5 Social Approaches Misleadingly Called Communities

There are three elements to a community. 1) A specific group of people who have 2) developed relationships with each other through a 3) strong common interest. Specific people + strong common interest + relationships, that’s it.

So lets highlight 5 activities which aren’t communities.

      1) Online customer service channels. Customer service channels are fantastic. One person asks a question and another responds. They’re scalable and everyone benefits.

Some organizations such as GiffGaff, GetSatisfaction and Lithium Technologies do an incredible job here. However, they rarely build long-lasting relationships with each other. Most people visit, ask a question, get a reply then don’t return. Using community software doesn’t means your building a community. Developing relationships between your target audience means you’re building a community

Hashtags, however, can be communities. Jenn has done a great job with #cmgrchat. Each week, people come to talk to each other about an established community topic. Over a period of weeks they begin to recognize each other and get to know each other. They build relationships, a sense of community has begun to develop.

Knowing the difference matters. Imagine if you got sales and PR mixed up. Each is a different approach with a different benefit at a unique stage of the customer life cycle. The same is true with communities. As our social field grows we need to know what approach to use in each situation.

I hope we become better at differentiating between the two.