It would be great to be able to speak directly to a group of people who hung onto your every word, gave you their complete attention and listened intently to what you had to say.

Imagine the potential of having participants who suggested, questioned and informed your business decisions which could then be generated into added value.

The power of social media is enabling more people to leverage that power through online communities. An online community is essentially a group of people who follow your brand, product or services and actively engage in discussions around your topics.

Now there are some things to think about when trying to set up your own network of passionate individuals who will take pride in following what you do.

• The needs of the community must come first
• An active approach is key to successful management
• There are different types of online communities which all provide unique value but are not the same
• A community will work better if business is integrated into it
• Growth will come after the community finds its own identity
• Shared ownership and control glues all participants within the community together
• There should be the same social rules applying in online spaces

The biggest failure of online communities is not having a people person managing the network, someone who genuinely loves talking, listening and communicating.

There are some interesting debates as to whether the online community should be managed by the company in a top-down way. The advantages are that the organization can control what is being said and direct the group in a certain way.

However others feel that the users should control the group to allow a natural, organic and user friendly approach where the group directs itself. The advantage would be that the active users within the community will take charge and the organization would be able to focus on other areas of their business.

So what does it take to be a really good online community manager?

In the offline world, a manager would be good with people, understanding, assertive, passionate and have the foresight to achieve set goals. Experience of working in a customer service role, managing a sports team or volunteering for a charity would provide useful examples that could transfer into other areas.

Taking this online depends on the type of community you want to build. A community managed by the organization or one run by users? Which ever you choose the fundamentals would be the same.

Everyone working on or within the community has to be passionate, absolutely love asking questions, providing answers, encouraging others and maintaining an active community.

The most important aspect of managing an online community would be to measure everything that is being done. The levels of participation, growth of members, concerns raised within the group, disengagement and the overall health of the group should be monitored.

Some examples of good online communities can be found here:

XMFan around XM Radio

HDTalking for Harley-Davidson

IKEAFANS on IKEA products

Obviously the two different types of online communities could be combined which would possible please both camps, the organization and the users.

So if building an online community is something that you want to develop, here are four ideas to think about: facilitation, content, evangelism and evolution.

A community manager has to monitor conversations, provide answers to questions and know the users to direct different people into conversations at different times.

An online community responds to content so a fresh stream of blog posts, discussion topics, videos, pictures, tweets, etc should be employed to generate activity around that content.

People only know something exists if they are told about it, so a manager has to speak to people and explain why the community is amazing.

Lastly it is important to think about how the community needs to grow and the direction of the group over a number of years. This is where the community manager can develop what works well and delete what does not.

For more information on online community management read the following:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Hinchcliffe/?p=913

http://webworkerdaily.com/2009/01/30/online-community-managers-what-do-they-do/

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/01/tribal-manageme.html

http://www.communityguy.com/1946/guest-pattern-language/

http://www.slideshare.net/jeremiah_owyang/online-community-best-practices-final