Andy Roberts recently posted an excellent comment on his blog about how not to use online communities. It’s well worth a read.  His point is that you can’t just pop into a community and use it like a noticeboard, once – especially not for what is essentially an advert.  (“You’ll all be interested in this training course/product/service …”)

Online communities, networks or communities of practice are collections of people with similar interests and/or concerns, and they are very useful as a way of spreading the word and establishing your online identity. But to make a impression you must be part of the community, not just trying to take advantage of it.

Do:

  • Join relevant online communities and forums.
  • “Lurk” (read without posting) in the community for a while before first posting to get a feel for it.
  • Reply to messages in the community, particularly if there is a request for information or advice that you can genuinely respond to.
  • Offer to sponsor or advertise in a community that is particularly relevant to your area of business. It may be more effective to offer a question and answer session or to be a “resident expert” rather than paying for a banner advert of some kind.
  • Offer sample products for the community to review (and accept the review they come up with – even if it isn’t all good! It’s up to you to make sure your product stands up to a test). Make such offers via the community manager or moderator, not directly to the members.

Don’t:

  • Join a community merely to post adverts for your business. That will not endear you to either the community manager or the members – and they are the people you need on your side, you want them to use their influence to support you rather than against you.
  • Drop in on a community once to post an advert or ask for help.
  • Join a community merely to advertise your own community or website – ie poach the members (very bad form!).
  • Post anything in a community which is not relevant to their main focus, eg discussing Macintosh software in a PC forum, or screenwriting in a community for poets.

Originally published at reachfurther.com