STEP 10 - Developing A Virtual Community


The way for a website to truly evolve and reach success is through the community that supports it. Provide an excellent resource and meet the needs of the community, and it will flourish. This process includes capturing new members, communicating with them and allowing them to communicate with each other.

  Virtual Community Ideas


Add your Email Address
This is the simplest, and easiest way to begin to get feedback from audience members. You might be surprised about the feedback you get. Be prepared to get both praise and criticisms. You might also want to develop form responses that you can cut & paste, then taylor to the specific request.

Bulletin Board
There are many bulletin board, some free like those hosted by freescripts.com or free code boards like that from matts script acrchive Be advised, that launching a bulletin board means the added responsibility of monitoring it, not only for inappropriate posts, but also for duplicate messages, etc. Make sure to link to your new bulletin board in many different places on your page. You want to direct as much traffic as possible to it.

Email Newsletter
Offer a newsletter to your community. Be sure to make explicit how to subscribe and unsubscribe from the list, and you might want to consider a statement that you will not sell your community's email address. Use your email list to direct users to new areas of your website, and make announcements. When ever you mention something on your site, be sure to immediately include the specific URL to that exact page. Make this newsletter an asset, and only email your community when you have enough to tell them that it warrant an email. Also, let people know the frequency they can expect messages (daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, etc)

Acknowledging Your Community
Every time you get advice, information, a link, etc from a community member, be sure to credit them. Take time to reply to all emails you get, even if you do not use their advice. Always ask them if they want their name and or email listed. Your site's reputation hinges on how you treat your audience.

Building A Community with Discussion Boards
(Bulletin Board) This is an excellent resource. Lurk to read about issues and successes others have encountered, or post your own questions. There are allot of users to this site, so most likely you will get allot of good feedback.

Community Building
(Article) Over 95% of all chat rooms on the Internet sit empty. Communities aren't built in a day. They aren't even built in a month. Building a community involves growing your site traffic, increasing content, discussing issues, and allowing others to share.

Building a Thriving Community
(Article) The idea is to encourage people to join the community at every interaction. Remember, a thriving community is like a living breathing organism - the state of its health will depend on how well you nurture it.

Need some help building a Virtual Community?
(forum) A well read & responded to forum. This has al sorts of excellent threads, tips and advice. Use it to gain information on latest trends and learn from the mistakes and achievements of other.

Return to Promotion Main Page