Know-How Exchange : Strategy

Don't underestimate the amount of time and effort (and focused attention) it will take to create, nurture and sustain your community site. To do it right, you'll probably need a talented full-time editor at first ... maybe for quite a while. And it's more than just an editor ... more like a den mother or mother hen.

Of course, that's if you want your community to really get involved. If you just want the bragging rights (i.e., to be able to say you have a community site), you can probably get by with less.

And it may take some time before you get serious advertisers, because they'll all want to see how many eyeballs you attract and therefore how efficient the medium will be for them.

It does take a lot of work to get these started. Be sure to line up people who will commit to participating regularly. People who will check in daily and keep things moving. people will not join up unless there is activity. I think you will want at least a dozen people who will commit to being involved daily for a couple of months.

You will have to peronally invite some people to get this started. Make sure these are connected people that will invite others.

Can your station give away promos for people being involved. You can do a drawing for people who were active each week.

Good luck with your endeavor.

Mike