“Communication leads to community, that is, to understanding, intimacy and mutual valuing.” —Rollo May
If your business grew out of a passion you have to either do something or to create an impact/make a difference in the world —or both—then building a community can be instrumental.
Social media started out as a community building set of tools. Creating conversations to bring people together around businesses and brands they love, activities and topics, and family and friends. That’s how we ended up with pages, profiles, and groups on Facebook. Hashtags on Twitter. Company pages, profiles, and groups on LinkedIn. Subreddits on Reddit. Everything on social involves community.
When we fall into the trap of measuring followers or engagement or clicks, we can easily forget that the goal is community.
Community gives you the lever to get something out to lots more people in the world. People that are already pulled together around something they all have in common. Perhaps you’ve brought them together with discussions about what matters in your field. Or maybe you’re inside a community already discussing those topics.
When you’re thinking about ‘doing social’ for your business, think about how you can be a catalyst for creating community. That’s likely to put you in a completely different frame of reference than thinking about how many followers you can attract and convert.
Once you have community, really anything is possible.
“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” —Helen Keller
