Community Building Activities?

[Dani]

What types of community building activities are out there to strengthen an online community ... contests, live chat, get togethers, etc?

[Lightninghawk]

A lot of communities are trying to start live chats. It brings more intrest to it. But there are also things like News articles and RSS feeds that they don't just have to go around searching for.

Everybody likes to find a place where everything is right there. They don't have to go to 20 different sites to find what they are looking for.

[Dani]

Yay for me! My site has everything you mentioned. :) Anything else? ;)

[Lightninghawk]

Yay for me! My site has everything you mentioned. :) Anything else? ;)

Hmm.. How about an Information Station Page where Certain members can submit articles that they have written. Kind of like a journalist effect. But On different areas of everything. From computers to current events.

[Dani]

Blogs?

[Lightninghawk]

Blogs?

Sort of, But not in a personal affect. A public blog but, only a certain group of members that want to partake in writing articles can post in it.

Take for instance. I have a ton of articles, reports, and essays that I have written for school and other numerous things. About firewalls, Computer Hardware & Software, Viruses, Tropical Storms, Natural disasters, Military events, Political events.

See A wide mass of Information. Over a Variety of things.
If you have some other members that would like to write articles on different things going on in the computer world we could have an entire page for them.
We would be the DaniWeb Journalists.

--+--
Just think of it. Google's and MSN's Headlines

"DaniWeb: The New Inside News and Information Source for Technology."

"DaniWeb: Surpasses eWEEK, PC MAG, and PC Security online News Sources."

--+--

[Dani]

Hehe ... that's what blogs are, well, kinda. A significant number of blogs are not personal.

[Lightninghawk]

Well are there any other Ideas that are going to be posted. There is a reason Dani started this thread people. She wants your input too. Not just mine.

[Creative writer]

Yay for me! My site has everything you mentioned. :) Anything else? ;)

Hey cscgal... I would like your opinion on bringing up my site . Please tell me if you could reply to my post ... Plz... :?:

[Creative writer]

I think the best way to bring up an online community like forums is to have good amount of varied content put up there and if you want people to read your stuff they must be discussed at other places ...like a review on your own site somewhere or even better start groups related to discussions in your site's latest discussions and let people know about it by making the groups information rich .
People tend to search for terms such as " current events " more than often . If u see google groups come in google search also . So its a risk worth taking .....
What do u say ...any other ideas ???

[Dani]

Hey cscgal... I would like your opinion on bringing up my site . Please tell me if you could reply to my post ... Plz... :?:

I'm not quite sure what you mean. If you want feedback about your site, post in our Site-Specific Questions forum:

http://www.daniweb.com/techtalkforums/forum51.html

[aboyd]

What types of community building activities are out there to strengthen an online community ... contests, live chat, get togethers, etc?

You know, contests really worked for me. I should have mentioned that in the other topic you have on traffic-building.

Anyway, I did a bounty -- $1 per magazine entered into my database. I ended up paying out hundreds. People really went for it. Then I did a few contests, and people really went for that, too. For me, each contest drew in maybe 50 members. I kept the payouts for each contest down to $150 or so. I usually tried to spread the wealth -- $100 grand prize, and $10 to each of 5 runners-up.

I plan to do an art contest on one of my sites in January. I expect that to bring in only maybe 10 to 30 artists, but I'll be happy to have them.

I think get-togethers are a great option, but only really viable when a community gets about as big as DaniWeb. My sites are still small enough that only a person or three would show up.

I find certain moderators can dramatically improve or destroy a community, and quickly.

-Tony

[Dani]

Even at our size, get togethers are really hard. I'm trying to get one together and so far have only 10 people on a "probably will come" list, despite having the poll up in the Geek's lounge for the loooongest time.

[dojo]

I have contest. Official ones (the ones I start and offer something: last time it was a 2 months posting contest with a domain name and hosting as prize) and unofficial - my members have credits won for posting and they can donate some to the winners. They can start their own contest. These are mostly for fun, but in the end I want to make my people feel relaxed too.

We are also having a "Say hello" forum (as this community and many others) so that people can feel welcomed and the off-topic. My members can also open threads in the "journal" section and post there what's going on in their lives.

Overall people are nice. The spammers who wanted to shamelessly promote found out that my community is not a market place (they need to post 20 messages before being allowed access to the "market place" contest area or reviewing). I have a lot of informative topics since I seem to be quite talented to get ideas, and my members came with others too. So no one can tell me 20 posts is the end of the world. Still this has discouraged people who came JUST to promote. Those who stood for those 20 posts found out they like the community and are still active.

My way of doing this is not OK if I wanted to have many members. It's not something "friendly". The community is smallish, but at the moment that's what I can afford and I don't want a huge community just yet. We're not talking about the sour grapes here, but simply about the fact that I am still learning and I need time to adjust to everything.

I make constant modding and upgrades and the commuities are eating my entire spare time. I have nothing else I do when home but mod and create new topics.

The fact a community is still small provides people with a sense of community. Having hundreds of new people daily is a sign of great success and accomplishment, but the community feeling will diminish since it's hard handling thousands of members.

[dj bill]

I am trying to give stuff away. I run a Reality TV fan community (called Must See TV) and I am having a contest where people vote on who will be kicked off the island on this weeks survivor.

Here is how I figure this is a good thing...
1. If they come back weekly to the site to vote....that is good.
2. It will create a little competition and fun.
3. Hopefully will keep the forum kicking and growing.
4. Save money on other costs (Google Adwords) since they will be active members.

Who knows....

PS: the contest is open to anyone....feel free to guess and try to win the ipod! :)

Peace,

DJ Bill