3. 20 Things That Should Be Included In Every Online Community Website
4. The Perfect Landing Page
5. 8 Overlooked Elements Every Online Community Should Have
6. Developing Forum Communities
7. Easy Ways To Add Value To Your Online Community
8. A Simple Reputation System
9. Stopping Human Spammers
10. 7 Things A Community Can Live Without

Launching An Online Community

1. 5 Things Every New Online Community Should Focus On
2. 20 Ways To Start An Online Community
3. Never Wait For The Website To Be Ready
4. Seeding Your Online Community
5. Who Are You Trying To Reach?
6. Who Do You Need At The Beginning?
7. How To Find Your Community’s First Members
8. The Founder Role In Starting A New Community
9. Create An Easy Reason To Take A Small Step
10. How Small Businesses can Launch Successful Online Communities
11. Simple Steps To Creating An Online Community

Converting Newcomers Into Regulars

1. The Ultimate Welcome For Your Online Community’s Newcomers
2. How To Keep Newcomers Hooked For 21 days
3. Awesome Questions To Ask New Members Of Your Online Community
4. Which Visitors Are Most Likely To Become Regulars?
5. Create A Welcome Pack

Growing Your Online Community

1. Why People Aren’t Joining Your Online Community
2. Create A Criteria
3. How To Get More People To Join Your Online Community
4. Basic Tactics To Grow Your Online Community Without Any Promotion
5. Target Clusters Of People At A Time
6. 3 Perfectly Acceptable Ways To Invite Someone To Join Your Online Community
7. Growing From A Social Media Following To Small Groups
8. How To Persuade Your Employees To Join Your Online Community
9. How To Get The Best People To Join Your Online Community
10. The Right And Wrong Way To Grow A Forum
11. The Problem With Asking Members To Invite Friends
12. A Free Invite With Every Purchase

Increasing Participation

1. Why People Join And Participate In Online Communities
2. A Brief Guide To Reaching Unbelievably High Levels Of Participation In Your Online Community
3. Increasing Activity And Participation In A Community
4. Creating A Sense Of Community
5. The Basics Of Increasing Interactions In Any Online Community
6. Why Members Participate: Fame, Money, Sex, Power
7. 4 Types Of Contributions You Want Your Members To Make
8. The Only Way To Keep Everyone Active
9. 20 Questions which Will Stimulate Activity In Your Online Community
10. 7 Kinds Of Conversations That Always Stimulate Activity
11. Concentrate Activity
12. Simple Tactics To Encourage Your Members To Talk More
13. 9 Ideas To Revive Your Stale Online Community
14. When You Have Lots Of Members But No Activity
15. Epic Events
16. Why People Stay In Your Online Community
17. Create A Guide To Be A Top Member
18. Trade Control For Participation
19. What You Can Do To Make Your Community More Fun
20. 8 Ways To Encourage Individual Contributions In Your Community

Managing an Online Community

1. Building An Online Community Team: The 5 Roles You Must Fill
2. Moderation Strategy
3. Attaining Power And Influence
4. Hierarchy Of Communicating With Your Members
5. Uniting Your Online Community: Creating Strong Ties
6. The Art Of Forging Strong Friendships
7. How Many People Can You Really Look After?
8. Creating Momentum
9. 10 Excellent Rewards You Can Offer Members
10. Creating Titles For Members
11. The Unlimited Supply Of Important Work You Need To Do
12. How To Handle Troublemakers
13. Finding Inspiration In Other Communities
14. Reorganizing Your Forum
15. Gossip Is Good
16. Resolving Problems
17. Why Fights Are So Important
18. Never Reward Your Volunteers
19. Community Guidelines
20. The 24-Hour Response Rule

Content

1. The Secret To Awesome Content
2. The Problem With Great Content
3. Writing Content That Bonds Your Online Community
4. 20 Fantastic Content Ideas For Your Online Community
5. The Power Of Exclusives
6. Interviewing Members
7. Every Online Community Needs A Local Newspaper

Measurement/ROI

1. Measuring The ROI Of Online Communities
2. Community Health Index
3. What Matters (and what doesn’t)
4. This Wasn’t Part Of The Plan
5. How To Check Your Community builder Is Doing As Promised
6. A Faith Challenge
7. Measuring DIY
8. Proving Benefits Of Building A Community
9. Me And You, Them And Us
10. How To Spot Your Community Is In Trouble: 8 Red Flags

Monetizing

1. The Definitive Guide To Monetizing Your Community
2. Becoming A Community Intrapreneur
3. 40 Ways To Make Money From Your Online Community
4. The Pros And Cons Of Charging For Membership
5. Community Souvenirs
6. How To Give Sponsors Access To Your Online Community

Branded Online Communities

1. Never Let Your Company Start An Online Community
2. Why Most Online Communities Shouldn’t Try To Create A Community
3. Why Branded Communities Fail
4. 6 Huge Advantages Big Organizations Have Over Amateur Community Builders
5. A Requirement For Branded Online Communities
6. Decide Between These 2 Types Of Communities
7. How Do Online Communities Make Your Business Money?
8. Why Amateurs Build Better Online Communities Than Businesses
9. Failed Corporate Communities
10. Your Dream Online Community

Non-profits and Online Communities

1. Fundraising From Online Communities
2. What Non-Profits Need To Change

Examples

1. 15 Examples Of Successful Online Communities
2. 15 Ideas You Can Steal From The UK’s Best Community
3. You Can Learn A Lot From This Wildly Successful Community
4. The Best Online Community You Can Begin Today
5. Perhaps The Best Online Community I’ve Seen
6. 10 Examples Of Great Online Communities
7. Never Hire A Marketing Agency To Build Your Online Community
8. A Great Example Of An Online Community
9. A Great Examples Of Game Mechanics In Online Communities
10. The Usual Errors From The Big Brands

Resources

1. A Simple Example Of A Great Online Community
2. 8 Brilliant Posts About Online Communities
3. Essential Reading For Online Community Managers
4. Forrester Wave Report

Misc

1. How To Improve Any Online Community Without Spending A Penny
2. Great Findings From Social Sciences Applied To Online Communities
3. Creating A Community From Your Social Media Efforts
4. The 7 Most Likely Ways Your Online Community Will End
5. Struggling To Build An Online Community? Try This Easier Approach
6. The Easiest Solutions To Your Community’s Biggest Problems
7. 10 Steps To Building An Online Community In Your Spare Time
8. 8 Ways To Merge Your Online Community With The Real World
9. How To Revive Your Local Community
10. How To Create Exclusive Online Communities
11. 6 Social Psychology Hacks For Online Community Managers
12. 5 Features Of Really Strong Online Communities You Can Embrace
13. Searching For Online Communities
14. The One Book Every Community Manager Should Read
15. Community Awards 2010
16. Beyond Your Website

Blogs

1. Alison Michalk
2. Angela Connor
3. Blaise Grimes-Viort
4. Kirsten Wagenaar
5. Community Roundtable
6. Connie Benson
7. Dawn Foster
8. eModeration
9. Holly Seddon
10. Jake Mckee
11. Jeremiah Owyang
12. Jono Bacon
13. Martin Reed
14. Matt Rhodes
15. Patrick O’Keefe
16. Phil Wride
17. Rachael Happe
18. Sue on the web
19. UX Booth

Are there areas of your community work missing from the above? Let me know and I’ll be sure to blog about it shortly.

Comments

[Annie]

Wow! Thanks for the comprehensive list. I'll be eating this over the next few days.

[Dulcinea]

Awesome! Thank you so much. I'll be sure to go through this list in its entirety.

[Simon Darling]

I cannot begin to tell you how helpful these articles are.

I feel like I'm sitting at the feet of the Yoda of community building imparting his years of wisdom.