By Gerogina Cannie, Community Manager at The Community Roundtable
Recently one of my partners / a fellow community manager asked me to share some of my best practices for seeding content in a new community. She was searching for some very tactical information and I found myself getting creative when thinking up possible examples for her! Because I know we all love hands-on ideas, I want to outline the best practices I brainstormed:
Thoughts, Ideas, and Best Practices for Seeding Content In Your Community:
Start with careful curation.
This is the content you and your internal team generate. This comes from sources like library entries, resource threads, thought leadership questions, and user programs. Also, think about populating the site with “low hanging fruit” questions – this allows members to participate in a low-risk way and will help them become comfortable engaging with more dense conversations.
When you are starting a new community “watercooler” threads on low stakes topics like pets or your desk set-up invite people to participate in easy, fun ways.
Utilize your super users.
Mobilize your super users and key stakeholders to be the “life of your party”. These are your inner circle members. Find the people who will get others excited about the space and support them in their participation. Offer them opportunities to collaborate with you and take a larger role in the community if they want it. For example, in my community – we hold two-week featured topic cycles. So for engaged super users I might offer them the opportunity to help decide an upcoming topic cycle. This increases their investment and engagement. Tactical actions you might ask your superusers to complete are:
Provide real value.
Whenever you are are talking about the community or thinking about what to put in it always think “How can I offer something here, that cannot be found else where?” This is the motivation that drives people inside the community. Instead of sending an email or searching on Google, you want them to come here. Add content and create programs that give them a reason to do that.
What do you all think? Is there anything you would add to this list? Or perhaps something you would change? If you’re a member of TheCR Network you should check out Georgina’s post inside the Network – she shares eleven tactical to-dos for seeding content that you can start using today!
