Community Building: 3 Things You Cannot Get Wrong
Hey, my name is Jerry. Honestly, most times I feel like long articles are quite a bore. And especially because it’s quarantimes, I’m going to try to make this a short read as much as I can.
The word ‘community’ can mean a lot of things. But for the purpose of this piece, community refers to a dynamic human following of a marketable entity. This entity can be in form of a person, an organization, or a product. To make this sound easier, your community is basically the people who make you look good, when you are not there.
You could say that your community is your audience, people who interact with you. They are the guys who would retweet your posts on Twitter, or even send an email across to you for inquiry about one thing or the other.
From my definition, the word dynamic suggests that your community cannot be stagnant, and is subject to either growth, or depletion.
It’s the concept of community that validates the saying “your network determines your net worth” And more often than not, we tend to forget how important this is when we do stuff.
For the most part of my very young career, working with the awesome team of Genesys Tech Hub, where we make it our daily mission to spread impact among young people by scaling their technical knowledge, and exposing them to a bunch of amazing opportunities, I’ve learned a couple of stuff about community building.
Many things can go wrong when you venture into building your community, but please, try to make sure that these 3 don’t, take a look;
- People
If you ever try to actively build a community, you will find out that you need people to blow your trumpet. These people can be your followers, partners, ambassadors or any other category they fall into. You need people!
These are the guys who would be at the frontline of battle, so whatever they do, should matter to you, a lot!
At this point, you are going to have to find a balance of skill and character in the people you decide to work with. I had to put this to practice when we had to find student ambassadors to help us run the Genesys Campus Clubs, our initiative which is aimed at helping even more young people grow their skills, and prepare them for big opportunities, right from the four walls of the university.
When you find the right people for this cause, they could potentially grow to become your biggest asset. On the other hand, when you find the wrong people, you could be like Idris Elba below after a short while..
2. Engagements
Okay, let’s say you got that first part right, and things are going on well. Your community is growing, and there is a certain burning flame for you. How do you keep this flame burning?
Keeping your community engaged works the same way with keeping a person’s attention during a conversation. You have to constantly put out content that would keep people wanting more. Same as your community, if you are looking at keeping them with you. You would need to constantly show them that you care about their growth. This is where media has a major role to play.
Using our Campus Clubs, we sought out to find ways to help our student community members grow the same way we do at our annual internship. So we drew up a learning curriculum, and spiced it up with events such as hackathons, competitions, webinars, and meetups. All in calculated efforts to help our people keep their flames burning.
3. Resources
Yes, keeping your community is a lot of work and you need to take time to set out all the things you would need to keep this running, and make sure you’ve got it all ready.
You really don’t want to start all the wonderful work, and stop somewhere, leaving all your people hanging. Getting your resources right will guarantee that you would be consistent. This way, your community will trust that you will always be there , where they need you!
Building an active community is a lot of work. You don’t necessarily need to check out all the boxes, but you definitely need to check out the three above. I’m hoping this was of some help to you. Cheers to staying safe during these times!
I said this would be short right?
