How close are you to your members?

In smaller communities, it is very important for the site admin to have a "relationship" within the community. They don't have to know your real name, but you should make regular appearances so they know you haven't just set up a site and abandoned them.

 

I agree, which is why I try to interact with all my members. Whether if its through private messaging or on the forums. I love being able to talk about basically anything with my members without being judged. That's the freedom of running a good online community.

 

On the Precursor forums I feel it is really something that has dropped on the community in recent months. Very little was happening and members fell through those gaps. It is actually something I am working very hard on changing as a moderator. I am starting to rebuild contact with those who frequently visit the community and hope to continue that work for the following months and develop it further.

 

That's something I need to work on as well. After 10 years of running my forum I forgot about the 'community feel'. I am going to work on my relationship with the community now!

 

That's good to know. Be sure to let us know about your progress with your members!

 

Back when I had my first forums, I knew most the members from other sites online - some even locally to me. But now - I couldn't even tell you where these people are. People move away from sites and contact is too easily lost.

 

I actually talk to a lot of my members on our facebook page as well and when they see me post a new status, they usually rush to the forums to make a reply.

 

As being the founder of a new internet forum, I find that I need to stay close to my current members. I interact with my members on a day to day basis outside of the forum. I have quite a few of my members on Skype, and even a few of them on Facebook. It's good to keep a good relationship with your members as your forum grows. You'll get a lot of great feedback and find good ways to improve your forum.

 

While I do sent an PM sometimes to people on my forum, my main thing is engaging with people in the conversations on my forum. And even for that I sometimes lack the motivation or inspiration for, sadly. Has anyone else experienced this? How did you 'fight' it?