Community????

While reading Chapter 9 I stumbled in a subject that always got me a little confused, the concept of Social Media and the concept of Community. Let's start with the simplified definition of community that the author presented us with:


"..when a group of people, of their own volition, began to congregate around one or more platforms that deal with subjects of interest to them. The interests can be very broad, such as sports or entertainment news. They can be niche, such as a blog about golf or a site that answers income tax questions. Sites that attract even a small number of regular users can be referred to as a community." pg.239


People sometimes use Social Media and Community interchangeable but they are definitely not the same thing. In certain occasions I've heard people saying that they posted a review of a book on Amazon's Community, what is wrong. That may sound to us Marketing students a little silly, but that normally come from our target audience. Users (costumers, members, partners), are confused with all the new terms that Social Media had been trowing at them and sometimes they have no idea, what "WE" are talking about. In the case of "Community", I did a little research and found this short list that may help.

"Communities have the following characteristics:

- They are continuous, not temporal - this is not to say that people don't drop in and out but there is a core membership that interacts together over a long period of time.

- Communities gather around a concept or common goal not around a collection of content (although content does plays a major role, it is not the impetus for the community).

- Communities take on various conversations and activities, led by different members over time - it is not one conversation but many.

- People within communities get to know each other and interact regularly without centralized facilitation and not necessarily in the context of what the community is discussing as a whole.

- Community leaders emerge over time as they continue to take proactive roles in the community and rally other members to their causes. These leaders are community members and they self-select because of their interests - not because they are told to do so...although they can be encouraged to do so." 
Extracted from "The Social Organization" http://www.thesocialorganization.com/2008/07/social-media-is-not-community.html

While writing a paper last year about how Social Media had changed the way organizations are run, I found a great example of a successful community that I personally use and take great advantage of it. The one created by Intuit to support their accounting software QuickBooks. While trying to learn QuickBooks many times I went back and forth their support community for tips and information, and most of the time I was impressed with how they put their users to literally "work for them".
Enjoy the article:
How Intuit Makes a Social Network Pay by Reena Jana
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_28/b4139066365300.htm