In the book
Groundswell: Winning in a world transformed by social technologies, authors Charlnee Li and Josh Bernoff give some suggestions for creating an online community.
1.
Start small, but plan for a larger presence.
It is best to do certain things well first, rather than doing many things poorly. Then as the site grows, you can add elements.
2.
Reach out to your most active customers.
These are the enthusiasts for the site. Use them! There are some really active members on this site, like Mike Eppinette, Teresa Riley, Michael Hanegan, Wes Woodell, and others who are adding comments and content regularly. Others are more active behind the scenes, like Kevin Brockus.
3.
Plan to drive traffic to your community.
It takes time and care to nurture a community. Personal invites always work best, and then general advertising. Members need to be asked and encouraged to send out invitations to their friends. We all have a large social circle, and they are different for each of us. On this site, there is a great "Invite" feature which works with people's email address books seamlessly, sending out invitations to email addresses of one's friends.
4.
Build in a reputation system.
Kevin Brockus gave me this idea as well. In a reputation system, people get "points" for various activities on the site. This could be inviting others, commenting, posting a blog, discussion, photo, or video, or answering a tough question or solving some problem. Kevin is checking on how to integrate a point system into this site. More on this later.
5.
Let your customers lead you.
The "customers" will let you know what they are looking for both by their activity as well as by their direct comments, if you will engage them.
These tips can work for just about any type of online social network.
What do you think of these tips? Do you have additional ones? 
