My story and connecting
I know you guys all know about me and how much hardwork I put into my community - lots of blood and sweat - but what's also nice is when your community is morphing right before your eyes. I know before we didn't have much support from our community, but now we're seeing a ton of support. A user is going to be running our blog for us - she told us "don't worry, I got your back carlos", all I need is free publicity.

She ran a blog before so she knows what works - and also, its a plus for us because we're dedicated to our field of work - nobody does it better than us - and also; in order to see your member's count grow - you need to flood your community with various topics to start things off.

I know when we re-launched our community, we opened up with a bang - 3 staff members and 3 loyal supporters helped us grow the community - and on a plus side, the more support you get, the better you have in the long run.

Getting hacked.
Our community getting hacked by "Haywire" just put more fear, success, content, determination and hardwork into my book. I don't fail and I hate to see others fail. I was furious, even submitted a complaint to the FEDS (ic3.gov), but some people think they won't care - however he stole all my accounts, they should care right?

He also hacked like his was most innocent - however; now we don't mention him and just have success on our book. We're building upon the right ideas and running with them. Things like an wikipedia and blog will be making their way onto our community because we agree that content is king - and there's no doubt about that.

Contests = Motivation, inspires people to post
I'm a huge fan of contests and I'm sure our members will agree. If you're having a tough time building user interaction, then why not give them a reason to post?

Staff interaction is a must
In order to get your community going - you have to interact with your community - such as, asking them questions about their life and things like that. Try to relate even if you don't know what you're talking about.

I know I've experienced life from the rock bottom -from maxed out credit cards to a car wreck and I came back online because I know I could spark some change in my life. I also have a family, but sometimes you do bad things and have to learn from them. I lost my car to a car wreck that wasn't even my fault, but since the driver was older and more experience than me, I believe they put the blame on me because of it.

So if you can relate to others and also share ideas then you're in it for the long run. Help others just like you've been helped. Sharing is caring.

And also, I don't care what people think about me - because I've lived it all and I can talk about it and say "Dang! I did that?", but that's not the answer. I found the problem in my life and took it away - even told my friends to leave me alone because I have a family and some mouths to feed.

Partnerships
We've "partnered" with some games in our niche, which means; they'll be running contests on our community in order to spark more interest - see these contests for some ideas: "win a flash game, misticpets offers users 1 million points and ichumon gives away an account upgrade.. Not only did these contests bring in game players, they brought in staff members too - which means, once you got the players, they're chatters - and people will chat up a storm. Pet site users are known to talk with others and interacting with others - and also; once you establish partnerships with some majors, they'll you be well one your way to success.

Points = in game currency
Account upgrades = same as premium accounts, you need to pay for upgrades.

I think the account upgrade contest was an even greater success than the points on - and that's because points are easy to come by.

I love TAZ, so I'll share my stories and hope others can relate.