How Facebook turns active users into community managers – without paying a dime (video)

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You want to develop a stronger, more passionate community. You want your members to invite like-minded folks to join your community and you want the cultists to encourage others to be more active. You them to do both of these things regularly. And you want this all to happen naturally – because it won’t happen if you push.

How Facebook leverages their community

How can you create opportunities for your community do this naturally – like Facebook does. Watch this video and notice how Facebook embeds inviting and connecting with friends into a user’s daily activities.

Two things to do now

  1. Give users more opportunities to invite their friends.
  2. Give active members opportunities to reach out to inactive members.
  3. And while we’re at it, can your members log-in with Facebook Connect?
Photo by Laughing Squid
Posted December 1, 2009
  • John! What a great, short example of just a few subtle things that FB does that we see everyday.

    I compartmentalize this idea for my customers by trying to convince them that true, honest, authentic participation leads to real live engagement with people.

    When you use a tool in the way that it was meant to be used, then you will find more people to engage with. It's magic!
  • "true, honest, authentic participation leads to real live engagement" - right on!
  • Yep, this was one of my reasons for making the claim:

    The online "social web" — social networks and social media — allows people to organize their social connections, not simply to put them in order, but to connect and collaborate with others. Evite invitations and Facebook events are clear examples of this, as is Wikipedia.

    Increasingly, the social web is teaching everyday folks how to be community organizers.

    It's usually gurus, however, who get — or take — the credit for this transformation. On the contrary, I see it as a much more grassroots bubbling-up of organizing skills. Everyone has the ability to organize and inspire others; the current tools are simply making those skills more visible.


    Gurus Are Not Enough: A Call for Organizers and Organizing in Social Media
    http://rtw.kr/71

    It's a great point you make, John -- if you want to build a strong community, give people lots of opportunities to bring their friends into the fold.
  • Ivan - thanks for the link to the article.
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