Ask HN: what makes a great community? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: what makes a great community?

7 pointsjwdunne6 comments

I have small community of programmers on Facebook, around 10,000 members spread across various groups and a few pages.

I'd very much like to bring the community to the next level, by way of its own website, with dedicated forums, chat, etc. I'd like to integrate this closely with the FB community so that there is little resistance in migration from one platform to the other.

My own platform gives me more flexibility in how I build and grow the community. I was just wondering what, in your opinions, make for a really good, great even, community?

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A great community = high engagement; quality contributed content; friendly and mature audience

I really hope the conversion ratio will be good. FB is a distraction built social network, where people are constantly bombarded with useless info, most of which they just skim and continue downwards the stream.

What you're doing seems a necessary step in order to bring your community to the next level, but must keep in mind not everyone there wants bigger dedication.

Start posting things from your new platform and liking them to FB (or using screenshot with info and link, since pictures get x4 exposure in FB).

Try something that allows them to sign up and log with their existing FB (few clicks) rather than requiring them to create brand new credentials.

You will have to keep up both places - still post in FB and nurture the newcomers to the new place.

And of course - persistence and testing with the posts people find interesting.

I totally agree, they must exist together for as long as it takes (or until you don't care), good luck!

You must need a Positioning for your forum. What is the theme? And there are must be some members have a good knowledge of this theme. And publish relevant posts now and then. At last, there must be some rules for our 10,000 menmbers. Hope my answer can help you a little.

For anything community related, I always read up at feverbee.com. The guy behind it is also worth contacting, extremely knowledgeable.

WOW this is exactly what I was looking for. Thank you!

Some good reading on this topic: http://moz.com/blog/sense-of-community

http://ryanhoover.me/post/77704756875/the-building-blocks-of...

https://www.quora.com/How-did-Instagram-build-up-its-communi...

http://www.inboundpro.net/16-influential-bloggers-reveal-bui...

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