Newbie Alert

How many times have you taken the time to stop and examine your community through the eyes of a newbie? I must admit to having dropped the ball on this of late. I think I had neglected to remember what it was like to feel like a newbie until I started some college classes recently. Everything was new, and strange and I had no idea what was going on. The first day of my International Business class I must have looked like a deer caught in car headlights lights as the professor loaded us up with rules, guidelines and our first assignment. I got home that evening with my head spinning wondering what I had let myself in for. That feeling of being the "newbie" is certainly not a nice one.

I feel extremely lucky to have the opportunity to learn at the feet of many great community managers who are terrific at sharing their experiences and tips. All those different ways of looking at the way I carry out things has made me realize that I have dropped the ball on "newbie relations" over the last year or so. Something that during the last 3 months I've been trying to rectify.

I don't have any fancy solutions for this, but one thing I do know is that, "one size doesn't fit all". Needless to say, the first place to start is to take a long look around your community. See if there are any gaps that a newbie could slip through. Any unmarked exits or pot holes that would swallow them up.

You also need take into account that not everyone is a seasoned internet user, and your newbie may not only be new to "your" community, but also new to online communities: period. So don't turn your community into a maze. Make sure the site navigation/menus are very clear and concise with plenty of bread crumbs. If it looks like a maze upon entry it may put your newbie off posting or else they will get lost in the many pathways never to resurface.

Make your community as welcoming to new members as you can. There are around 60-80 people joining our community every day. That's too large an amount to email each person individually. We have a standard email that we send to each person upon registration, but what I've recently started doing is sending a batch email at the end of every month; targeting those people who have joined in the last 30 days and have made a minimum of 3 posts. I've tried to make the email as personal as possible: sent from me, using my email address. I welcome each member to the community with a personal message asking them that if they have questions or any site usability queries to contact me. This has shown great results for me so far, with people responding in a positive way; asking questions and thanking me for my email. It's made them feel special, and that their membership really matters to me, and the community. Give it a try, see if it works for you.

Bottom line is that I've had to relearn what it is like to be a new member, and re-evaluate where I was going wrong. So if like me you've done the same thing don't sweat it. Instead, take a look at your community with fresh eyes and find a way to encourage newbies to post, or lurkers to stop lurking. It's never too late to fix what's broken, or to look at things from a new angle. The only way you can go wrong is to do nothing at all. What have you got to loose?