There have been many blog posts written on the value of content in building and managing successful communities. Often times, people say that “content is king”. In our experience, context is often more important than content because the content follows the context of any successful community.

Without context in a community, members will not know where content belongs, or even what type of content they should share. They won’t know where to find content others have shared and the momentum of the community will be disrupted. Context provides the threads that weave together a set of ideas and thought pieces to help define the purpose of the community and offer meaning to content and interrelationships.

There are three areas to focus on to create context for your community:

• Theme: Organizations rarely think of the word “theme” as they are building their community, but while your organization is building the community strategy, theme should be sister to purpose. For example. if your organization is building a product development community, you will need to think about how you want members to contribute to product development and then how the language, style and design of the community will communicate those ideas to the community members. This all leads back to establishing a community theme.  Built from the community mission, goal and purpose, your organization will need to create a theme so that you are able to clearly articulate the characteristics of the community to your membership.
• Tone: Your community tone should be a direct representation of your organization and the type of customer, or member you want to attract. If you are building a community for professionals like Sermo, focused on engaging doctors to post clinical observations and discuss clinical issues with their peers, you are going to want to set a very professional tone for your community. On the other hand, if you are building a hobby community, like Ravelry, you will want to make sure the community tone is light and fun.
• Moderation: Moderation is the act of reviewing content for context, appropriateness and content. In most communities, a good moderator is not the enforcer, but rather the guide, helping members understand what to discuss and at what time or in which location those member interactions, conversations and content belong. Community moderators play a critical role by determining the right topics for discussion, and organizing content that has been created so it resides in the appropriate places. A successful moderator is also responsible for making sure questions get answered in a timely manner and that the theme and tone are adhered to as the community matures.

There is certainly no denying that content plays a critical role in community.  Without content, there is no community, but if you have provided your community with clear context, the community purpose is clear to members.  They can be sure of what they are supposed to be discussing, what they are learning and why they are members. Community members – like most people – want to contribute and participate effectively, and seek the focus and the framework to help them be “right on target.”  Ensuring your community has a clearly defined context will not only allow you to gain more value from your investment in content; you will find increased engagement from your members as well.

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