Page 177 - AC/E's Digital Culture Annual Report 2015

AC/E Digital Culture Annual Report 2015177How to createa strong a satisfied online community networkWhat makes for a healthy and satiated profes- sional community? Over the past three years, working for and editing CPN, there are some key insights and lessons I’ve picked up along the way. These four tips are by no means a winning formula for creating a winning community, nor are they the only things you should do, but they do hopefully shed some light on what to do and what to avoid when starting out.You won’t please everyone, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t tryCommunities are complex beasts. They are made up of hundred or thousands of individuals,each with their own ideas, views, attitudes, personalities, likes and dislikes. They are rich communities for this very reason.Some of these views and attitudes, however, will directly contrast how you operate as a commu- nity. A change to CPN that 90% of its members support, for example its newlook website, means that 10% do not. The key therefore is to continue to engage and talk to that 10% – explain clearly why certain actions have been taken, as transpar- ently as possible, and provide opportunities for feedback and compromise, where appropriate. Address specific concerns and encourage other members of the community to do the same.A professional community like CPN will only ever grow and move forward as one – as awhole, which means trying to ensure everyone is happy, catered for, involved and enjoying themselves. That should always be your mission as a community, online or offline, but it’s not one that is always 100% achievable.Communities take significant time to grow organicallyIt has taken three years to grow an engaged community of arts and culture professionals. Three years of hard work. Any publisher, organ- isation or company that thinks a 20,000 strong community of members is possible within one month, from a complete standstill, will fail. An article that goes viral on Reddit and picks up 200,000 readers will not bring you a sustained and frequent readership, nor will piggybacking off a much larger organisation or readership. It’s for this reason that CPN has never been directly marketed to general Guardian readers.Communities require a solid infrastructure. They require that you find and engage with potential members individually, as opposedto casting out a trawling net and seeing what comes in. They require love, care, consideration and attention. CPN’s figures for return visitors (66% for 2014) are testament to the ways in which the above requirements can help to build strong and loyal communities.Always ask yourself: what does the community get from this?Whatever and whoever your community – professional, consumer, large or small – youMatthew Caines