No you do not want a customer portal!

Oh how many times must I tell prospect? How many bloody ways are there to inform a potential client that a website is not a community and a community is not the instant way to gain and keep users ? Loads!

In the past I've used the 'Field of Dreams' analogy when clients and prospects have wanted to build a community site. The expectation back then was that users will just arrive automatically once the site was delivered. But this was sorely not the case and a lot of white elephants got built and subsequently junked.

Move forward a few years to the present and the Field of Dreams analogy is as relevant as always and still basically sums up my approach. Building a community is not just about designing and developing a website... It's about what you do to create & maintain visitors and their engagement.

If you do not plan to keep the community healthy and give them a reason to return... and this means a commitment of effort (time and / or budget), then don't even bother starting one in the first place!

Why Community moderation is like a pot plant

Today I was presenting some thoughts to a client about the development of their digital strategy. Along the way we also discussed some digital marketing and content optimisation recommendations, including an approach to community management and moderation.

In a rush to explain myself (I was getting a little carried away I guess) I explained that managing a community online was like a household pot plant.

How? Well, like any living organism, a community needs care to keep it alive. Only the way you care for a community is by moderating (pruning) it carefully and providing the necessary feed (updates or topics for discussion). You can also afford not to go to this effort every single day (meaning you can afford to occasionally take a holiday) and rely on the inputs and outputs you've provided to sustain your entity.