How I created a thriving online community

Katie May founded the online parenting portal KidSpot back in 2005, after working at Seek. The goal was to create a place for mothers to locate information on child-oriented products and services, and has since grown to be one of the biggest online portals in the country.

When News Limited paid an estimated $US45 million for the company last month, the media giant said it was drawn by the strength of the Kidspot community and its 31,000 Facebook fans. May explains that building a community is crucial to having success online.

How has the business been since the acquisition?

I think News is very smart. They were clear from the beginning and allowed us to run as a subsidiary. They had a number of decisions they made towards the end of the process and it was pretty easy to communicate with staff. We get to do everything we want to do, have this great culture, but we get all the benefits of being in a large company.

They’ve taken a really smart position and are really just letting us go our own way.

So how important was building a community during the process of building your company?

It’s extremely important on a number of levels. But we recognised that late in the game, so we made a few mistakes in our first 12 months because we didn’t really have an idea of what we were doing. So my answers come with a lot of humble pie.

Our audience is made up of mothers. When you’re mother, being in a community is a natural thing to do, to consort around people who are in that same phase. It’s what mothers have done on the playground for years, and with so many people going to work part-time and full-time, they don’t have that same sort of availability.

Especially for new mothers, it’s so important because older mothers want to help the younger ones because they empathise.

Do you mean you started the community too late?

Community should have been on the front of the site, not just three years in. From an audience perspective, it’s the most important thing in their lives.

The other reason it’s important is from an advertiser perspective. If you don’t have a community you’re just left with advertising space just sitting around. There’s a place for that, but we still see community as a very important aspect of the site.

So what prompted you to pay more attention to building a community?

I’m embarrassed to say, it was Facebook. The drums were so loud, and we certainly knew that our competitors had strong forums. But I’m an older mother, I’m 44, and Generation X has a very different approach to all this.

I took such a ridiculous view, and once Facebook started to pick up steam, just the nature of that success and growth made me think, “wait, there is something bigger here”. So that was our first real entry into using social networking.

There is also something we used called Social Engine, which allowed us to monitor all of that.

Did you have any sort of community before, or nothing at all?

We had a forum, but we didn’t even moderate it. It just sort of sat there and had maybe 1,000 people using it, whereas when you used KidSpot social, that’s where I was interested. The whole social networking platform as opposed to just a straight bulletin board, where you could have images, groups, and so on.

For the first time I was immensely interested and more resources were directed towards it. We could have posts, people responding to posts, and so on. It was just hitting a different cord.

What changed your mind?

It was the people. We thought about the functionality of community, and we spent about $25,000-$30,000 customising the KidSpot social platform. But we focused way too much on the functionality rather than the people coming and welcoming thing. Then we changed our focus, because we think community needs to be more like us hosting the discussion. It’s our job to introduce everyone to everyone else.

I think we realised we actually have to pass the conversations on to other people and help build those relationships.

From there we had people coming online and on Facebook and just talking with each other. People are constantly talking, and it feels like something is happening and it’s the place to be. If someone hasn’t posted for 20 minutes, then something is wrong.

Has your community informed the content on the site?

It has definitely informed content production. If there are conversations around topics for which we don’t have a long supply of content, we’re going to be guessing at our answers. So it’s informed our content side.

How did you approach your Facebook presence?

Building a presence on Facebook is scary. I’m paying an editor to be on Facebook and converse with people. You have to have guts to do that, and in the early days I was very hesitant. I wondered, why do I need to go offsite?

But the relationship is different. It gives us a new level of conversation and allows us to realise a deeper relationship. Facebook is an extension of the site.

How do you know which topics to start, and which content to provide to your fans?

Because we have so many fans on Facebook we have access to metrics, so we know what’s hitting the mark and what isn’t. We can see what links people are sharing and so on.

Our editor is a very respected blogger and has worked in KidSpot social. She is just gifted; I wish I knew those skills. She has a certain knack for knowing how to connect. Our executive editor also comments that when she writes something on Facebook, she won’t get as many replies as the person who normally works on Facebook.

It’s just that gift that editors tend to have.

Last month MySpace was sold by News Corp for $US35 million, but according to reports KidSpot was bought for $US45 million. Do you think the KidSpot community is worth more than MySpace?

I think MySpace in the right hands is a lot more valuable than $US35 million. I would imagine given the declines perhaps it didn’t have the momentum, and when you have something in decline it really makes you think about the management and leadership.

But do I believe it’s worth more? That’s a tough one, but I can say I think MySpace is far more valuable than $US35 million given the right leadership.

For other businesses that want to build thriving communities, how should they go about it?

Building an online community is much harder than building one offline. There is no face-to-face reinforcement. You have to create emotional connection points through the online experience.

You need to constantly listen and refine, especially when you’re operating on sites like Facebook. You need to have something special to offer.