In an increasingly web-enabled society, a variety of mediums are being used in tandem by businesses looking to develop a new wave of community spirit amongst its stakeholders. Business specialist William Buist argues that the main challenge facing organisations is how to do this well and in a manner, which adds value to the community, and the business, for mutual benefit.
The word ‘Community’ first appeared in the 14th century and is derived from the Latin communitas meaning ‘Fellowship’ and/or communis meaning ‘common, public, general, shared by all or many’. When thinking about specialist communities, I like to refer to community as ‘Common Fellowship’.
But before we can talk about how to create value, we need to decide how to define and measure it. Value is derived not just from the direct contribution, but also from the value members bring to the community; through their knowledge, skills, experience and, from their interactions in their own business and personal networks.
As a common fellowship, a community contains two elements: (1) the people in the community and their networks, and (2) what they bring to it. So community value is a combination of both network value and content value – contacts and content.
Contacts and Content
In a large community of many, perhaps millions of members – you can reach out and make contact with very talented people. The chances are that someone in the community is perfectly suited to helping with a current issue, but finding them is hard. Wouldn’t it be better if they were already seeking you out?
Those seeking to create and build communities need to design the environment in which it operates, in a way that encourages and supports and helps members easily apply the right approach to the community. Common fellowship only appears when it is easy to build strong relationships.
When you meet people, you have just one opportunity to sell your goods or services. When they like you, when they want to help you, then they’ll talk about you to others and your opportunities are magnified. When you are THE expert – the referral becomes automatic. People stop thinking about the other people they know who could help, because they know the expert.
When the relationship is strong, you really aren’t talking just to an individual but also to all the people they know. Communities that build relationships leverage success through those relationships, in the network; they create “Network Value”.
Creating Network Value
People tend to buy products and services from people whom they trust. They trust what their friends tell them, so to build network value you need to find a way to get people that you don’t know talking about your products and services to people that trust them. Your network reach is critical.
I define the real value of your network as the extent to which people who don’t know you, are talking about you, to other people whom you don’t know.
Content Value
This is why publishing is really important. There are “lurkers” who really don’t actively participate by writing. Probably, 90% of your readership will never actively engage, making it hard for you to gauge the value you are giving, yet many will be advocates and supporters.
That creates a driver for people to write and add to the community’s content value, whilst reading the material attracts new people to connect with the author and increases the overall network value too.
Of course, a community carries risk. Bad news spreads as fast as, or faster than, good news and mistakes can be seen in the transparency of a closely connected community.
If you are creating a community, then the value people get from the knowledge in the community has to be greater than the costs of giving and the risks of providing content must be less than risk of not doing so.
Critical Mass
To make it self-sustaining, you need a critical mass of members, activity must be frequent and successful. Typically, online, the contribution rate in terms of adding content is recognised as around 10 to 1, and at well designed offline meetings you can expect attendance at up to 50% of the membership.
To get business you need to give business and for that to work in a dynamic way, contributors need to see success as well as referring opportunities too. The visibility of that to all is key.
Induction and ongoing training and support is key to initiate the behaviours that develop community ‘spirit’ too, as this helps new members to overcome a natural reluctance to participate in the early weeks of membership.
So, i’d suggest that to get the mix right, critical mass is between 100 and 200 active and committed people.
It’s not enough just to get the members through; you also need to retain them and develop the community over time through continual engagement. After all, the community has to adapt as each new member joins, their skills and networks need to add to the community value.
Embracing change
So you should expect change; indeed I think it is critical to embrace it, use it, and indeed leverage it. From a community owner point of view, there is increasing pressure to develop and enhance the functionality of the environment in which the community operates.
That’s best done in a strategic transparent framework known to the community, even developed with them. Without a guiding vision, there is no direction, and rudderless communities wither and die.
Communities change as the vision develops. For a community owner, the key thing is to remember to whom you appeal. It’s not enough to know what they want today, it’s important also to know where they are likely to want to go.
A community cannot be all things to all people though, and once you empower your community to comment on the community it won’t be long before you realise that the community is a community of experts who won’t hesitate to tell you what to do. That requires diplomacy and patience to manage well. Some have described that as a task akin to herding cats.
Ends
no comment untill now