In Field of Dreams, Ray Liotta says “If you build it, he will come.” He’s talking about Shoeless Joe Jackson.  People often misquote it as “If you build it, they will come.” I’m one of those people and I’m here to use that analogy to make my point which is this: You can build the coolest, hottest, social-est community on the worldwideweb and it’s going to take a hell of a lot more than launching the damn thing to get people to congregate.

Three Must Haves When Building an Online Community

Promotion

People need to be able to find the thing. Organic search is your friend, but it is also a lot like a Miracle Gro. You will see the benefits, but that tomato you planted today is not going to bare fruit tomorrow. With a little bit of audience analysis, you can target the sites they prefer and put up some banner ads that will assist your paid search.

Seeding

Get some creative people to seed content for you. If you are Staples and you are putting together a new site, it’s a no-brainer to talk to the people who live your brand every day. I would love to see Staples partner with Lifehacker and have them show people their vision for the Speakeasy. I could see Lifehacker with a budget from Staples and a bunch of creative things to do with their products that make life easier. The Speakeasy needs video content, but I do not want to pick on Staples (in this post).

Training

Video is the ultimate new training tool. Throw together a montage of someone using the site. Show the features and be sure to use an inspirational example. Software tools are doing this really effectively right now. In fact, some of them are doing it in lieu of doing anything else.

TRiiPLES from Jeffrey Hau on Vimeo.