Rich Millington, on his FeverBee – The Online Community Guide blog shared two posts recently about a following vs. community: Why Most Organizations Shouldn’t Try To Create An Online Community and Clarity – What’s a Community?
- A Following = an audience that interacts with you
- A Community = an audience that interacts with each other
I see people confuse the two often (and I’ll admit I’ve been guilty of it myself.) Rich says “organizations that sell sociable and highly engaging products/services” are suitable for community. There are benefits to each approach and significant pitfalls from pursuing the an approach that’s not appropriate for your audience.
Does your audience want to know about your products or about each other?