This article is curated from one of my favorite writers on Medium.com, Tim Denning. It’s about building a community rather than an audience. And, I love the concept, although I haven’t quite figured out how to do it yet.
Tim says “Creators, one-person business owners, and entrepreneur have figured it out. The online world is moving over to communities. And oddly, businesses are moving away from selling products/services into building communities they monetize indirectly.”
Audience vs Community
I have a FB Group that I go live in every Wednesday at 4pm, and I have another private forum on Heartbeat. But, no one talks to each other in either place . . . as much as I want it, it’s not a community. Although, it seems like I’m not alone with that problem. In fact, according to this article “It’s rare to see a real online community.”
Tim uses a description from Ethan Brooks to describe a community. Ethan says “if you’re not fostering connections between your readers, you don’t have a community, you have an audience.” This is how he describes it visually…
Image credit-Ethan Brooks via a “A community is where members talk to each other just as much — if not, more — than they do to the community’s creator. When you join a community and make friends you keep coming back for more.”
And, it seems to me, it might make it easier to run too.
Kelly McCausey is great at building communities. Maruxa Murphy and Nicole Batey, are pretty good at it too. So I know it’s possible.
Taking on A New Challenge
So that’s my new challenge. This article shares seven essential ingredients to building a community online. I’m going to put them into action and see how it goes. And, I’ll let you know how it works out. Or better yet, hop into my FB Group and be a part of the metamorphosis from audience to community in real time.
I’m going to try these strategies simultaneously on FaceBook and on Heartbeat. That way, at some point I can own my community. On FB I’ll just be building FB and if they ever decide to take it away they can.
You can read the full article here: The Method to Build a Badass Community That Makes You 6 Figures a Year After Hours on Medium.com