These questions have been on my mind lately: What is the nature of community? What things promote and expand community online? What facilitates community? What destroys community? How do we find community? What are the benefits or potential drawbacks of community? I’m assuming most people want to be in community in some way (as opposed to being alone). I think generally speaking communities have an enormous potential to improve life for the people involved in them. This is like a Yepic piece in that I want it to be collaborative. I know it’s rough, but please chime in. Here are my thoughts so far:
Unwelcomed Guests - or communities are opt-in
I used to get crazy mad when communities excluded marketers based solely on the fact that they are marketers. I have more understanding now. Marketers, like people, sometimes think it’s all about them. When you enter a community with a mindset of "what can I get out of this" it is exploitive or abusive. It destroys community. If you take and never give to a community you destroy it. Communities are collaborative. Marketers who just go into communities to sell something are unwelcomed guests and get treated accordingly. Instead, think in terms of mutual benefit or contribution. Some online gurus want to make money. So they find community with people who want to give up their money (gullible dreamers, usually). Other experts are more concerned about their reputation and the company they keep.
Communities are to a degree exclusive
Communities have to be exclude to some degree or form alternate communities to accommodate splinter groups. If you let people into your community (or affiliate network) who offend members of the community, you destroy trust. Even if you don’t have a moral objection to something personally, you have to think in terms of the community. For example, if you let CPA networks into your network and they are shady, you taint the whole community. Ultimately this can hurt business, at the least it will encumber it. You’ll spend more of your time policing and taking complaints from more responsible members of the community that you could spend building it.
Communities have identities
Is your product is marketed to women, then find communities of women both online and offline (Clubmom, Today’s Mama, TheKnot.com, etc). Get to know the qualities and parameters of the community before you approach them as a newcomer. Look for ways you can add to or complement what is there. You can’t fake this. When communities are engaging people stay longer and give more. They will even do free work for the sake of the community.
How Web 2.0 Sites Build Community
Part of web 2.0 is making it easier for communities to interact with and find each other. Trackbacks, comments, and tags are ways to build community online. I think often the strongest online communities are forums. The bloggers 2000 list is another way of building community.
Communities involve proximity
Whether online or offline, communities have a defined space. If you make communities hard to find or make people do extra work to be part of them, you’ve missed an opportunity. At conferences, if the place to hang out and talk is too far away from the classes or where people congregate it makes it harder to build community. People will create their own with pockets of community all over (like the women’s restroom, lol). When you plan something, think of ways to bring community together. One of my favorites is to identify groups of people within a larger group and make it easy for them to find each other (like a blogger’s lounge). This is why Craig’s List is so strong. It’s a bunch of local (city) communities. He hasn’t tried to tie them together. There are strong rules in the community and in general it’s keeping the community valuable. It is the same with wikipedia.
Ways to hurt community:
- Don’t be transparent (lie or be slightly dishonest).
- Plant comments on your own blog (instead of creating content that people care about - are you talking with people or at them?).
- Expect generosity from others but don’t give it back (expect people to give you there time and expertise free and then when it’s your turn to be generous, be stingy).
- Get all the high quality links you can to you but be very selective about giving them out.
- Don’t listen. Be closed off to feedback. Assume people are static, never-changing people. Treat them as such. Don’t trust them.
Communities are like families in that there are always members who annoy you or who you wish would go away. You might tolerate their presence. They are part of the community too. Communities almost always have members who challenge them.
