Passion-centric web communities (for the sake of convenience, let’s call them PCWCs) are online spaces that focus entirely on one shared passion or topic. There are many of these communities thriving on the web today that span a wide variety of subjects. Some of these subjects include: cars, gaming, electronic gadgets, sports and, of course, our favorite, pets.

Here at Dogster and Catster we have had the opportunity to work with some of the most passionate people on the planet and nurture one of the web’s most thriving PCWCs. This work has led me to believe that there are four components that need to be adequately satiated for a passion-based community to thrive and sustain. They are Entertainment, Sociality, Information and Services.

Entertainment

PCWCs must be fundamentally entertaining for those who have a real interest in the topic. At Dogster and Catster we found that people just love looking at dog and cat pictures and this was the starting point for our whole existence. Dog photos are fun and relaxing. There is a good, positive feeling associated with it and many users have told us surfing our sites is like taking a breath of fresh air or having a nice little walk outside. Each PCWC must find a way to entertain its community at the simplest and most direct level. Each PCWC must find a way to make “digital Doritos” for its users. Nobody should be able to leave your site with only clicking once.

Sociality

Anyone who is passionate about something likes to talk about it and you need to enable your users to do this. Keep in mind, however, that there are many different levels at which people are comfortable communicating. At Dogster and Catster we have structured our socially engaging channels to accommodate these different levels of users. First, the profile and the public face for our members is that of their pet. This allows users to keep their personal profile private while at the same time allowing them to reflect their own personality and sensibilities through a real world entity that means a lot to them – their dog or cat. We have also built in different commitments of communication. First, there is the anonymous act of giving a dog or cat a bone or treat. This is just a nice way of saying that they like their page and pictures. For those who want to engage a little deeper there is private messaging as well as the ability to make pup pals (feline friends), join groups, post in forums and, coming soon, instant messaging. All of this is done through the avatar of your pet and only when you choose do you reveal other personal information to your new friends and acquaintances. Social engagement is critical for a sustainable and thriving community. The multiple levels of social engagement allow users to test the waters and become comfortable before progressing to the deeper levels of social engagement.

Information

If people are really going to get passionate about something there needs to be some depth and complexity to the topic. There might be gear one must have, skills one must learn, strategies one must implement, history one must internalize and so on. User-generated content or professionally published, content is a must have for a true passion-centric community. Whether a pet has recently joined your family or if you had pets for years, there are so many things to learn, discuss and discover. On Dogster some of our most active areas are the forums, where users generate thousands of pages of content while discussing doggie nutrition, training techniques, pet health, dog laws and much, much more. We also have professional blogger Joy Ward’s community blog and veterinarian Dr. Barchas’ popular weekly column, “Ask Dr. Barchas.” Allow users to dig into the details and learn/teach about the things they love.

Services

Adding community-relevant services is a no-brainer as long as they are not too difficult to implement. These services, if truly valuable, will be a great convenience to your community and may provide you with a revenue stream in the process. Dogster implemented a pet-friendly hotel & travel booking system. It is a plug & play solution that only took a few days to implement and provides a very convenient service for our users while bringing in a little bit of extra revenue. The important thing here is to make sure it is really a benefit to the community and not a way to squeeze a few bucks out of them. Throwing tons of affiliate program links at them is not the same as providing a valuable, convenient service.

By providing your community great products and tools in these four areas you will be well on your way to creating a thriving PCWC. Of course, the really important thing is that you keep community and the object of the community’s passion above all other concerns, even revenue, but that is a whole separate post.

For a related post check out Ted’s post on Object-centric Sociality.

I would love to hear any comments or critiques of this post.