This article is the second in a 2-part series about the rise of social communities (slack, discord, even whatsapp). The first article breaks down the evolution of social media, how platforms went from enabling deep, authentic connections to platforms that encouraged performance, showmanship and competition. The article then talks about the emergence of communities that promote belonging on the internet and why are on the rise.
The second part of the article talks about the art and science of community building, and includes learnings from successful communities that have a thriving, active membership.
Early years of social media: unlocking tremendous social capital
The emergence of facebook in the early 2000’s heralded a new era of the internet — ushering in web 2.0. The initial years of facebook’s growth unlocked incredible social capital for its billion + users.
Personally, it allowed me to reconnect with old school friends I had lost touch with and stay in regular touch with my current set of friends across different cities. The engagement was rich — people posted photographs of their daily lives, their vacations — it felt like you were now let into many homes virtually. You built stronger, better relationships that you would not have — had Facebook not allowed you to richly connect with your friends across the globe. Over a period of time, your connections of social media moved beyond your family and friends circle — you started to join groups, clubs and pages that allowed you to meet and engage with like-minded people. Therefore not only did Facebook bring to life your latent connections — it also formed new relationships.
Other platforms that followed suit unlocked similar social capital — Instagram allowed for photo-only connections to develop. It was genius actually — now you didn’t even have to think about texting people, making conversation to stay connected. You only needed to whip our your smartphone, take a photo of yourself or your surroundings and post it on social media to let people into your lives. Twitter ad LinkedIn which also rose in popularity in the early 2000’s found similar niche’s/features to distinguish themselves from Facebook: Twitter launched as a micro-blogging platform, LinkedIn was Facebook for professional connections.
They all unlocked new forms of social capital for its users and Facebook’s impact on the world cannot be underestimated — humanity was better connected place because of it.
Social media 2.0: The rise of showmanship
If the first phase of social media was about building deeper connections, the second phase of social media transitioned into performance and showmanship. While Facebook was the winner in the first phase of social media, Instagram has been the undisputed winner of phase 2.
Various features pushed the platform into becoming a stage of showmanship.
First, was the ability to have a public profile: this meant meant that the entire world — not just your close group of friends — would be able to view your photos. One glance at the profile of a long-lost fried could tell you how well they were doing — lots of international vacations meant they had done well, dimly lit, badly taken photos of their home meant they weren’t doing so well. This prompted users to share only the best parts of their lives — adding filters to your face, to the photos you took, helped you make it look better than it was.
Second, was the ability to shoot videos — because now it truly converted Instagram into a stage. People started dancing, shooting skits, posting videos of vacation spots (with Ludovico Einaudi) playing in the background, short stand-up comedy sets etc. Instagram went from an intimate place to share your lives with your friends and family into a full-blown performance theatre in the span of 3 years.
Over a period of time, Instagram truly promoted entertainment— the advent of reels, stories and snapchat-like filters completed this transition. Other platforms followed suit — Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook all became different stages in the same theatre we call the internet, a way to show others how you’re better than them. On Instagram you do it with photos and videos, on LinkedIn via professional achievements, on Twitter through writing interesting threads and so on.
The rise of showmanship on these platforms strangely reversed all the deep, authentic positive connections that social media 1.0 promised. While social media 1.0 (it could be argued) briefly improved the mental health of people — by connecting them with their old friends, and allowing for richer connections among existing ones, social 2.0 has drastically increased mental health issues — the performance anxiety has led to well documented mental health concerns. If social media 1.0 deepened friendships, social media 2.0 converted those friendships into competition — you needed to be better than your friend — because now everyone was watching the both of you.
Social media 3.0: Communities and belonging
Communities are groups of people that get together on the basis of shared interests/goals. They are typically highly interactive with limited/flat hierarchy — promoting many-to-many connections (as opposed to say connections between a teacher and students — which is a one-to-many connection).
Most social media platforms are built for one-to-many connections. You show something, some people react to it (likes, comments) and move on. There isn’t real sustained conversation — it is mostly a show and tell game. In the world of communities (and in social media 3.0), whatsapp is the winner — allowing people to have private, many-to-many groups that come together on the basis of a shared purpose.
The private nature of whatsapp fundamentally allows it to skip the showmanship/performance trajectory. Whatsapp now allows you to put up Whatsapp statuses that all your contacts can see — but for most part, it is (thankfully) private. Initially, you could only use Whatsapp for 1 to 1 chats, but the introduction of whatsapp groups allowed the formation of communities — family groups, college alumni groups, groups of people that follow the same sport etc began to be formed. The advent of these groups now allowed whatsapp to unlock social value similar to the value unlocked in social media 1.0 — without the stress of performance or showmanship.
In the last 2–3 years, we’ve seen people form larger communities on other platforms. Slack, Discord and Whatsapp are the 3 most popular platforms for communities of people to get together under a shared umbrella.
The rise of communities as a backlash to social media 2.0
Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram are social networks that by-design don’t foster authentic connection, and instead prioritize showmanship and entertainment. This meant that people need to find other places to express their true, genuine selves. And this is exactly what community leaders seek to do in newly formed communities on discord/slack/whatsapp — changing the nature of relationships on social media from influencer-audience relationships to high engaged, authentic many-to-many relationships between strangers that come together.
Good online community leaders create an environment for people can truly connect around the purpose of the community’s existence: and when done well, authentic relationships start to form. Healthy communities find a way to invite participation and create shared experiences that promote people to share real, authentic and personal stories. Over a period of time the connections formed in the community are real, and create a sense of belonging for people within these communities.
Gently, but at an increasing pace, people are finding themselves hanging out more in social communities (slack, discord, whatsapp) vs social networks (Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn). Rather than become “fans” or “followers” of influencers, people are striving to join social communities that are well nurtured and where members engage and interact in meaningful aways.
The future of communities: Community leaders> Influencers
Humans are social animals that have sought out ‘tribes’ since we were living in actual tribes trying to get enough to eat and not get flattened by woolly mammoths, millions of years ago. Communities are tribes — that provide for the infrastructure to find your sense of belonging and foster both individualism and unity. When we find our tribe, we find the freedom to become our truest, most authentic selves.
Increasingly, the infrastructure of new social media platforms (as also edtech platforms) is built upon communities — spaces where people come to interact and engage with each other.
The winners of this decade will not be influencers that can perform — but community leaders that can facilitate — real, authentic connections and conversations in well defined communities.
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Note from the author
Thank you for reading so far! We’re building Hushl, a full-stack creator platform to truly simplify content creation and enable millions of ‘non-creators’ to join the creator economy. Learn more about us at www.hushl.in