Attributes of Thriving Online Communities

I got my start building online communities in 1999 with the launch of TechRepublic.com. We grew from a cold start of 0 to 2 Million members in less than 2 years before being acquired by Gartner – it was an insane ride.

I was first asked the question of (more or less) “What makes a thriving community” during the first few months of our growth, and frankly, I didn’t have a good answer at the time. I was primarily focused on designing the site, rolling out new features (like one of the first peer networks in the space), and tweaking architecture. One night when we were working on what was essentially a Social Q&A feature, I checked into our forums to look for inspiration and ideas around how people typically ask technical questions. What I stumbled into was an exchange in the forums about configuring Windows NT for a very specific enterprise environment. Probably 100 in the entire world were capable of having a meaningful conversation about this topic, and we had attracted 10 of this. For TechRepublic at that time, a thriving community meant attracting the most knowledgeable IT Pros in the world, and incentivizing them to share and participate.

I’ve asked myself the “what makes a thriving community” a lot over the years, especially when my practice takes me into a new domain. What worked at TechRepublic in ’99 and Autodesk in 2001 wasn’t necessarily the same criteria for the large NPO communities and collaboration spaces we did at Forum One, or even the range of communities we built and nurtured at Dell.

I was asked to think about the question again last week, and I put together the following list. Given where brands generally are with their social and community efforts, I feel like this is a good and succinct list – by no means comprehensive – but directionally correct.

Attributes of Thriving Communities

Attribute	What it looks like to host:	What it looks like to member:
Shared Value	Business value in the form of answers, content, connection, expertise, & advocacy.	Value in the form of answers, content, connection, expertise & access.
Shared Identity	Members rally around, inhabit, and shape community brand.	Helps birth and shape community brand.
Vibrant Participation	Visible, regular and quality member participation and contribution.	Regular Host presence, contribution and facilitation.
Community Leadership	Defined rank and reputation model; extending management to members.	Meaningful ranks and status; clear paths to achievement and privileges.
Quality Content	Content base growing and evolving to most valuable state.	Contribution, curation and feedback to evolve content quality.
Expertise	Community attracts and develops SMEs.	SMEs from host are regular community participants; opportunity to learn & develop.
Culture of Trust	Culture of openness and civility. Members air grievances respectfully.	Feel connected to host, part of governance & free to provide critical feedback.
Elegant Experience	Mature community & social tools, fantastic UX, committed roadmap.	Easy to participate and contribute, needs-driven features.
Growth & Responsiveness	Base follows growth curve of brand / product. Base guides features & policy.	Steady influx of new & quality members, participation in community governance.

 

What would you add?