What makes great communities?
What draws people to communities, and then inspires them to become active participants?
What inspires existing members of a community to invite friends and family to join their community, without hesitation?
What makes communities grow and thrive, rather than stagnate and fade away?
A Bit of Personal Experience...
Now, I'll be the first to admit that people are all different, so answering the above questions in a general sense ends up somewhat as an exercise that's subject to individual people's lenses of perception.
That said, certain things tend to hold true, regardless... and I am speaking from 25-odd years experience with web communities, dating back to early web message boards, and some of the first AmericaOnline communities in the first half of the 1990's.
I've been a SYSOP in very old Usenet groups, I've been owner, admin, moderator and/or community volunteer and liaison in numerous message board communities, social blogging venues, Facebook groups and other organizations.
Those are my qualifications,... but again... these words are also simply my observations!
People Want to Be PART of Something Interesting!
Maybe that seems like a "well, DUH!" observation, but it's actually remarkable how many organizations totally miss the mark in this aspect, and then wonder why their communities stagnate.
What we're talking about here, is content. Doesn't matter whether it's cat pictures, psychology, photography tips, developer chatter or political discussions... if you don't have something of substance and interest to offer, you're not going to get very far. Promises are not enough...
The sales pitch of "because it's SHINY and NEW!" or "it's cutting edge technology" only gets you so far, unless there's something to back it up. People are pretty fickle, as are online community users. Which is why many communities suffer from the problem of only ending up with 3-5 active users for every 100 signups. You have to deliver on your sales pitch!
Yes, cat pictures sell...
People want to feel like they are getting VALUE
In this context, "value" doesn't have much to do with money, and a lot to do with community members feeling like the time they are investing in the community has value. Billions of people use Facebook, because they feel there is value in their friends leaving them lots of smiley faces and likes.
This gets back to the "being part of something," criterion: Now that I am HERE I want to have the feeling that my time, energy and effort amounts to more than just frustration and "pissing into the wind." I want to be part of creating something. A movement. A piece of the future. A circle of friends. A legacy. A community.
"Value" is a pretty sneaky concept, however, and a slippery beast to actually define... which is why organizations like Facebook employ entire floors of researchers known as "retention specialists" who do very little more than keep track of why people are drawn to one thing and not to another.
People want to feel HEARD
Although they tend to be in the minority in outside life, the majority of online community users tend to be introverts. This has interesting implications for online communities, because introverts tend to use these communities as outlets through which they can feel HEARD, in ways they often don't in the outside world.
In terms of community building, the significance here mostly points to the importance of engagement and interaction with other community members.
Let's face it, when I DO decide to join a web community, and I DO commit to sharing some of my content... the LAST thing I want to experience is that I put heart and effort into something, publish it, and the sum-total response I get is the sound of crickets chirping.
Epic Fail!
As Community Builders, Know What You HAVE!
One of the more most important aspects of community building is knowing what exactly it IS you have to offer.
Moreover, know what you don't have! Be willing to examine your shortcomings and weaknesses (as an organization) because it'll help you define your target community member.
In that respect, a community's greatest marketing assets are its existing active long-term members. Why? Because they already know how the community works, and can tailor a message to the particular person — or group of people — they are trying to attract.
There are few things more sketchy (and offputting!) than having someone tell you some project/community is "the greatest thing ever" but when you ask them a question it turns out they only started YESTERDAY. I admire the enthusiasm, but it's not exactly confidence inspiring.
Patience is an IMPORTANT Virtue
To put it bluntly, a lot of communities are simply too impatient to succeed.
Is that a blanket condemnation of sorts? Not really... but it's something that seems almost inevitable, on both sides of the coin.
Communities tend to want to grow faster than is realistically possible, so they sacrifice essential parts of their vision for the community in favor of "BIG numbers, and quickly."
A gradual organic build — although it may feel slow and boring — is far more likely to build a lasting and sustainable community than simply "opening the floodgates to all comers."
I remember just a few years ago (2012?)... a couple of young guys were building one of the early versions of "social media that rewards users" and had a pretty good thing going. But they were — in essence — still working out a lot of the kinks when they took it upon themselves to go on a media tour with all the financial and business news services.
In the next couple of months, their community was flooded by several MILLION new users, most of them seeking money for nothing. Another 3-4 months later, the community shut down. It was a textbook case of reaching for the wrong crowd, and too fast.
Community Building via ENGAGEMENT and AUTHENTICITY
To kind of start summarizing all this, my observation of long-term thriving communities is that they combine two essential factors: Authenticity and Engagement.
Community members — old and new — develop loyalty because they feel comfortable that they have a place where their sharing can be authentic. And that feeling comes from seeing that others are also being authentic. That authenticity is one of the things that adds the all-important value.
The other essential factor is engagement. If everybody is too wrapped up in creating their contributions but are taking no time to engage, you're basically creating a giant "virtual book" with no readers.
Communities that really work and thrive do so because there is a balance of creation and consumption.
I don't know if you've spent much time using message boards or groups, but I can tell you that people who "post flood" — however well-intentioned — and never engage tend to be more annoying than valued.
Beware Poor Sales Pitches!
I'll close this out with some cautionary words about the dangers of misleading and ill-conceived sales pitches.
Every time I hear a misleading pitch, I always think of a sign on the wall at a BBQ joint I used to go to, when I lived in Texas. The sign read:
Tomorrow: FREE BEER AND BBQ!
Huge promises of success, money, free stuff, easy pickins' or whatever else is definitely a way of getting LOTS of people in the front door. But is that really the right answer?
Bubbles are easily burst...
Keep in mind that — figuratively speaking — they are ONLY THERE to drink your free beer. They are there for the free handout, not to be part of something. And as soon as there's no more free handout, they'll head on to the next place that has free handouts.
This sort of pattern is particularly prevalent in network marketing communities where 99% of tomorrow's participants are enrolled based on gross misrepresentations of their potential success... typically purveyed by people who have had very little success, themselves.
And this is where we "close the loop." We go back to "Know what you have," with the urging that you stick to offering what you HAVE, rather than offering wildly unrealistic promises, in service of trying to speed up the process.
Just... DON'T...
Thanks for reading and stay safe out there! I understand there's a virus going around that tries to kill people...
Author's note: This is an updated version of an article on community building I wrote several years back but never published. Then I chose to not publish it on Steem after everything collapsed into bid bots and reward pool rape, but now seems to be a good time for it to be finished and set free as we move forward with building Hive.
In its own way, it also speaks to 
ENGAGEMENT MATTERS! Comments, feedback and other interaction is invited and welcomed! Because — after all — SOCIAL content is about interacting, right? Leave a comment-- share your experiences-- be part of the conversation!
(As usual, all text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly for this platform.)
Created at 20200428 21:41 PDT
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