Chapter 1. Is This Trip Really Necessary? …What to Know Before You Begin

I have a terrible admission to make. As much as I believe in community on the web, and as much as I want to see more of it happening, in my years of work as a web designer and consultant, I have convinced about 80 percent of my clients not to add community features to their websites.

There are a lot of really good reasons to add community features to your site. Athriving community can be a boon for your enterprise. When people feel connected to your site and to each other, they’ll maintain the kind of bond that marketers and CEOs dream about. They’ll help code solutions to your technical problems, become advocates for your site, stick by you in times of trouble, educate each other so you don’t have to, and so on. They’ll spontaneously create content for your site and help their fellow users. I once even witnessed community members composing poetry for a product. It happens.