Everyone in the startup world is saying "build a community", what exactly is this?
People follow each other on various social media and community sites, but is that building a community, is an email list collection a "community"?
Does one need to build a forum?
Your thoughts on what this is, what tools to use and the steps to start, and maintain a community?
Everyone seems to want community these days, "it's all the rage". But what most people have is an audience, which is more about one way communication and benefiting the 'people at the top', rather than everyone in the community.
Community, to me, is about interacting with other people on something of interest, in common, or having some kind of similar vision. People within the community should feel like they belong and be able to contribute in some kind of way.
Community leaders should also be focused on the vision, so that the whole community benefits. This is what most people don't seem to understand.
Yes! :)
To be meta for a minute: Every community goes through these weird trends. With entrepreneurship, someone finds success in some way, and it catches on (I think that's the original meaning of "meme"). On IH, you'll even see trends in what people build - there was a short period of time when monitoring services were popular - just apps that ping your website or check http and alert you if it's down. Job boards are pretty popular right now.
Community is a current trend on IH. But that doesn't mean it's bad.
I think this trend stems from a pretty old idea - that if you have "1,000 true fans" (I think Kevin Kelly came up with this idea), you'll have a successful business. Stuff like Twitter, IG, or FB followers rarely meet the "true fan" definition, but someone who joins a Facebook group you create is more likely to.
I have this tab open in my browser right now. I think someone mentioned it on IH:
https://dangerouslyawesome.com/2017/12/what-is-a-community-really-how-do-you-know-that-you-have-it/
Maybe that came from my recent Tweet - https://twitter.com/rosiesherry/status/1275833255032426502
That is exactly where I found it. Thanks for increasing my chrome tabs, Rosie! :-P
This is a great question @mediamarkup.
I think in its most broad term, community is any group of people with common interests who communicate, work together and pursue their interests over time.
If one wants to build community in relation to their product or service, naturally the people that commune around that product or service will have an affinity towards it and share some of its underlying values and principles.
As a business owner or community builder, you must ask yourself, what are the best tools to use in order to facilitate communication, collaboration and the pursuit of these shared interests over time. You could use existing social media like Facebook groups or build a following on Twitter, but as a business owner, you are then at the mercy of these platforms.
If you want to cultivate community around your own product, service or personal brand there are a host of different tools you can leverage to build this organically. I recently wrote a post here about 12 Community Building Tools for all Your Needs.
I hope this helps.
Thought provoking post. Thanks.
I really like focusing on personal community because of my experiences in life. I love being able to have relationships that I can “be real” with. Saying all this, I think it takes time, intentionality, and mistakes to realize people that you can entrust yourself to while others are probably just acquaintances.
I think when it comes to building a community, I think there is lots of luck and chance. People don’t spend much time together these days which doesn’t allow for some relationships to blossom. Such as that friend you had a real bad first impression with but because of that trip or experience, y’all are now best friends. Who knew!? I feel like it is something that is rare or protected these days, availability.
two thoughts:
:P
I'm super interested in this question myself, and I host an online show called The Digital Campfire Download where I meet the peeps behind a lot of online communities to dive into these very questions.
My guests last week--community-building superstars Lola Omolola and Bailey Richardson last week--had a lot of great thoughts on this topic. Below are 3 nuggets of wisdom they shared, with a lesson brands can take from each. You can check out the full article ("5 Kick-Ass Community-Building Lessons For Brands from Lola Omolola and Bailey Richardson") here https://bit.ly/31FohmH
👉 Be specific.
Lola created the FIN FB group for Nigerian women. While it has grown to 1.7M women from around the world, it's still focused on women sharing personal stories about their challenges. The lesson for brands: Get clear about who you are (and are not) for.
👉 Strong leadership makes for strong communities.
Lola has been super thoughtful about curating content, setting out clear guidelines and enforcing them consistently within FIN. The lesson for brands: appoint a leader (or group of leaders) to oversee your community.
👉 Build WITH people, not for them.
This formula is behind today’s most thriving communities, said Bailey. Creating a great community is a collaborative effort. The lesson for brands: Stay close to customers, ask them what they want, and listen and learn.
If you find this helpful, feel free to check out the series here digitalcampfires.co
That does sound good example of a successful community of people, with a common struggle, however I suspect creating a support group as such is different to creating a community around a product and specifically a B2B product. Correct me if I am wrong. I do take on board the points raised though and will explore those.
I agree that community manifests in different ways, but there are key elements of great communities that are true across all. I actually learned this from Bailey Richardson from People and Company who has a podcast on the subject, "Get Together." Worth checking out! She says:
A community is for a specific group of people. A lot of people have started to use that word as a euphemism for a general audience or a big user base and it loses a lot of its power and meaning when that happens. Try to get really specific about who that group is if you really want to be effective.
A community is people who keep coming together day in and day out. Not one-off, in other words.
A community is people coming together over something they care about. That part is different for every single community. It often comes out of a very personal sense of mission and purpose that an original organizer who sees an elephant in the room or a service that is not being offered which acts as the connective tissue. This piece is where the magic happens.