Community Strategy: Where to start?

Hi everyone,

I'm the co-owner of a popular website, which is one of the foremost go-to places for information about a particular niche topic.

We've decided to start the process of transforming the site also into a community.

We have a long list of interesting ideas, but how should we start building the new community?

We get a lot of traffic, but people don't interact with each other. What strategies exist to help users participate meaningfully on the site?

How can you find user pain spots where a community can help?