A simple tip that can save you a lot of pain; validate the problems you’re seeing.
Sometimes community leaders see problems that don’t exist.
Is one member creating too many new topics?
Are too many responses coming from the community manager?
Are there too many posts? (or too few?)
Are too many members posting in one place?
And sure, some of these many have a genuine impact.
Yet if you ask members in a survey (or simply send out an email inviting members to name the biggest problems they see in the community) my guess is none of the above would rank in the top 10.
You might be spending a lot of time trying to solve problems that only you’re seeing.
Worse yet, you might be spending too little time solving your members’ biggest problems.
p.s. When validating a problem don’t list a problem and ask members to say if it’s a problem, that’s cheating. Use an open text field and see if members name it without being prompted.
