If you don’t grow, adapt, and change you will not be able to run a successful online community. That’s not to say you should forget about your core goals, values, and members, but you still need to keep up. Sometimes that includes simply apply security updates. Other times it might require a complete site rebuild.
Watch the market. What are other forums or blogs doing. Are you keeping up with the latest’s trends. Don’t just check out sites in your niche, check out sites in other niches as well. Do you want to be the first of your competitors to launch a new feature or the last? What is the software vendors up to? Are there some new beta copies you can test out? You need to keep up or you will be run over.
In your quest to keep up, just don’t forget about your audience and core values. Installing a new WordPress theme every month is surly going to frustrate you regular visitors. Try to adding features, don’t change or remove existing features unless there is a really good reason to do so. You don’t know what features your regular visitors will miss. Don’t try to be all things to all people. Try to give your community the tools and features they need. Remember you audience.
Another area to think about when you are looking to keep up is to diversify your communities. Do you run only one community? What are you goals? Are you looking to make money? If yes then run more than one community. Diversify your traffic over a network of communities that cover several niches. When one niche slows down others will pick up the slack. If you want to depend on your community to make a consistent income then don’t put all your eggs in one basket.
That is where I am at right now. I have sites that cover several niches, but most of my money making sites are local regional based sites. I need to start working on and promoting internet wide sites that cover a specific niche and not a geographical area.
I make money as sports photographer. but that only covers the northern California area. Sacramento News at FromTheCapitol.com does nicely for income. My community forums tends to pull in a decent amount of traffic and money.
Now I am branching out and covering non-geographic niches. My first two sites I am starting are Type 1 Online and Photography Wisdom. Type 1 Online is all about being a parent of a Type 1 Diabetic. Photography wisdom is all about teaching people about photography.
It will take time to build traffic and communities for these sites, but I need to do so. I need to Expand and diversify my traffic and income. I will keep you updated with the progress.
What do you do to stay ahead? Do you run multiple communities?
