Join a community to market, don’t build one

I‘m often contacted by companies that want to build the definitive Internet place to go for information and to communicate for their niche area. The idea is to get everyone to come to your arena to network and communicate. Doesn’t work.

As Josh Hallett posts:

Companies often want to build online communities themselves rather the joining an established one (if one does exist). They think that by building their own community they will have some level of control. That’s not a community, that’s a cult.

Of course with some brands the loyalty their fans show is often compared to a cult. So perhaps a cult is the right type of society.

Online communities are wonderful places to market. But it’s not like you pay an admission fee and walk in the door. Communities exist by virtue of communicating via blogs and monitoring the RSS feeds of blogs and keywords/key phrases via Technorati and NewsGator.

And to think because there is no ‘online town hall’ where everyone is congregating to communicate on your niche you’re going to start one is misguided. Better approach is to look for the people already communicating via blogs.

Technorati Tags: communities