The road to community continues
A community, literally, is a place where many people live together. Speaking on the Internet, it can include forums, SNS, Weibo, etc.; the community mentioned here refers to websites based on interactive forums and providing other social services. With the increasing maturity of community software such as discuz and phpwind and the deepening influence of the Internet on society, more and more individual webmasters choose to create their own community websites, whether based on industry or region. Now, almost every city has at least one website named after a neighborhood, whether influential or not. In fact, there are very few truly influential communities, and most of them remain unnoticed. Of course, there are still some leaders in the community who make a lot of money. As a result, people who engage in community development began to follow the example of those who successfully ran communities. The author is fortunate to have become a "successor" who has not yet "moved forward" because of the establishment of Erqita Community at the end of June this year. Learn from those who "went forward" and my own "going forward" experience, and I would like to use this article to encourage those who come after me.
Content aggregation, the first stage of community operation
The core of a community lies in interaction. Without interaction, a community is not a community. However, interaction is so difficult. Not to mention new communities, even old communities that have been around for several years are facing the embarrassment of declining interactivity. So, maybe we should “save the country through curves”. The author's Erqita community tried its best to get users to stay and communicate with others at the beginning. However, after a period of experiments, it was found that the effect was very unsatisfactory; the only ones who really stayed were those who posted advertisements indiscriminately. Therefore, we must give users a reason to stay. Of course, there are many methods, but we, small webmasters, have no money or strength. It is basically unrealistic to rely on burning money or developing new and unique applications to retain users, so we can only adopt the method of aggregating some content that users need. Attract visitors and make them stay. For example, the author's Erqita Community is an online communication platform for all college students in Zhengzhou, so the author focused on creating sections such as the Henan Civil Service Examination, Zhengzhou College Students' Postgraduate Entrance Examination, Zhengzhou College Students' CET-4 and CET-6 Examinations, and Zhengzhou College Students' Part-time Jobs. The purpose is to Use this valuable content to retain users.
Move towards "entertainment interaction" and become a real community
Content aggregation is an endless thing. If the website does not transform, then being a content station may not be a bad thing; however, what we are talking about here is a community, so the website must transform. As mentioned before, interaction is the core of the community. So what the website needs to do is to transform from content aggregation to interaction. Of course, transformation requires motivation. Perhaps “entertainment” is the motivation for website transformation. When more and more users stay because of the valuable content of the website, then providing entertaining and eye-catching topics for everyone to discuss together is what the website must do. Here, entertainment is just an example and not necessary, attracting attention is necessary; that is to say, the topic that the website wants to create as a hot topic in the community does not need to be entertaining, but it must be able to attract users so that they can publish it. A strong desire to have your own point of view. However, these are optimistic estimates, because it is unknown to what extent content aggregation can attract and retain enough users, and whether community operators can find "discussion points" based on gaining enough users. An unknown quantity. However, these are things that must be done unless you really want to be a content site. In addition, it needs to be emphasized that because there are too many types of communities, some communities may have content aggregation as their ultimate goal from the beginning, but that is another matter.
If your competitors scold you, maybe they are afraid.
A rational webmaster will definitely analyze the competition before establishing a community. For example, if you want to establish a community for college students in a certain city, you should check whether there is any such community that already exists in the city. But predictions are predictions after all. Because the fact is that many communities feel that they have no competitors before they are established, but after they are established, they find that they are surrounded by competitors. For example, a regional comprehensive online community did not exist in this area, and then someone established it. However, comprehensive communities have information related to job hunting, recruitment, and part-time jobs, so the original recruitment websites and part-time job websites in this area have become competitors of the community; there are sections related to house rentals, so the original house rental websites have become competitors. ; and so on. Another point that cannot be ignored is the Baidu Tieba. For example, if an online community for a certain university thinks that it is the first forum of the university before it is established, it may be easier to gain everyone's favor. However, it is later discovered that everyone is already in the forum. The chat in Baidu’s “XX College Bar” was very high. Of course, competition will definitely exist. The only way left for community operators is to "go their own way and leave them with no way to go." As long as the competition process is fair, even if they really have no way to go, this kind of The approach is also understandable. However, for God, it is "nothing to blame", but for competitors, this is not the case. Their most immediate reaction is to scold you, even if you do not actually endanger them. Perhaps, we should be grateful for this. A certain best-selling book said: Even if you are scolded, users must remember that the process of abuse by competitors is also a process of free publicity for community operators. The most important thing is that their abuse proves that they may be afraid. They may be afraid that they feel the pressure you bring. Then, this indirectly proves that your community operation has been somewhat successful.
last words
The above remarks are purely personal opinions, and I apologize for any shortcomings. I hope to make friends with comrades who are interested in the Internet. My QQ: 820326371 Erqita Community ( www.1927ta.com ) is originally created by the webmaster. Please indicate when reprinting, thank you.
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