MaestroJ - digital strategy & new media

Richard Millington is an “online community builder” working for the UN. Note how he used the term “builder” rather than “manager” or “director”. A post of his really sparked my interest and got me thinking.

The post, in summary, asserts that amateurs build better online communities than businesses. Amateur communities don’t concern themselves with things like budget, timelines, deadlines, ROI, targetted growth; but solely on participating in the community.

Firstly, I believe it’s important to clarify the terms “amateur” and “business”. The more I think about it, the more complicated it can get. Let’s take Facebook, for example. Facebook is a business, valued at US$10 billion earlier this year. The large percentage of its members are amateurs, who don’t often talk about Facebook or Facebook services, but simply use the platform to participate with their own networks. You could argue, that Facebook is an “amateur community”. Certainely, many businesses are now harnessing Facebook in an effort to develop communities around their brand, and Facebook supplies advertising solutions for businesses to target groups of users; but the majority of users are still “amateur” individuals, talking and sharing personal concerns and ideas.

However, Facebook is also a professional outfit which most certainely concerns itself with budget, timelines and growth. It is not an “amateur” run platform. There is a large team of paid employees that ensure Facebook remains functional, innovative and competitive, and most importantly, run a profit. Doesn’t that mean that it’s a “business”?

So how do you distinguish? Is a community defined by the people who facilitate it, or the people who participate, it’s “members”? Aren’t they one and the same? Maybe Facebook is the wrong example. It’s more of a tool to help build community rather than a community per se.

Perhaps looking at examples will help, and also narrowing it down to specific niche communities. He’s provided examples of “good” online communities here.

For the purposes of this post, let’s just say that “amateur” is any community with a shared characteristic (purpose/location/interest) which has been created with no explicit profit-generating objective; while “business” is any business using social media tools in an attempt to develop a relationship with their community, with the overall intention of generating more profit for the business. “Profit” is the key differentiator.

I should note that I’m leaning away from the definition of “amateur” in the “not professional” sense, i.e. having negative connotations. That’s not the point of this comparison.

Having worked with both amateur and business community development initiatives before, I would have to agree with Richard that amateurs overall, do it better.

There are some businesses that run successful online communities but many companies suffer from large setbacks which prevent them from properly engaging their online community. Repressive company cultures, inter-departmental politics (who “owns” the community - Marketing, PR, Internal Comms, Product), egos threatened by social media exposure, “experts” ambushing each other for a larger piece of the pie, are only some, very real examples of roadblocks companies face with community development.

Recently, I worked with a non-profit to develop their community strategy. There were so many challenges attached: a next to nothing budget, limited operational capacity, a fickle and periodically brutal target market, but the differences were noteable. “Community” for them was not a vague term printed and copied into a strategy document, tossed around during presentations. It is lived and experienced, almost difficult to articulate because it is taken for granted as a given. And that is perhaps the major difference. Many businesses talk about developing communities, they see it as a task. Amateurs see it as an essential ingredient to strengthen their relationships within their network.

For those businesses who have had a hard look at themselves and are attempting to engage their community, I’ve picked out some key points from Richard’s post:

Commitment
“Amateurs don’t abandon the community when they find a new job, or get given a promotion, or their work load picks up. They make the time every day (or evening) for the community.”

Trust
“Amateurs are typically passionate fans with lots of friends they can tell about their new online community. This helps a lot. They have trust and respect from the people they want to join.”

Quality vs.quantity
“Amateurs don’t try to grow big. They focus on making the community fun rather than huge. If they don’t want more members, they don’t try to get any more members.”