- Determine the scope of the community as far as topics, target audience, and purpose
- Consider integration (or at least compatibility) with existing communities 
- Decide on internal organization: is the group subdivided, how does the group share information with members? 


How to carve out a niche for a new Online Community?

- Identifying a useful niche
- Managing competition from other online communities for both potential members’ attention and the niche

University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

Creating an online community requires a critical mass of users and a sufficient amount of content to attract and retain members. This is known as the critical mass problem.

In a cancer support group, for example, the content may be messages shared by cancer survivors and caregivers. In an open-source software development community, it may be a base of working code for developers to build upon. On a site like YouTube, the content is user-generated video clips.

Obtaining critical mass for an online community

Kraut, Robert E., and Paul Resnick. Building successful online communities: Evidence-based social design. MIT Press, 2012.

Building successful online communities: Evidence-based social design (Kraut and Resnick)

Maintaining the critical mass of users and content

Without enough content, it can be difficult to attract users, and without enough users, it can be difficult to generate the content that would attract others.

Learn Before

Related

Learn After