Why I think free communities are a trap
Greetings Reader,
Recently I had a chat with another guy. He had started a free community. Now he padded back and made it paid.
I have also had a free community before. It felt like a good next step for my business. The reality nobody became a client of mine. They just came to hang out.
The hardest part that nobody is talking about is actually the time commitment of a community. There is a limit of what the community can handle. For it to feel like a community it needs to be active. Yet exactly that is the challenge.
In the beginning I had to start all conversations. Reply to all messages. To keep at least a little bit of engagement alive.
Later it was almost as much work to moderate the community.
That’s why I believe a community can only work when it’s paid. Then you have less spam and more serious engagement. It also helps that more people will engage.
The only exception is a community for software. There it could help to have the ability to use it as support. People will look in when they have an issue. Here it is a good way to help others. A rich forum and Helpdesk is going to improve the quality of the software.
The challenge really is that in consumer products it becomes a big overhead to keep an active community alive.
Those are just my experiences on how a community can be great, but also a big time sink.
I keep moving a community more and more towards high end, because the value can be great when it’s kept niche. That’s what I got for today.
Yours in Stewardship
Jowi
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