GST Webinar — What’s in a Community Builder?

Last week we invited two expert community builders to contribute to a discussion on community and engagement. No matter its origin, “community building” as a career is more than a trend or fleeting fad, but is in fact becoming recognized as a vital gene within the DNA of growth-minded organizations — Especially tech communities. Community builders operate at the nexus of operations, marketing, and business development. They are at once creative and analytical, strategic and empathetic, listeners and communicators, constantly working to identify opportunities and create unique, valuable connections between groups of people. Below is a summary of our discussion.

Chinwe Okoli (Executive Director at Grand Africa Initiative)

Q: What are you passionate about in terms of community building?

A: Community building is connecting a bridge between likeminded people. Even as a big corporate company, you can build community. Community-building is driven by a clear vision — what is the value for the people who join in the community and what binds them together?

Community building is more than just marketing. It can also support product research and development, for example. You can receive constructive feedback for new ideas. It can help you go global much quicker — if your community connects with your vision, they become your free marketers.

Q: Bonding offline is the ultimate way to do so. Can we build trust online?

A: Both ways in my opinion. In a post-COVID world, I believe it has to be a blend. For communities to continue to be engaged, we can’t wait for the crisis to be over, we have to maintain connections now.

Once you have your reason and vision, define your audience: who are they, where are they, are they on the internet, etc. Then, create your platform — what is the best way to reach them?

How do you measure impact? What do you want to deliver to your audience? Finally, engage and build as much of a personal touch as possible.

Q: What are some of the things we can learn from African culture about community building?

A: In Africa, there is a lot of diversity in how people act and understand their reality. Music that might resonate in the east has no value in the south. We can learn that you cannot impose one way of doing things within your community. In order to reach the widest possible audience, you have to pay attention to the local culture so you can adjust to their language, and not expect them to adjust to yours.

George Siosi Samuels (Managing Director at Faiā)

Q: What is your community-building background? What are some insights you may want to share?

A: My dive into community work came from my Polynesian background. My background gave me a fascination to bring people together. I saw a lot of game-changing potential in community building as a lot of changes that were made in the crypto space were influence by the community.

People have looked for community in the products they buy and the businesses they support because much of the world has lost it in the traditional sense, like surrounding religion for example.

A community is not a one-way street — that is an audience.

In terms of measuring impact — there are still none that measure the strength of relationships. We can currently only measure the quantity of relationships through numbers and statistics. Until we value the strength of relationships, we won’t see products that seek to build relationship strength as opposed to just large numbers of communication.

You have to plan for longevity in community building — seek to build communities that last. If you are not at the center of your community, your community will not last. The strongest communities are those where the founder is solving his/her own kind of problem, then attracts likeminded people around him/her. The founder is at the center of his community. Clans, for example, always have symbols, key people, or physical connections at the center of their community that creates longevity — such as totems, crests and elders.

Online, we can get inspiration from the past. We can magnify it to reach more people. Ritual and initiation can be very important. Companies and brands are the new identity or symbol.