I recall most amateur gaming communities occasionally putting up adverts for news writers.
This would be for people that wanted to contribute news to the community site.
It wasn't paid. People got the satisfaction of making an impact and boosting their own reputation. The site owner had people working for free keeping the site posted with fresh news.
Some of the news writers became the most known faces in the community scene.
We tend not to do that at the professional level. We worry about the quality of the posts. We worry if they will say something that might hurt the brand. Yet people can do that within the community anyway.
This is exactly the attitude that restricts growth in our communities. By not letting people get really involved we reduce their sense of ownership within our communities.
It's no surprise that the biggest and most successful communities are nearly always those where the community member has almost as much power as the community manager.
Here's a quick suggestion. Put a post up this week asking for news writers. Ask for people want to to find interesting and entertaining stories about your sector and within your community.
If it works out, you get a number of people posting fresh content to your community every day. If it doesn't, you're where you are now.
On October 29th to 30th, the world's top 250 community professionals are going to SPRINT in San Francisco. Will you be one of them?
