This writing covers practical habits I’ve learned through joining and leading communities over the course of 20 years online. Here you’ll learn how to avoid the most common mistakes entrepreneurs make in public and I share my approach to governance that continuously fosters real user engagement. This is written to be accessible for beginners but should also be valuable prep for anyone engaged in pseudonymous communities.

a typical community manager

Before we begin, let’s take a moment to acknowledge how privileged we are to be community leaders — to have the opportunity to form direct relations and culture with our greatest supporters. I wrote this because most teams we’ve worked with do not have experience with what I call “the other side of the internet”.

Always be the bigger person.

This one is surprisingly difficult to learn without many mistakes forcing you to. It is important to start paying attention online and in your daily life of when you are feeling flustered, biased, irrational or emotional. These emotional states will pull you into “the moment” and engage your more instinctive behavior.

That instinct is only looking out for instantaneous preservation and survival — not what will benefit you 10 minutes from now let alone 10 years. We are living in a time where one big mistake online can lead to a public meltdown which you, and your company, will carry for the rest of your lives. While these too may humble you in a necessary way you later appreciate, let me tell you that it is not fun to experience it.

Once you become more mindful behind a screen and start catching yourself mid-reaction, you will be overcome with more peace as you let go of the immediate anger, pressure, embarrassment, or whatever other emotion you may be feeling. The next step is to think about the bigger picture.

The best possible reply in a public forum will be of confidence, composure, honesty, and respect. If someone is engaging with you, you have the choice to either acknowledge it, remove their access, respectfully delay, or implement any number of other practices to ensure you are always responding with confidence, composure, honesty, and respect.

This brief pause is also the time to make sure your response contributes to your mission and represents your company or community values. If you don’t have clearly stated community values, read this. Once you understand that you are 100% in control, you can tame those often damning knee-jerk reactions and create protocols that fit your brand, community, and team.

Most people are not ready to be talking unfiltered directly to the public on behalf of your company

I’m sure you can think of some good examples of when people should have just turned off their phone. There are countless ways inexperienced community managers are worse than just allowing spam into the chat.

Unless you or anyone else representing your company has experience with massive witch-hunts or PR disasters — which almost any legitimate Redditor or online forum member will have seen and understand — you have no idea the risk exposure every comment you make actually has.

“Being on the end of an internet mob’s pitch-fork is a moment that tests every man or woman’s true character.” — Abraham Lincoln probably didn’t actually say this

Some type of unforeseen event can and will likely happen to those of you trying to make a name for yourself online. There are countless actual crazy people in their little extremist online groups that will do everything in their power to shut you down. Any misstep or success you’ve ever made public can be written in a way that misrepresents you and demonizes you to their crowd. If you get to that point, learn to turn off your internet and go to the park.

One tactical favorite is called trolling whereby someone purposefully unsettles you, grabs some popcorn, and watches as you destroy your own image through overreaction. Train your team to be aware of social engineering tactics. You control who, how and when you engage with people online just by the simple act of putting down your phone.

It is important for you to take an unbiased look at your history of interactions online

Do you have a multifaceted understanding of how diverse cultures online actually are? On one end of the spectrum, you have the type of anonymous discussions that can only be found on the dark web and on the other is your highly curated ad-friendly Instagram feed.

Insight. Facebook groups, Instagram pages, Telegram groups, and the like are hardly ever positioned as online communities. They’re distribution channels.

Are you uncomfortable when you talk to strangers online? Can you take a pointed joke or do you have a bad temper sometimes? Have you ever made real friendships with people online on an emotional level? Have you ever attended someone’s online wedding in a video game or understand how that’s even possible?

If you do not have experience with these things — just be careful. I suggest hiring a community manager that can answer these for you. Otherwise, how can you even generate growth on these platforms?

Finding your voice on the more anonymous sides of the internet is becoming more important and is critical for anyone in crypto right now. Just approach it like any other skill — assume you’ll suck in the beginning and develop it over time. Start with low risk interactions on Reddit or go all-in with a random “throw away” account so you can experience the freedom that a pseudonym bestows upon you. There’s a reason people love these alt-social networks.

Want to give it a shot? Find a community that aligns with your real personal interests and start engaging under an alias on Reddit. Skip including your real name or your company name in your username — that’s a surefire way for us Redditors to know you’re a noob. Be cautious when giving out any identifiable information until you’re comfortable with the platform.

Insight. These could be good places to start:

Reddit community for entrepreneurs — www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/

Feel-good meme magic — www.reddit.com/r/wholesomememes/

The best in-depth discussions — www.reddit.com/r/DepthHub/

The best car community ever, in my opinion — www.reddit.com/r/cars/

The largest Bitcoin community — www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/

A satirical marketplace for humor — www.reddit.com/r/MemeEconomy/

Hilarious stock market community — www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets

OR what are you into? Just type www.reddit.com/r/[hobby/interest/etc]

OR find something new on www.redditlist.com

The Streisand Effect

The Streisand effect is the phenomenon whereby an attempt to hide, remove, or censor a piece of information has the unintended consequence of publicizing the information more widely, usually facilitated by the Internet. It is an example of psychological reactance, wherein once people are aware that some information is being kept from them, their motivation to access and spread it is increased. — Wikipedia

Laws Of The Internet

1. Nothing ever goes away (and you shouldn’t try to hide anything)

2. It is guaranteed that pornographic materials exist for all conceivable subjects (Rule 34 of the Internet)

Insight. It’s natural to feel a desire to minimize or remove posts (and people) that annoy, attack, or otherwise trigger you — resist it.

Most cryptocurrency and Blockchain teams should refrain from creating their community channel and resist using bans (outside of blatant attacks) until you have written your Community Values, Community Rules, or put a simple process in place for your admins to follow. It is important to have all of this publicly available online so your community knows what to expect and whether you’re a tyrant or not. There should be no expectation that you, or any employee you have, can build a real community until you do.

Abusing your God-like kick or ban powers is a surefire way to create negative comments about you and your company online — that will never go away — and summons an eventual PR nightmare. This is analogous to exiling someone from your kingdom without due process and handing them a loaded grenade launcher on their way out.

Overreacting founders and their teams’ careless use of the ban feature is the single biggest cause of preventable PR meltdowns in the Blockchain industry. In most instances, they are likely telling you something you need to hear even if the way they say it is not pleasant.

Insight. Banning someone does not make them disappear — it creates an enemy. This type of enemy probably has more time on their hands than you and will always be… watching…and waiting.

There will also be times when you need to stand your ground

Sometimes no amount of private messages or Socratic questioning with a user will suffice. If someone is a real menace, continuously takes advantage of you or your team, or is an unreasonably toxic person — you need to know when to stand your ground and remove them.

Some long-tail risks are necessary to show strength and maintain peace. How you handle confrontation is as important as first impressions. They both have the longest lasting effect. Once you have decided a clearly hostile member has crossed a line, explain your decision and make them disappear.

Insight. Here is an example of how I’ve handled my most long-standing troll. Much of what I’m writing here came from years interacting with him and similar others. To that and everything else I’ve learned, I say thanks!

Every interaction you have in your community is an opportunity

Once you create a community channel, it is now your job to daringly share your personality (aka the thing you want others to connect with), display your company’s values and build a sense of togetherness. If your team can’t be yourself in this type of highly public forum, I would skip creating an online community until you feel you’re ready.

Stick to the truth and you will succeed

Similar to a previous section — fibs, exaggerations, and lies also never go away. If you say them, they will undermine your ability to form authentic relationships online and will discredit you when it hurts you most. Remember that person you banned? I told you they were waiting… and watching…

There should be a line drawn between portraying the character you are online which will have some acting element to it and telling a straight lie. Lies have lasting consequences.

Once a lie has been stated, it will always be on the record whether that is in actual text or in a witnesses’ memory. You should assume your channels are being recorded by a bot if you are in crypto. The most avoidable type of white lie will typically revolve around saving face. This means the lie is attached to an emotional response which we already covered in a previous section.

Lies are a habit and either you begin to recognize when you say them and train yourself to use a different approach or they will eventually bury you.

That’s it for now

If you have questions or want to chat, contact ardon@upholder.io.