Practical Community Management

Time-tested techniques on how to launch and grow online communities.

Activating new members and retaining them in an online community are the biggest challenges that any community manager faces nowadays. Low engagement leads to difficulty getting buy-in from the organization and shrinking budgets for community initiatives. Community managers have to work hard to get even the smallest communities going. But the truth is, the success of a community depends on what you do, not how hard you do it.

Take two identical exotic plants. Give the first to an ordinary person. Give the second plant to an expert horticulturist. The bet is that after six months, the second plant will have grown into a much healthier plant than the first. The situation is similar with online communities; in order for a community to function properly, one needs to know "how many times to water" and "when to fertilize." If you happen to have that exotic plant called an online community, and you want to know what you need to do to nurture and cultivate it, this book is written just for you.

Work smarter, not harder. Leverage the time-tested practical advice, told in a structured, digestible way, through the prism of the author's personal experience in growing Stack Overflow communities.