4Talent Inspiration Session – Building Online Communities like Flickr and Habbo Hotel – Part 3
Posted on 01. Nov, 2008 by Chi-chi Ekweozor in Engagement Marketing, Events, Inspired
Here is installment number 3 in my notes from Channel 4’s 4Talent Inspiration Session on Online Communities at Birmingham’s first digital festival, Hello Digital.
This post features my notes from Ally Branley, Community Manager at Channel 4′s talk.
Speakers at the 4Talent Inspiration Session on Online Communities were:
- Community Consultant Ed Mitchell whose talk on public sector online community initiatives I’ve already presented.
- Emma Monks, Senior Manager, Moderation and Safety at teen friendly virtual world, Habbo Hotel whose fascinating presentation on teen behaviour at Habbo Hotel you can read here.
- Ally Branley, Community Manager at Channel 4 whose insightful tips on community management I will be presenting here.
- Heather Champ, Director of Community at Flickr, the world’s largest photo-sharing site whose talk I will be presenting tomorrow.
The 4Talent Inspiration Session on Online Communities was a one day series of talks and small group sessions aimed at helping web content creators and online community managers build, grow and manage successful online communities.
Here come my notes from Ally Branley’s talk.
After a brief introduction on her journey from working on one of the first student intranet radio services to working on popular TV shows like The Big Breakfast, The Word and So Graham Norton, Ally presented a number of tips for budding community managers.
Ally Branley’s Tips for Budding Community Managers:
- Think hard about the difference between an audience and a community.
- What’s your long term plan? Think about running costs. Where is it going?
- Pre-moderation, the facility to prevent unsuitable user comments from going live, can be a significant cost, be careful.
- Embrace fan sites: examples include the Deal or No Deal fansite dond.co.uk, HollyBebo, a Bebo group created by a fan that has over 89,000 members.
Other notable points:
It’s hard for a big brand to try and launch into a space based around ‘betas’, they are in the spotlight from the word go.
Communities aren’t launched, they grow.
What’s changed? “People want to comment as they’re watching TV.”
Channel 4’s new project The TV Show attempts to address this.
As community manager for Channel 4, Ally oversees over 20 community tools ranging from the Big Brother and Hollyoaks forums to PictureThis, a community site dedicated to helping photographers improve their skills.
Ally’s heroes in online community are the new stars created by combining offline activity with online personality.
One example is Big Brother on the Streets presenter Tom Thurlow who films short interviews with people on the street about the hit TV show.
That’s it! Tomorrow I’ll be posting my notes from Heather Champ, Flickr’s Director of Community’s talk.
What do you think?
For all you community managers reading this, I’d love to hear your thoughts on how effective pre-moderation is at stopping trolls.
Please share your experiences in the comments.
Oh, and on a small note, we are up 12 places to #63 on the UK’s Top 100 Marketing Weblogs. Here’s the most recent list.
Related posts:
- 4Talent Inspiration Session – Building Online Communities like Flickr and Habbo Hotel – Part 1
- 4Talent Inspiration Session – Building Online Communities like Flickr and Habbo Hotel – Part 2
- 4Talent Inspiration Session – Building Online Communities like Flickr and Habbo Hotel – Part 4
- Sheffield Melts Creativity – Melt 2008 Inspiration Session – Part 1
- Sheffield Melts Creativity – Melt 2008 Inspiration Session – Part 3
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