I have written about building strong communities before on my own blog Branding David. I wrote a post called “You Can’t Force Community“, where I talked about the issue I have with people and businesses stating that they will build a community around their company, product, or service.
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.
The reason that companies want so desperately to build communities is that they are worth money, and have huge value in many different ways. A self-sustaining community can provide support for new users and become an unpaid marketing arm of your company. Communities are almost like a captive audience, where you can push out your own information and agenda as often as they are willing to receive it, giving you an opportunity to up-sell or otherwise convert your community to money.
Why This is Bad
Communities are built up of people, and as businesses belittle the effort that goes into generating and sustaining a community, they loose sight of that fact.
People deserve to be treated with respect, and not used to generate wealth. What I am asking for is companies to become more transparent and more sincere. If you are building a community just to make money off of the people that are interested in what you are doing, then you’ve built a profit tool out of what I consider trickery. If they are already a fan of you, your company, or your product in some small way, should you really trick them so that you can make a profit? Do right by your community, and they will re-pay you one thousand fold. Trick them, and they will eventually see through your actions and leave you, carrying their negative experience with them wherever they go.
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