Community doesn’t mean hippie love by John Haydon

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Everyone’s talking about community. Brands are shifting strategies to demonstrate how much they care about theirs. Small businesses and nonprofits are being told that engaging with theirs leads to more sales and donations.

Not just hippie love

If you haven’t defined your community, you could be wasting a lot of time pulling the wrong levers.

Think about it. If you define community as everyone who follows you on Twitter, you’ll waste time tweeting with folks who will never buy and never tell others about your company. A little hippie love is nice, but it won’t pay the rent.

Sure, it would feel pretty great for me to claim that my community is over 14,000 strong. But I’d be lying myself and I’d be looking like a fool to everyone else.

The quickest way to define community

If you define community as the people you share common interests, resources and needs with, then you’re getting somewhere.

I like to keep things simple. Simple is easy to manage and easy to scale.

In my business, people who talk about what I do are like gold. And I do my best to treat them so. I promote what’s important to them. I retweet and share things that they want me to share. We go back and forth on Facebook, Twitter and comments about a number of topics – both personal and professional. The more I do this (and I’ve measured the hell out of this), the more they’ll talk about me to their friends.

So I define community as: People who are talking with me about shared needs and interests.

Is community conversation?

If someone is talking to you and about you, it means that to some degree you both matter. You become part of a community when you talk about what’s important to that community. But what about people who just read your blog and don’t comment? What about the Lurkers?

How do you define community?

About the author: John Haydon advises non-profits and small businesses how to implement inbound marketing strategies with the social web and social media marketing strategies. Follow @johnhaydon on Twitter.

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11 comments

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Park Hotel

I agree with Heidi.
.-= Park Hotel´s most recent blog post ...Days Hotel Dublin Park West =-.

Heidi Massey

Great post John, on something that I really struggle with every time someone follows me.

Hippie Love is like a drug...it is easy to think it is a good thing because it feels good. I struggle with how to strategically use twitter. I am a good connector so people want me to follow them. I tend to be fascinated by people so it is always easy to find a reason to connect. I am always afraid that by not connecting with someone, I am missing out on a great opportunity or a great connection. The spammy/heavy sell folks are easy to wean out. But it is the people who are probably doing great stuff that just doesn't apply to my world that I have trouble sifting through and leaving behind. I would guess that I am not alone in this struggle.

Gonna have to continue to stew on this one...not sure there really is an easy answer-gray isn't just a color!
.-= Heidi Massey´s most recent blog post ...CarePoint: Serving Our Forgotten Populations =-.

Dave Doolin

I'm defining my community by the people are attracted to me and what I do, and stick around after they figure it out.

I don't have a demographic. Buyers range from 19 to 69 in age. From college age to retired.

It's very interesting, and I look forward to growing with this community, and finding out more about who they are.
.-= Dave Doolin´s most recent blog post ...How To Publish The **** Out Of Your Blog Post =-.

Jeff Hurt

In the nonprofit and association worlds, we often use the terms community of practice or community of purpose. For me community is a group of people united by a common issue, practice, profession or purpose. I see communities of practice as those that share values, perspectives and ways of doing things. Effective communities are like a beehives. They self-organize, buza with activity and produce something.
.-= Jeff Hurt´s most recent blog post ...Four Things To Consider Before Adding A New Show Or Conference =-.

John Haydon

Jeff - I have the same definition of community, and I love how you add "practice". Practice implies action and not just talk. Thanks for the useful new term ("Communities Of Practice").
.-= John Haydon´s most recent blog post ...How to update your Facebook Page from your cell phone =-.

Ari Herzog

What is hippie love, anyway? At the barber shop today, one asked the other for a hippie analogy for 2010.

The answer? "Hippies are losers today."

If true, the question begs to be asked if community means loser love. I'd say not.
.-= Ari Herzog´s most recent blog post ...Why Social Media is Not For Asses and Bubble People =-.

Community is not loser love. Bouncing around on Twitter and Facebook without building anything substantive is.
.-= John Haydon´s most recent blog post ...What Are Facebook “Community” Pages Anyhow? =-.

Vanessa

One major building block of community is reciprocity. Easily exampled by a sign on a truck at a volunteer fire department BBQ fundraiser - "You come to our BBQ, we come to your fire." Easy. Too often I see peopel that expect community to just happen when they want to do nothing to give to that community first. This weekend, I cleaned up a front yard of a foreclosed house in my neighborhood just because it looked awful and I wanted to do something about it. Of course, the people that hung the sign on the garage reading "HOA - Do something to make this house look better. It looks like shit." thought they were doing something. I think this missed the opportunity boat.

Great post!
.-= Vanessa´s most recent blog post ...30 Days of Gratitude - Day #4 - Clothing =-.

Very cool that you stepped in to do what was needed, Vanessa. It seems like you have a good sense of what it means to be responsible, and that the world around you is yours.
.-= John Haydon´s most recent blog post ...What Are Facebook “Community” Pages Anyhow? =-.

PR Cog

Hey John -

Great post. IMHO the lurkers are most certainly part of the community. Context will differ based on the model (i.e. a company's customers v. an NFP's donors v. the online or SM presence of either of these (or a 'twelebrity's) but even if the lurkers aren't talking to the community leader they're likely talking to others in the community or even those outside the community who could then join the community (and in-fact engage).

As politicians try to speak to all their constituents, even the non-voting ones, and theoretically represent their rights anyone's community is likely multiple times larger than those we engage with on a regular basis.

Good point. That's why it's important to monitor all the major social media sites!
.-= John Haydon´s most recent blog post ...What Are Facebook “Community” Pages Anyhow? =-.