Social media and social networks are all the rage. They are supposed to help us connect to a wider range of people, find like-minded associates, build brand loyalty, locate and engage candidates for employment, provide education and real time learning, and stay in touch with dispersed family members or workers.
Over the past half decade the popularity of Facebook, LinkedIn and other networks has soared. Almost all large organizations have some sort of presence on one or both of these networks and perhaps on others as well.
To make social networks far more powerful, it is important to evolve them into communities. Communities are special entities and are much more powerful and effective than a network of people. Networks are little different than crowds – they are associations of people but lack the engagement and depth found in community.
A community has many characteristics which I describe below, but one of its most fundamental concepts is everyone in a community has access to and can communicate with everyone else. Communities are at their base forums to exchange ideas, engage in discussion, and offer opinions. Any social media that limits engagement or communication cannot be defined as a community.
Here are some other characteristics of communities.
Collaboration and Sharing
People in a community share information and often work together to solve problems or come up with new ideas. They are organic and alive with conversation and sharing of opinions and thoughts.
Feeling included
Being part of something is also a key ingredient in a community. By being with others of similar interests and through sharing ideas, people come to feel part of the team. Communities help people get to know others and members reach out to those who are not participating to find out why. There is a strong interest in everyone being involved.
Similar values
No one is forced to join or stay in a community. People can enter or leave communities at will. Therefore, people who stay in a community and engage in conversation are most likely to have similar values as others.
Openness
Member of communities are much more likely to share their feelings and express their true opinions about issues. Opinions are widely known and there is a tendency for lively debate.
Engagement
And finally, those in an active community are truly engaged and interested. Here is a statement from Richard Long, Deliotte New Zealand’s Manager of Talent Acquisition, about their recently developed Facebook community aimed at helping Deloitte recruit university students and graduates:
“Our strategy is to create dialogue and conversation with students and engage with them – all the while further developing the page with their feedback in mind – quite an organic process. All through our page we have given students the opportunity to tell us what they want to see and hear. The content of our page is provided by our own Deloitte Graduates and Summer Interns, and the fans themselves. My team really only administrates and develops the site to allow more conversation to happen between the fans and Deloitte Grads and Interns they are interested in hearing from. The result is we have built a community of students engaged with the Deloitte NZ brand, who are talking to us and have a sense of our culture and how we can support their career aspirations.”
This nicely sums up my major points and gives evidence that taking a social network to the next dimension – that of turning it into a true community of engaged and energetic people – is the right way to go.
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