7 Ways To Build A Successful Online Community

Lot’s of people try to build an online community. Lot’s of them fail.

Havin built Loconut.com.au, we know a thing or two about what works, what doesnt work, and what the user wants. Ultimately, it comes own to the user experience being paramount.

There are lots of social networking tools and great sites out there - you don’t necessarily have to be the best, or the biggest - to build and maintain a successful community.

Here’s some great tips from YoungEntrepreneur.com:

1) Pick A Theme

I see so many forums, blogs, and portals that don’t have a specific niche. If you try to be everything to everyone then you’re not going to make a memorable impression and people won’t come back or get involved.

2) Choose Something You’re Passionate About

You have to love what you do. Especially in a community driven website if you don’t have an interest in the topic then there is no way you’re going to be successful. You have to live and breathe the subject matter to drive it forward and you’ll have a lot more fun as well being able to share your passions with others. It can be tempting to jump at an opportunity because it looks like a “sure thing” but if you don’t love the topic, don’t do it.

3) Get It Started Yourself

You can’t have the mindset of “if I build it, then will come.” It’s so easy to set up a new blog or forum - the technology makes it extremely simple to get going so anybody can do it. The key is getting it started, putting up interesting content, and continuing to post and add to the site. If you are not heavily involved at the start to get it to critical mass, it won’t succeed.

4) Get Help!

You’re going to have to put in a lot of work to get your website off the ground (see point #3!) but as soon as possible you need to engage people to come out and help you. Get them to comment on your blog, get them to post responses in your forums, get them to moderate different categories and contribute. You can’t do everything yourself and more people become interested in your website if they see that there is a discussion going (not just you talking to yourself). Start with your friends and people you know and then reach out to others who run related websites who might be interested in participating.

5) Post Interesting Topics

People click through, read, and participate in stories that are engaging and interesting. Be controversial, offer practical advice, be a source of inspiration. If you’re just regurgitating news from a Google Alerts feed then people aren’t going to care and come back to your website. A good trick is to look at the homepage of Digg and see what stories consistently come up on the first page. Adjust the topics to fit your niche and get writing!

6) Get Prizes

People love contests and there’s nothing like a great prize to get people talking. If the prize is related and interesting to your target audience and there is a degree of value associated with it then visitors will increase their participation and help drive more traffic for you. The prize doesn’t always have to cost you money either. How about a feature story on your website or a special report or service from a partner who is willing to donate a prize? If you’re going to be an entrepreneur you need to think outside the box - I’ve never paid for any of the prizes I’ve offered on my site - you just need to get creative!

7) Encourage Your Top Users

You will have a top percentage of your users who love your site and visit it daily. Give them encouragement and recognition in the community. Point out how useful some of their contributions are and thank them for their involvement. You can also profile them as community ambassadors. Stay in regular contact with them and get their suggestions for how to make your website even better. Keep your champions happy and they will help you go out and bring more people in!

Google Browser Chrome Licence Changes

When Google’s new browser Chrome launched, there was a mixed reaction from the industry and users alike as Google’s licencing and terms of use came under intense scrutiny.

Google have now “revised” their licencing to read:

“In order to keep things simple for our users, we try to use the same set of legal terms (our Universal Terms of Service) for many of our products,” Google said in a statement provided to CNET News. “Sometimes, as in the case of Google Chrome, this means that the legal terms for a specific product may include terms that don’t apply well to the use of that product. We are working quickly to remove language from Section 11 of the current Google Chrome terms of service”

They have also promised that these changes will be retroactive to anyone who has downloaded the browser at any stage, which is good to hear.

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A ‘Cuil’ New Search Engine

Have you seen Cuil yet?

Cuil, pronounced “cool” is the latest Search Engine challenge to Google. However, this 30 man team internet start up has ex Google employee’s on board to help them fashion out a new type of search engine.

The recent launch got big press attention from The New York Times, and focused mainly on their technical credibility which includes search heavy weights such as Tom Costello and a lot of ex-Google staff who are vying to out do and best Google at it’s own game.

Cuil is taking a new approach to search however which seems to be it’s biggest point of difference. Google did much the same thing when it knocked Yahoo of the top of the Perch - Yahoo having always been an information portal Google came along with a nice clean Search page as it’s main page - removing all the noise and making it useful to a lot of people.

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Email Deliverability - Getting Your Email Past Your Clients Spam Filter

How many times have you been told that you’re important email landed in your recipients junk mail folder? Well here is a great article on email deliverability - that is, getting your legitimate emails past your clients spam filter in a reliable way.

Ray Everett-Church from Internet News writes:

With growth rates of spam, phishing, and e-mail-borne malware showing no signs of abating, more and more ISPs and enterprises are implementing stronger protective measures.

Many of these anti-spam techniques are well known to those of us in the e-mail industry tasked with managing “deliverability” – the art and science of getting e-mail delivered to a user’s inbox in a timely and fully-functional fashion.

Ever since the first anti-spam measures began to be widely deployed in the mid-1990s, legitimate e-mails have occasionally been caught in the net and deleted, delayed, or shunted to “spam” folders.

As the economy tightens, many companies are refocusing their advertising and marketing efforts on e-mail, and as a result many enterprise IT managers are getting a crash course in deliverability issues.

As I have noted in many, many, many columns, there are a number of technical and infrastructure issues that can affect a company’s deliverability.

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Australian iTunes & Apple TV Content - We Now Have Movies

This weekend saw the release of Australian content for Movies and TV Shows for all the Australian account holders of iTunes and Apple TV.

We’ve been waiting for sometime to catch up with the U.S. and U.K. who have content since last year. At first glance it looks like we’ve been given access to a pretty decent selection of movies, TV shows and other media - but not quite as much as the U.S. version - of course.

Movies are available for purchase from around $25 - a bit harsh considering the U.S. store sells them for around $12-$15.

You can download rental movies for around $5.99 - also around twice as much as the U.S. who get all rentals for just $2.99 or $3.99 for HD versions.

Buying entire “box sets” are pretty pricey - anywhere between $30 and $80 - again, more than double what you would get on the U.S. version of the store.

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