To those involved in developing online/social media campaigns, it can be a dreaded client request:  we want a viral campaign.

Recently, I’ve attended a number of online/social media events, including mesh’ 09 and a Third Tuesday Toronto meet-up. The opportunity to meet and chat with some of the social media folks I’m following and talking with on Twitter is inspiring; a common thread in some of these conversations has been the client (internal or external) who wants something to go “viral” – for the most part, a happenstance outcome not a budget line item.

In a related vein, a Twitter friend of mine, @randymatheson, recently tweeted a link to a great post by Michael Gass on why ad agencies have problems creating and engaging online communities.  Michael was inspired by Mack Collier of The Viral Garden blog, who posted Six reasons why no one likes you online. Exceptional reading for anyone wanting to create any an online community.

Mack has found that most of these attempts fail, mainly for six reasons. Given some of our own recent web development activities, I couldn’t help but look at these through the lens of building an online news destination.

1. Your first thought is that it can be a source of income/money.  As Mack says, Want to make money off your community?  Fine, but you can’t monetize something that doesn’t exist … and the community won’t come together until you have created something of value for them.

For professional news publishers, providing content via any platform should have the “in the public interest” element at its core – no question – but hopefully they don’t consider “in the public interest” and “value” mutually exclusive, right?

2. You can’t immediately answer the “value” question (eg., “What value am I creating for the people I am trying to attract?“).

The danger for traditional newspaper publishers is for them to respond to this question while wearing their print newspaper hat (ie., one more opportunity to push out content, just because they can). Answering the “value” question requires vision; there’s far too many free sources of news, creative ones at that, resulting in even more pressure to up the value ante.

3. Don’t sit back and wait for the community to magically appear.  If you believe you have created an online community/destination that is worthy and has value, you need to get out there and find the people you are trying to attract.

Yes, the big myth: “if you build it, they will come.”  Perhaps this point alone is worthy of a future post here.  But suffice to say, what are the other online destinations that are visited by your online community, what are they doing there and is there an opportunity for you to reach out and participate in a meaningful way? Can you draw them to your online community? Also, I think too many professional publishers, be it major mainstream or local, seem to have difficulty in promoting their community-building efforts, especially ones they create for online.  For those that have (somewhat of) an equivalent print publication, it seems there is a cautiousness that prevents them from utilizing the very product that’s at their doorstep, and practically free.  Is this for fear of cannibalizing one readership for another?

4. You have no built-in features or opportunities that give your members incentive to promote the community (eg., look at the “share” links at the bottom of this post).

Looking through the traditional publisher lens, I think a lot of this boils down to creativity, or lack of, and a preference (unintentional perhaps) to stay in the print editorial comfort zone.

5. You don’t appreciate the evangelists. You need to thank those members of your community who are true leaders in wanting the community to succeed.

I can really relate to this point, from my makefive mini iPod and t-shirt contest winnings, to Guy Kawasaki and alltop. As an early member of the makefive community, I’ve participated and watched it evolve, especially over the last 6 to 8 months; and along every step of the way, the founders have maintained an open and transparent dialogue with their members.  Regular readers of this blog probably get my appreciation of alltop, from mentions in blog posts to a DMS-related alltop page. I recently traded a few emails back and forth with founder Kawasaki about receiving a free alltop t-shirt – his idea … it arrived a few days ago.

6. You don’t really care about who you want to reach.  If you … instead view your potential community as a group of people to monetize, then your efforts are doomed from the start.

In Mack’s original post, he emphasized the word “care”; however, I’ve chosen to emphasize the word “really.”  Economic conditions, union agreements, and shareholder expectations aside, I believe that most traditional publishers would attest they care for their community.  But after a century of the “push” content production and news dissemination process, for many the shift is happening now, albeit at least a decade too late for some. The opportunities of real-time immediacy, conversational elements and genuine transparency represent a whole new ball game … it is a case of really care.

The overwhelming amount of free hosting services and accessible online tools, applications and content management systems – they can represent an irresistible urge to just jump in.  And, with news cycles becoming increasingly shorter and shorter, something can be said for that.  But, as Mack  concludes, before you build it, think about where you are, and where you want to be.  Is the goal to make money, or is the goal to create a group of happy people? … Give people a reason to come together as an excited and passionate community, and the monetization issue will take care of itself.

Not totally convinced on that last bit … after all, the 100 million views of Susan Boyle hasn’t made anyone any money.

I’m with Michael and Mack:  if you plan your build with an honest and clear understanding of your motives, genuine transparency, and the willingness to fully commit and meaningfully participate…who knows, maybe the community you build, attract and take care of will figure out your business model for you.