1. Finding the right users
Depending on the goal of your new secret category / subforum, you want to make sure that you pick the right users, otherwise it can go really wrong, really quick. A hidden subforum often is hidden for a reason, so ask yourself how "sensitive" the shared information will be, and if the user in question will be trustworthy enough to handle it.
Beta Test / User research
When the goal is to have a research section on your community, then you can recruit your members in several ways:
Active recruitment means that you recruit your users yourself, by analyzing user activity on your community. Maybe you already had a few users in mind when you were first thinking about this project? See who is the top poster about a certain topic, or who is the one that fits your case the most. For Beta testing it often helps to have a good distribution, e.g. 3 users who are very experienced and 3 users who do not know a lot about the product.
Passive recruitement can simply be done by posting a topic on the community, asking for members to post if they want to participate. Don't forget to make that topic sticky / featured, so that everybody will see it. Explain what your intentions are. Don't be too detailed, but still give enough information about what can be expected (and what not). Make sure to manage expectations here already, otherwise you end up with people who are not interested.
Tip: For Beta tests, it can sometimes even be helpful to find very negative users - if you want to build a very strong product, then these are the users you also want to be able to satisfy. That does not mean that you should invite everybody who is complaining - just be aware that a Beta test full of fanboys will might not result in the feedback that you need to learn what does not satisfy your users.
NDA
If you want to be really sure that your users won't share sensitive information outside of your hidden group, then make them sign a non-disclosure agreement. This will underline that you are serious about the restriction on sharing information in public. Your legal team should help you setting up such a document, as it should be waterproof once you send it out to your users.
Tip: If you are looking to recruit a group of superusers, also check out the superuser one-pager provided by Ditte!
2. Inviting your users
Once you know who your candidates are, you can start inviting them. Of course, if the users in question do not know about their luck yet, you need to explain to them what you are planning. Again, be precise what users can expect, and what the benefits are (e.g. shape our product, give feedback to the people who are able to change things, or other benefits you can think of). Do this via private message, or via email (if you want to send an NDA for example).
Note: It is important to hear from the users if they actually want to participate before you invite them. Otherwise you open up to a risk of users abusing their privilege of having access. ;)
3. Give users access
Giving users access is relatively easy then. Create the new category / subforum and make sure that only you and your colleagues have access ("visibility" in the Forum settings). Then create a custom role for the new group, and assign it to the individual users which have agreed to participate.
Tip: A step-by-step guide can be found in this topic (under "Access management in the front-end").
4. Additional tips & tricks
- Publish a (sticky) welcome-topic: It will set the tone for the new subforum (maybe more informal than the public community) and also inform users what this subforum is about
- Define an end: At what point would you remove this subforum / "kick" someone out of the group for being inactive? (A 6 month period usually is used to set someone to "inactive", you can of course send a private message to inform about it)
- Enforce the rules: Even though it is a private subforum, the forum guidelines still apply. Also, remove content & inform users should they mention private information in public sections of your community
- Don't take it for granted: They are investing their time to be on your community. Speak to them, maybe even send them a christmas card from the community team. They will appreciate it!
- Turn off user-activity metrics: You should disable (in the Forum settings of a subforum) that the user activity is being counted for Ranks & Badges. Otherwise it could look weird to other users if a user receives a higher rank for no visible activity.
- No public rewards: Unless you are fine with other users asking questions about it, do not create Badges for activity in private subforums.
In case you are having questions around this, or in case you want to share your own experience, tips and tricks - please let us know in the comments!