8 Keys to Moving Your Community

[#1]

Moving is a confusing and anxious experience. It feels like you just got your collection of limited edition Elvis dinner plates mounted on the wall, and now you are packing up boxes, forwarding your mail, and trying to find out where the power outlets are in your new place. It can feel the same way to your members when you move your community to a new platform.

But just as we outgrow the starter apartments we lived in after college, you may decide the community platform you started with no longer meets the needs of your community (or your business). You need to transition to a new site, but you want to bring the best of your community with you - how do you make it work?

In our experience, successful transitions to new community platforms do the following 8 things well:

1. Reconcile goals and objectives: be sure that you understand how the objectives of the new community are different in any way from the old one - even healthy communities' objectives will shift over time with the needs of the organization.
2. Focus on the active membership: Don't try to target everyone, identify and reach out to members who have been active on the site in the last 3-6 months.
3. Recognize members' prior participation: Even if the objectives of the old and new communities are completely different, the reputations that members built in your old community are very valuable to them. Make sure you recognize that value in an equivalent way on your new community, while still giving members room to grow.
4. Have a simple plan for the logistics of moving members: The more complicated it is, the harder it is to execute. A welcoming committee for your community is a good idea in general, and they can be invaluable in helping people through the rough edges of the transition. Prepare them!
5. Communicate the change early and often: Clearly articulate in a positive way why you are making the change and how the members will benefit from it. Then take that message to every channel you have, on multiple occasions, so that members aren't caught by surprise.
6. Bring the most active members in early: Find ways to make your superusers a part of the birthing process of the new community so they can make it their own. Invite them in early to help seed the site for the rest of the members.
7. Listen and respond: While you are reaching out to your members, be sure you have channels open to solicit feedback from them as well. Then acknowledge and respond to their feedback - this does not mean you implement every request, but you need to let members know they are heard.
8. Measure the right things: Define and track what are the relevant success criteria to measure following the transition. As stated above, your new community may be trying to achieve different things than before. Be sure to take into account that direct comparisons may not always be appropriate.

You may have noticed that the majority of these (#2-7) are about your membership, not your content. Its common to get caught up in the details of moving content, but remember that content doesn't make an active community, members do. If you focus your efforts on bringing members over, you can enlist them to help select and bring over the valuable content (see #6).

Moving can be a trying experience for anyone, but sometimes it is necessary in order to grow - so make your move as positive as possible!

Photo by TheMuuj