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A couple of weeks ago a good friend of mine from college dropped me an email. I hadnt heard from her in a couple of years.
We had lost touch through moves, marriages, children, and drifting apart. It was great to hear from her. We caught up on this
and that. My friend had married and had a child. That was the first surprise of the emails and IMs that flew back and forth.
The second surprise came when catching her up on my life. I was still doing this and that for iVillage I told her.
The response I got somewhat surprised me. She had been on some of the pregnancy and parenting boards from time to time, mostly
lurking. She felt like the boards were great support and had wonderful information. However, she also felt unwelcome. She
felt there were established cliques on the boards. A newcomer and occasional poster couldnt join in any meaningful way. I
was heartbroken. I didnt want to claim at that moment that making the boards friendlier community places WAS the "this
and that" I do at iVillage.
Unfortunately, she isnt the only person who has voiced this particular complaint.
I see it on the boards. I see it on Improve iVillage. I experience it for myself when I post on some boards. There is either
a spoken or unspoken attitude that this board is for regulars only. No newbies need apply.
This is incredibly harmful
to our community building efforts. Even if you feel you have the perfect community on your board, you need to embrace new
members. They bring new energy to a flagging board. They can bring stability to a rocky board. New members can even shake
up a board that has settled into a predictable pattern. We lose regulars on our boards due to boredom, move, or a change in
lifestyle that keeps them away from the board. We need to replace them with new members. New voices are ALWAYS welcome at
iVillage.
Lets talk a minute about how to welcome new members to a message board. First thing to do is recognize
them. Many new members will say something like This is my first post here. Some will not. Keep an eye on the names on your
board. Know the regulars. Recognize the new names. Always err on the side of being extra welcoming. If you dont remember a
name and dont see it in the last archive, go ahead and post a welcome. Dont remember seeing you around before, Welcome!
Encourage your members to introduce themselves. A post saying Everyone, MemberABC is new, take a moment, say hi and tell
her something about yourself will really reinforce the idea that new members are someone to embrace. I find this sort of introduction
a better way of going about things than roll calls which tend to seem like something you must be part of to participate. Introductions
also seem neighborly, friendly, build bonding and community.
Another way to make sure the new person on your board
feels welcome is to send a welcome email. Draw up a template specific to your board. Include the URL for your board. Be sure
it is the cgi-bin URL so they link back to the current board, not an archive! Include links to related boards and to the
main channel page. Include a link to a page with Internet emoticons and abbreviations. Say welcome. Say you look forward
to them posting again soon. Email it to their iVillage email if they dont have another email in their profile. Sure, some
will bounce. Many more will not. You will have a member who will find her way back to the board. She will feel she has found
a congenial place to belong. Kathy Ohling from Parent Soup on AOL always refers to welcome letters as the trail of bread crumbs
leading visitors to return and truly become members.
In-group appearance can also come from the specialized abbreviations
your board uses. If your board has special code words, in-jokes, topic-related abbreviations that are not Internet standards,
create a homepage to link to your board. Get it included in the board description or more suggestions area. Include it in
your welcome email.
Do you have a busy board with ongoing drama and discussion? Does it seem like an ongoing soap
opera? Remember that some members dont have time to read every post. Remember what it feels like to start watching a movie
or television show halfway through. If you are a soap opera watcher or watch some other series show that requires you to know
the characters, recall the feeling if you missed some episodes, or stopped watching and then tried to catch up. You feel disconnected.
You may never quite get the story. If this could be the case with your busy, closely-knit board, consider a weekly digest
post for your new members and the ones who cant make it every day. You can include a bit about major threads or member by
member information. Jenny is still having problems with Aidan and Micah fighting. Her partner is tired of bickering and has
been staying out late. Any advice? Mary Jane is looking for more info on homemade baby food. We welcomed a new member named
Janice. She has a 3yo son and 6 week-old daughter. Then include the URL to relevant posts. You can include links to these
digest posts on your member home page for that board. That way, anyone joining the board or who wants to look back at the
weeks in review can do so easily. It is also a way to get questions answered that may have been missed because of an archive
or the post was buried in an unrelated thread.
Let us work extra hard at helping visitors become not just members
in that they have an iVillage member name but true members of our community. Welcome them. Embrace them. Coax them into being
an active part of YOUR message board community.
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