In essence, what these companies are trying to do is convert people into fans and then either use them to expand their marketing efforts through unpaid evangelism or into purchasing the product, service from the company or an advertisement.

It seems simple enough, but is it right? Should companies consider their community as a currency?

I have some fairly strong feelings regarding this from both angles. As a person, I am angry that companies would attempt to do this, as it almost seems like a form of trickery. On the other hand, I see why businesses need to do this, and understand why they are so interested in making it happen.

As a human, living on a twenty-four hour per day clock, we only have so much time each day and everything is competing for it. We reach our saturation point early on, and if a company can’t get their message to you multiple times, you’ll probably forget about them and move on to join a community related to another company, product or service.

Whether we like it or not, community is a form of currency, especially online, and the value of that currency is only growing. If you want to be a community manager, part of your job will be to hide the fact that individuals in the community are really just currency for a company to do better than the competition. If that is something you aren’t interested in doing, then you might want to rethink your aspirations.

While not every company is open about this fact, in the back of their mind, they are all thinking it, or they wouldn’t spend the money on developing a community.