The people you think will be your community’s star members, best recruiters, most prominent activists; rarely are. Usually, they’re too busy doing this stuff elsewhere to spend much time in your community.
Repeatedly we find that the best promoters of your community, the most activist members, those who make the best contributions, are people you haven’t yet heard of. People given the platform for the first time. People who seize the opportunity and surge ahead.
Your job is to spot and nurture those people.
If you try to predict your top members before you launch a community, you’re almost certainly going to be wrong. You’re probably going to waste a lot of effort trying to reach them (top influencers rarely participate in online communities). You're going to be disappointed.
You're going to be much more successful if you have a criteria for identifying potential star members and a plan for nurturing them.
