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4 ways publishers can nurture their communities

Last week, I published a piece arguing that publishers are “pivoting to community.” The thesis was simple: years after publishers shut down their website comments sections, they’re now refocusing their efforts on building out online forums where their audiences can congregate and interact. 

The piece argued that there are two main reasons behind this shift:

In some cases, they leverage online forums to collect rich first party data that can be utilized in ad targeting. But I’ve also noticed that many publishers — especially those within the Creator Economy — are offering gated access to communities as a perk for paid subscribers.

I then went on to list five strategies any publisher should consider when launching an online community. There was only one problem with my list: it only focused on the technical aspects of launching a community — things like choosing a hosting platform and the best way to gate access.

I didn’t touch on the human factor of running a community — namely, the ways that publishers can directly participate in their forums to generate better discussion and engagement. The build-it-and-they-will-come ethos doesn’t work with message boards, which means that the content creators themselves must play an active role in nurturing the kind of discourse that will keep your audience coming back for more.

Here are four strategies for generating better discussion and improving the “stickiness” of your community:

Hyper responsiveness

In my piece last week I wrote about the “ghost town” problem, which is when a reader lands in your community, sees no recent discussion, and then leaves, never to return again. This problem is especially pervasive during the early months after a community’s launch.

One way to encourage repeat visits is to respond to as many high quality comments as possible. If you’re in my private Facebook Group, for instance, you’ve probably noticed that I often respond to comments within the hour. Not only does this reward the commenters, but it also sends signals to Facebook’s algorithm that the post is highly engaging, which in turn exposes it to a higher percentage of my group’s members.

In many cases, publishers will assign these commenting tasks to their social media editors, but I think there’s a case to be made that the journalists/creators who are actually producing your content should be encouraged to spend time each week responding to reader comments. Your journalists are the foremost experts on the topics being discussed, and their presence establishes a more stark connection between the editorial output and the discussion around it. To your most engaged audience, your journalists are quasi-celebrities, so those readers likely place a lot of value in being able to interact with those celebrities.

Host regular AMAs

For the uninitiated, AMA stands for “ask me anything.” In most cases, AMAs involve a subject matter expert making themselves available to answer as many questions from a community as humanly possible.

To get a sense of what these look like, check out these AMAs hosted by staffers from the Washington Post:

• We're The Washington Post data journalists and finished a comprehensive project tracking the opioid crisis in America. AMA.

• I’m David Fahrenthold, Washington Post reporter who reported on Trump’s misuse of charity money, and the Access Hollywood tape. AMA!

• I am Anna Fifield, North Korea reporter for The Washington Post. AMA!

So how can you introduce AMAs into your community? One way is to conduct them shortly after publishing in-depth investigative features. Give the article about 24 hours to be consumed by your audience, and then announce that the journalist will start answering questions from the community at a predetermined time. Encourage your audience to begin submitting the questions in advance so that the journalist has several waiting in the queue for when they start the AMA. 

Or you can host AMAs in response to major news events. For instance, after every government jobs report, make your economics reporter available to answer questions. Capitalize on those brief-but-intense periods of interest that are easy to predict in advance.

Crowdsource/create feedback loops

Depending on the size and niche of your community, you could be sitting on a wealth of expertise. In my own Facebook group, I’m often amazed by the level of subject-matter expertise my commenters offer up; often they know more about a particular subject than I do.

Media outlets can capitalize on this expertise by asking open-ended questions within their forums. They can then take the best responses and incorporate them into articles and videos. This creates a great feedback loop in which your community provides you the content and then the content then drives new readers into the community.

BuzzFeed has been particularly good at leveraging its community to generate unique content. For instance, one of its staff writers recently asked the BuzzFeed community to provide personal anecdotes of when they were inappropriately hit on by men, and then they curated the 19 best responses. That post went viral and led to over 139 comments, most of which contained additional anecdotes.

Deploy the ban hammer

When all those publishers shut down their comments sections, every single one of them cited the trolls as their chief reason. Indeed, it really only takes a few bad apples to poison the well and drive your most thoughtful commenters away.

That’s why you need to be extremely vigilant in keeping trolls and self-promoters out of your forums.

A big part of the equation involves being smart about how you grant access to your community. If you only allow in paying subscribers, then that will weed out the vast majority of drive-by trolls that have no real affinity for your brand. Paying subscribers also have a much higher propensity for quality discussion because they’re personally invested in the subject matter.

What if you don’t gate your community behind a paywall? Well, with my Facebook group, I first set it to private so that users need to ask permission to enter it. I then promoted it at the bottom of my newsletter, ensuring that only my most engaged readers — the ones who consume it in its entirety —  would see it. I also implemented an automated question that asks people how they discovered the group. Everyone who refuses to answer the question gets rejected. As a result of this process, I can count on one hand how many trolls I’ve had to ban.

That being said, some trolls will inevitably slip through, and for those you need to deploy the ban hammer with extreme prejudice. I practice a zero tolerance policy —one off-topic or trollish post, and you’re kicked out of the group forever. Trolls are like weeds; if one is allowed to sprout up, then it’ll quickly spawn more. You need to set community standards and enforce them. 

***

Will everything I outlined above take real labor and investment? Yes! Just as every city and town needs to be governed, the same is true for online communities. Community members will visit your site more frequently, churn less frequently, and generate more first-party data. They’re a valuable sounding board when you’re trying to test out new products, and they can be extremely generous with their time.

But that relationship doesn’t come automatically. You have to build trust and affection, even when there’s no immediate monetary value. To reap the harvest, you must first plant the seeds.

What’s your community strategy?

Seriously, I want to know the answer. How do you interact with your audience, and what role does your community play in helping you grow your business? Leave a detailed comment, and I’ll include the best answers in Friday’s newsletter. Comment here:

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Quick hits

Are you using paid media to acquire new newsletter subscribers? Then you should first calculate the average lifetime value of a subscriber so that you can determine your maximum user acquisition cost. [Sparkloop]

NowThis, which is owned by Vox Media, has basically written the playbook for how to succeed at social news video. [Press Gazette]

"According to data from Luminate’s Podcast 360 report ... YouTube is the most-used platform for podcasts, with 78% of US podcast listeners 13 and older saying they have used the streamer for their shows." [The Verge]

A group of media conglomerates are lobbying for legislation that will obliterate fair use in order to force tech conglomerates to pay them money. Independent creators and very small media outlets probably won't benefit from it at all. [Public Knowledge]

More evidence that digital comics are becoming a bigger and bigger business. [Bloomberg]

ICYMI: How Josh Spector monetizes his 25,000 newsletter subscribers

He does it through a mixture of consulting, advertising, and paid subscriptions.

Ever wonder why I only promote my private Facebook group at the bottom of my newsletter?

It’s so only my most engaged readers try to join. This keeps the quality of discussion extremely high. See for yourself: [Facebook]