Top Five Community Management Blog Posts: September 2011

A few days late and several dollars short, here are my picks for the best online community management blog posts from September:

1. How to win a fight with a naked man and 5 other community-management techniques

Love the title. Love the premise. Jesse Stanchak reminds us that when you strip away all that newfangled Internet stuff, online communities are still people in a shared space with a shared purpose.  Use this knowledge to get your community to work together and obey the rules.

2. How to Get More Replies on Your Forums

Great online conversations only happen when people respond to a question or a topic. But how do you get that response? Patrick O’Keefe lays out some useful tips to get people talking. It all starts with compelling content and an invitation to get involved.

3. The 13 hats of an internal community manager

The best community managers are the ones that are jacks of all trades: They know how to deal with trolls, but they also know what to do when the technology breaks. Steve Radick lays out 13 roles an internal community manager must play — from promoting the community to cleaning out the crap in the file library.

4. 10 Things About Building An Online Community That May Surprise You

OK, so none of these things will surprise an experienced community manager. But Socious marketing director Joshua Paul does a nice job laying out the basics of community building that every company should read and understand before deciding whether or not to launch an online community.

5. Planning For A Big Community (The Mistake Made By Managers Of Huge Online Communities)

All communities start out small. But what happens when the community explodes with members and content? Granted, it’s a problem most community managers want to have. But as Richard Millington writes, it doesn’t need to be a problem at all if you plan ahead.

Photo credit: Amaury Henderick