Today, we’ll finish up our series on the lessons you can learn from the Reddit meltdown earlier this month.  If you didn’t read the previous discussions, catch up here (Part 1 and Part 2).

Of course, this isn’t really about Reddit.  It’s about you.  More specifically, what you can learn about forming and sustaining a healthy community.

Those real estate leaders who see themselves through the lens of being a community facilitator are much better equipped to recruit and retain the most talented individuals.

Why?  One of the major factors people join and stick with your organization has to do with how they’re feeling connected to those around them.

Today, we’ll learn three more lessons on how to become the community of choice among your real estate competitors.

As I mentioned in the earlier posts, the Reddit lessons are provided to us by Gina Bianchini, the former CEO of Ning.  You can read Gina’s outstanding article on Recode.

The community with the best “product” usually wins.

Don’t fool yourself into thinking that you can be a mediocre real estate company (in terms of tools, marketing capacity, brand, etc.) and have the best community.

It doesn’t work that way.  Gina makes this observation:

Product is the answer to 90 percent of your community problems. Reddit’s karma points and upvoting and downvoting of comments make it special. These features have created a sense of belonging that keeps more than 100 million users coming back each month. Only a handful of services have achieved this.

Reddit’s really good at what they do.  If you’re really good at being a real estate company, you’ll earn the right to have an attractive community.  It doesn’t guarantee this will come to pass, but it is a prerequisite to being in the game.

Lesson:  Invest in developing a great real estate offering (both from our agent’s perspective and your consumer’s perspective) before attempting to build a vibrant community.

Community leaders need to be visible and engaged to influence the community.

Who are the community leaders?  You are.  If you are in any leadership role (from CEO down to a team leader), you’re a community leader.

Gina gives some great advice on how you should approach your job:

The best community leaders act like elected officials. They organize meet-ups of volunteers, preside over user advisory councils, share the story of the service in public appearances and with the press and — most importantly — build direct relationships with users on the platform [both agents and consumers].

They are visible, open and engaged. An open approach has long been the norm among vibrant communities, but now organizational behemoths from the military to the previously quiet Facebook and Twitter management teams are following suit.

While some improvement is always needed, there are real estate leaders who do an outstanding job in this role.   You’ll know who they are because they tend to be the most prominent and successful brands.   That’s not a coincidence.

Lesson:  Make yourself visible as a community leader—offline, online, and everywhere in-between.

Your business model has to enhance — not fight — core community dynamics.

This is where things get a little more complex.  The nature of Reddit’s business and the real estate business are significantly different.  You’re never going to have 100 million visitors from which you can extract revenue (be thankful, it’s not as easy as it may sound).

The first step in enhancing your business model is to understanding its unique core community dynamics.  This involves asking a lot of questions and understanding the psychology behind successful communities.

We’ll cover some of these topics over the next couple of months.  There is much to learn and apply.

Lesson:  Understanding core community dynamics is something many organizations in various industries are concerned about knowing.  You can’t align your business model to them unless you know what they are.

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