Poor Richard's Building Online Communities: Create a Web Community for Your Business, Club, Association, or Family [Paperback]

Margaret Levine Young (Author), John R. Levine (Author)

Book Description

Series: Poor Richard's | Publication Date: January 15, 2000

On-line communities work for the same reasons traditional communities work-because of the relationships members form, the information they gather, and the entertainment they view. All provide immediate value and comfort. Poor Richard's Building Online Communities shows how anyone with Internet access can create an on-line community and describes the many advantages. For business, Web communities provide tightly targeted audiences for higher ad rates, more efficient merchandising, excellent word-of-mouth publicity, and customer loyalty. On-line communities can also be used to promote a special interest group or help an organization communicate with its members. This book explains how to create a place on the Web where customers, members, or friends can post announcements, view photos, have discussions, make recommendations, post events, share thoughts, and meet others with similar interests or questions. Such communities are perfect for Scout groups, professional associations, sports clubs, schools, fraternities and sororities, families spread around the globe, and any other group of two or more people who want to share information and experiences.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Cultivate a loyal, active audience with a Web community

Anyone with Internet access can set up an online community-you don't have to be a rocket scientist or spend thousands of dollars. In fact, you probably already have the programs you'll need. But to have a successful Web community where members actively participate you'll need a bit more information. Poor Richard's Building Online Communities explains everything you'll need to know, such as:

What programs are involved and how to manage them Where to promote your community so others can find it How to protect the privacy of your members Ways of dealing with dissension and needless arguments How to provide information that people can use How to foster a sense of trust and belonging with your members.

There are lots of reasons to set up an online community. Maybe you want to discuss your favorite topic, but no one in town shares your interest. Or perhaps you want to find a way for an existing community to communicate more efficiently. The case study of the Unitarian Universalist Association in Chapter 21 is a perfect example of this. Communities can also be used to market a product or service. But be careful.

Many companies and organizations are very interested in creating an online community as a way of driving traffic to their Web sites. Often these "communities" are not communities in the true sense of the word. They don't provide information that people can use. They don't create a sense of belonging and trust. And guess what? They don't have active, loyal members.

Once you have defined your reasons and your goals for creating an online community, Poor Richard's Building Online Communities describes the types of systems you can use.

Mailing lists Usenet newsgroups Web-based message boards Web-based "all in one" community sites Internet Relay Chat (IRC) Instant-messaging systems Virtual worlds MUDs and MOOs

You'll learn the advantages and disadvantages of each system as well as how to create and manage each type of community. But before you create your own community, you'll want to join other communities. The authors explain how. Successful online communities work for the same reasons traditional communities work-because the relationships members form, the information they gather, and the entertainment they view all provide immediate value and comfort. And they fall apart for the same reasons traditional communities fall part-poor management, needless arguments, personal attacks, and other bad behavior. Chapter 13 explains why you need rules for your community and how to enforce those rules.

If you have a community that is open to anyone who shares a common interest, one of your most important duties is acting as the host of the party. You must let people know about your community and invite them to join. Poor Richard's Building Online Communities offers several ways to publicize your community:

Create a home page (you really must have one and Chapter 12 tells what it should contain) and get it registered with the search engines. Ask for links from sites that relate to your topic. Get listed in directories. There are different directories for mailing lists, newsgroups, and so on. Post announcements about your community in other communities (but make sure it isn't spam). Advertise your community (See Chapter 12 to find out when this makes sense.) Maintain searchable archives so that people can try before they buy.

You may think setting up a Web community is expensive, but Chapter 5 describes free mailing list services and Chapter 10 provides links to free Web-based community sites. If you want to add message boards or real-time chat to a Web site you already run, the authors tell you how to do so for free in Chapter 11. The biggest expense you will incur will be the time that you spend. But with the help of this book you will understand the communication systems better and be able to use them more efficiently.

Finally, you will learn from the experience of other online community managers by reading the case studies at the end of this book, which describe successful mailing lists, newsgroups, and Web-based communities. Finding and getting to know people who share your interests is one of the most interesting and useful things you can do on the Internet. So start building your online community now!

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

8 Reasons to Create Your Own Online Community

1. To discuss a topic that no one else is discussing. If there's no online community discussion about your favorite topic, start one! Say you collect antique glass insulators and you'd like to talk about them, but there's no one else in town that shares your interest. You can bet that there are folks on the Internet who do!

2. To provide an online way for an existing community to get together. An online community can be a great way for your extended family, your church, your club, or another existing group to communicate. Several Web sites are specifically designed to allow families or alumni groups to form communities.

3. To create a community with your own personal style. As the creator and manager of an online community, you can make the rules and set the tone of your group.

4. To market a product or service. A Web site is a good first step for marketing online. But providing an online community can help, too. Your community can be directed at the types of people who might want to buy from you. If you demonstrate that you are knowledgeable, provide helpful information, and don't use a hard-sell approach, people will get a good impression of you and your products.

5. To provide support for customers of your product. If you sell something or provide a service, you can let your customers support each other, and support them directly, via an online community.

6. To convince people of your way of thinking. Got an opinion? You can create a community to discuss it and to try to convince people that you are right. However, if you are too strident or don't allow other people to express their opinions, no one will stick around to listen.

7. To share experiences with people. If you've got a medical condition, family problem, or other life situation; you're fighting with a particularly stupid computer program; or you're dealing with some other situation, you can find other people who are in the same boat. You may have some useful advice for them-or they may have some for you.

8. To make money. The manager of an online community can make money by selling ads that are displayed to subscribers. But remember-no one will come to see the ads unless you have useful and interesting material to offer!

The Top 5 Benefits of Online Communities

1. Attracting people to your Web site and inducing them to return regularly (which increases the hit count, and ad revenues, for your whole site)

2. Providing information to your customers (so that they are more likely to buy from you)

3. Demonstrating an interest in and concern for your customers or other constituency (which provides good public relations)

4. Finding out more about what your customers want (so that you can design your products more effectively)

5. Providing a group on which to test-market messages and product designs (for example, offering community members new products for free or for a discount in return for valuable feedback).

Product Details

• Paperback: 386 pages
• Publisher: Top Floor Pub; 1st edition (January 15, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0966103297
• ISBN-13: 978-0966103298
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 7.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,187,786 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Content Lacking, October 27, 2000

By 

Dot (Pawleys Island, SC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Poor Richard's Building Online Communities: Create a Web Community for Your Business, Club, Association, or Family (Paperback)

The publisher sent me a copy of this book. And while I appreciate the gesture, I have to admit that I really found the content and presentation lacking.

The book seems very piecemeal and slapped together, and not at all up-to-date. IMO, this books lays at the very bottom of the heap of web community books.

Readers would do better to see authors Amy Jo Kim or Cliff Figallo for concise, up-to-date information on building communities on the web.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Information, AJdvice and Good Leads, January 15, 2001

By 

"[e-mail]" (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Poor Richard's Building Online Communities: Create a Web Community for Your Business, Club, Association, or Family (Paperback)

As a Community Director for a website that talks to/with huge numbers of consumers daily, I found this book really, really helpful. It outlined several different approaches to the Community challenges without espousing one way only. This is great because not every site has the same needs for a their community. The links to other helpful sources alone were well worth the price of the book. All the advice and information was useable, applicable--nothing was so radical or off-beat that we could not relate. It is now on my desk as a reference tool as we build and rebuild our Community porton of our website.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good book for non-profits and small organizations, March 7, 2001

By 

"tdavan" (Sharon, MA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Poor Richard's Building Online Communities: Create a Web Community for Your Business, Club, Association, or Family (Paperback)

As someone new working in the world of online communities, I found this book to be a great resource. It provides not only technical tips but also gets at the larger social issues of how to manage communities, help them grow, deal with problems, etc. Good overview of lots of topics with links and references of where to go to get more information.