From my early days growing up in a remote, rural community in western Canada, I learned the importance of relying on each other. When a stranger went off the road and came up to the house looking for help, we fired up the tractor and took time out from farm work to pull them out. No charges. It’s just part of life.
When my bachelor uncle lost his leg in a farming accident during harvest, every combine in the neighborhood arrived in his fields, putting their own profits in peril to ensure his crops made it into the bins. Our kitchen filled with women preparing food for the farmers from their own gardens and pantries.
Community was essential to our survival and our social network existed only among our neighbors and extended families. School was 16 miles west, services were 15 miles north in the nearest city and the next door neighbor was nearly a mile down the road. Digital social networks have helped me maintain connections with that community of my childhood.
In 2001, I launched HK heartbeat to share information with friends who approached me looking for natural lifestyle information in Hong Kong. It started as a weekly email newsletter, grew to include print publications and local events and I built the website directory myself in 2006. In recent years, I have added social media channels, integrating the information to reach members and keep everyone up to date with what’s new and what’s on in Hong Kong … naturally.
Companies recognizing the financial value of community are now attempting to recreate the magic under their brand and leveraging the network to sell their products and services.
Businesses beware — conscious customers recognize when a community is little more than advertising.
5 tips for building an online community
- Set up your community around a shared interest
- Encourage sharing of content, ideas and experiences
- Present your brand as the community sponsor
- Provide resources to develop the group
- Extend special offers to your members
By adopting this strategy, you will expand participation to include people who will not be put off by commercial nature of the program and present the project as actual community rather than a business venture.
This approach also opens the possibility of using the community to brand other products in the future.
I am always thinking ahead.
Photo by Kinzie