Changing your tools to meet your online community’s needs

If I’ve learned anything from a decade of online community management, it’s that you cannot teach people how to use your community “correctly.” Your members will use the tools you make available the ways that suit them, and time spent trying to convince them to use them differently is just a waste of moderator energy. Your tools MUST match the needs of your community — if your members are not using the tools the way you intended, then you need to reassess the tool.

This situation gets even more complex because the needs of a community shift as it matures. A tool that might have been awesome at one era of a community’s development might be completely pointless during another era. You can’t get attached to your tools, because if your members aren’t using them, they’re useless.

Ok, ok. Less vague-blogging. Let me give you a very specific recent example from the Offbeat Bride Tribe: the killing of the Primal Scream Therapy section.

From Blog to Empire: An Interview with Ariel Meadow Stallings

Over on the Skimlinks blog, they just published an interview with me about growing your blog, monetization, coworking, and the future of the Empire.

Offbeat Mama is becoming Offbeat Families

This weekend we’re flipping the switch: Offbeat Mama will become Offbeat Families. The title of the site will change, the URL will be switch to offbeatfamilies.com (although all the old offbeatmama.com links will still work), and one of the header characters has undergone a transition from “blonde soccer mom” to “blonde soccer butch/transdad/pretty SAHD/fey uncle/gender-queer auntie/whatever ze wants to be.”

This re-brand has been under consideration for a long-ass time, and we’re super excited about what it means for the site…

A different kind of viral post

Today, Offbeat Mama is having its highest traffic day since launching in 2009 because a post called I’ve started telling my daughters I’m beautiful has gone viral. But it’s going viral in ways I’ve never seen before. If you like nerding out about this kind of thing, huddle up. Let’s take a look at how this post is different…