Global PR Blog Week 1.0

Tools for Building Communities

Back in the late 90s, it seemed every other business plan I saw had "building community" as a major component. These were the wild and wacky days of the web gold rush, and the one identified way to make money was to consolidate lots of eyeballs and push ads at them. Of course, the same few thousand people and the same few hundred ad buyers were targeted in all of the 14,876 plans or so I had the pleasure of perusing. Thus the Oh-Ohs and the resounding thud heard 'round the world.

Yet, the drive towards "building communities" has not disappeared. Witness the stellar growth of LinkedIn, Friendster, Orkut. Yet [hand to ear]...do I hear the whistle of a coming thud? Is the buzz on "social networks" already dying?

I think there is something fundamentally broken about the way organizations have birthed online communities up until now. And in the face of a dramatic (for Americans at least) cultural decline in joining communities (as chronicled in Robert Putman's book Bowling Alone), organizations that are interested in fostering community need to adopt new strategies and tactics to be successful.

Before I get to what is broken, first I thought it would be useful to list the four characteristics of community as defined by McMillan and Chavis, which are the most widely accepted among community researchers. [This materials comes from an article by Anita Blanchard that is part of the excellent new gathering of academic work on blogs: Into the Blogosphere.]

* Feelings of membership: Feelings of belonging to, and identifying with, the community;

* Feelings of influence: Feelings of having influence on, and being influenced by, the community;

* Integration and fulfillment of needs: Feelings of being supported by others in the community while also supporting them; and

* Shared emotional connection: Feelings of relationships, shared history, and a “spirit” of community.

So, if we take these traits and apply them to virtual communities, which I think you can without too much trouble (read the papers on virtual communities at Into the Blogsphere for more on that), we begin to see where the problem I mentioned earlier lies.

To date, communities have usually been created for the primary benefit of the organizer to sell eyeballs or to create the illusion of mass support of an objective (environmental organizations are a good example here). These creative people have come up with a variety of benefits to the members, which they then market in the goal of getting more members. The organizers of community are enamored with numbers. But, let's be careful here. In fact, for virtually any membership community, only two to 20 percent of members are active in any way at all. And generally, the number is closer to the low end than the high end. (Source)

So, if you are interested in forming a vital community of contributing members, you have to overcome the inertia of built-in, cultural passivity. (Again, I am speaking mainly of the American public today, but I suspect the lessons can be applied in many other countries.) Clearly, that is something that isn't going to happen overnight. However, there are some approaches you can take, guided by the attributes of successful communities I listed above.

First of all, you must create a framework around which the community can grow organically. Trying to force fit a structure onto a group of people doesn't encourage participation! MeetUp is a great example of an organization that created a few simple tools then backed off. Now, we can argue that MeetUp itself isn't the community, but that isn't for here. It simply serves as a good example.

Then, you need to provide tools for people to contribute in ways that they feel comfortable. The usual tools include email lists, discussion boards, petition signings, etc. etc. Here, I want to focus on how blogs can be used, drawing on work I am currently doing with an business membership organization.

Blogs as Framework Of Participation

In my example, I am working with a recently launched non-profit industry advocacy group/membership organization. Our goal is to build a set of knowledge about an emerging market, while simultaneously helping to define the market itself. Furthermore, we are attempting to provide a forum where users and vendors can meet and discuss their mutual goals and challenges.

With limited budget and few human resources, we decided the best thing to do was to create a framework where others could easily contribute to the knowledgebase, while providing the opportunity for influence and recognition (see list above!). We are using a variety of tools, including case study databases, speakers bureaus, eNewsletters, committees and so on. I am going to describe how we plan on using blogs (we are on the verge of launch, but haven't done so yet).

1) We are creating a blog that will be the "voice" of the association. The managing director will be the primary author, with my help.

2) We are inviting a variety of guest authors to post for a week at a time on a subject of interest to them as well as our members. Over the past few months, we have briefed more than 20 industry analysts in the US and Europe. In many cases, we will be featuring their research on our website. At the same time, timed when possible around the launch of a new report, we are inviting them to be a guest author. This is a win-win for everyone. We get the benefit of building a set of knowledge and they get good PR.

3) We are creating a blog for all vendor members, and they are welcome to post their thoughts, challenges, etc. as a channel of communication to the member base and a broader audience. (We do not allow them to market to our list of members directly).

4) We will provide a blog for any member who would like one. They can post whatever they like in it (with guidelines for libel, profanity, etc.). Again, our goal is to create a public forum where people can share their ideas.

I'll be reporting on progress on these participatory community building efforts through the use of blogs on my own blog from time to time, so please stop on by. In the meantime, if you have questions about using blogs for community building, please drop them in the comments, and I will respond.

Author: Elizabeth Albrycht | Jul 14, 04 | Permalink | 2 comments
Category: @ Elizabeth Albrycht | Topic 3 Making PR Work

 

 

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The Global PR Blog Week 1.0 is an online event that will engage PR, marketing and business bloggers from around the globe in a discussion about blogging and communications. The event is scheduled for July 12 - 16, 2004.

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