Building communities

Once you have experience participating in communities and you have seen your network grow exponentially, the natural evolution and inclination may be to build a community. Whether or not you decide to build communities of your own, these techniques can be applied to your advanced participation in communities and to further strengthen and provide feedback to community leaders.

These suggestions can be utilized if your community is an internal corporate community for employees or if your community is external to your employer. In today’s climate, communities happen in a multitude of environments – internal, external, virtual, or in-person.

You can adapt techniques to fit your particular community.

When you are ready to initiate a community, take the time to define a strategy and target audience. It is often tempting to dig right in and start taking action when the motivation strikes to build a community; however, it will be helpful to define...