As marketers continue to strategize around the notion of community-building for their brands, it’s important to consider which tools and concepts foster a ‘sense of community’ and keep an online village from becoming a digital ghost town.
A sense of community can be broken down into four main categories:
Membership
Membership may offer boundaries, emotional safety, belonging and identification, a common symbol system or require a personal investment.
Fulfillment of Needs
Members should feel rewarded for their participation and contribution.
Shared Emotional Connection
Members must share some common history, or at least identify with that history. The emotional connection grows the more that shared-participation is enabled.
Influence
A community will only survive if there can be personal influence in the group, and influence by the group.
Successful communities generate all of these notions to remain strong and vibrant.
A neighborhood of empty houses does not make a community; it’s the people who live there that do. People in communities connect, relate, share and above all, exist together within a certain space. There are no exceptions in online communities. Developing a platform may enable visitation, but community is a sense that is founded through the members themselves, not the code.
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September 27th, 2007 at 7:22 pm
Four Ingredients that Help Build Strong Online Communities…
As marketers continue to strategize around the notion of community-building in their brands, its important to consider which tools and concepts foster a sense of community to keep your online village from becoming a digital ghost town….
September 16th, 2008 at 4:31 pm
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November 4th, 2009 at 5:30 pm
[...] the difference but realize that wisdom is wisdom regardless of which type. Don’t underestimate the simple it is often the most [...]