I have worked for far too many companies that make community sound like any other buzz word. They assume that if they do a few different things that a community will surround their product or service, and that they will be able to “leverage” it to do great business related things.
NO!
Community is not something you can force or even make plans around. Communities aren’t to be leveraged in ways that you should be trying to put on a balance sheet for a return on investment. Communities are built up of people, and while people can sometimes be sheep-like in that they will follow a strong leader, they still deserved to be treated with respect.
Finding shortcuts and ways to artificially create a community around your product or service will only end up failing. True communities build themselves. You can help shape them, support them, and keep them engaged, but you can’t create them from nothing.
You have probably read a million posts that talk about creating communities before stumbling onto this post, and it might be disappointing to hear what I have to say, but as a business, you will be better for it.
How Can I Create a Community Then?
So, you still want to have a community around your product or service? Why do you want a community?
Some of the answers I have seen are that businesses expect users to support each other, or that they will be able to create passionate community members that will do evangelist work for them, but what companies don’t seem to understand is how saturated the life of an average community member now is.
Community leaders are rare and have to truly feel that they are benefiting not only the community, but themselves in some way. What is a community member’s return on investment? If you can calculate what your community members will earn by being part of your community, then you will be thinking along the correct lines to build one.
Of course, this doesn’t mean you can just give tokens of your appreciation in the form of an e-mail thanking them, but make it tangible in some way. If you are a software company, give away copies of your software. Don’t make it a big contest or anything like that. Make it something you do behind the scenes as a show of appreciation.
Doing these types of things without asking for anything from your community will build a relationship beyond one of just business to customer.
My biggest tip though would be to find someone outside of your company that is great at managing communities and hire them. Let them be slightly independent and become the filter between your business and the community that you have created, as it can help create the most important parts of a business related community: sincerity and honesty!
Stop trying to do various tricks, following tips, and be open, honest, transparent and real with the people you want to connect with, and while you might not create the largest community in the world, you will start to build a valuable one.
