Technology has advanced into more places and has become a norm for aiding people's needs. But there is no technology that is able to make people better in creating a community. Technology has made community easier to build, but apparently not better.
With the help of technology, almost anything is possible. But with the variety that increases with it, people has become more distracted. And the chances in succeeding in building a solid community has been reduced.
Technology has tweaked many things in life, making them easier to use. Businesses has spend their resources to create great communities, but many of them have failed. To make a great community doesn't have to have technology involved. To create a solid community, you must first create a sense of community.
Technology has aided humans more than many. It has put those difficult puzzles of life in number so humans have a good overview of it. The sense of community is what glues them all together into one solid piece.
The sense of community is an experience needed for people to have in common. People must believe that they belong into it, believe in it, and have strong psychological connection to it. If these are achieved, they will be able to sacrifice parts of their own to embrace the group, making them part of the community.
With the sense of community, people will also have an increase in activity, increase in loyalty, better buying behavior, better trust, increased knowledge exchange, and reduced tendency to do negative things.
A Business with the Support of Communities
Businesses may succeed in selling things to customers. They may have great customer relationship and outstanding marketing performance. But a community is what drives people in understanding the brand into a sense of humanity. It's what makes a brand, a whole new powerful brand.
At the very least, behind every powerful brand there are people working endlessly.
To preserve the loyalty of customers, developing the sense of community among customers is crucial. However, most businesses ignore this.
Most businesses neglect the feelings of one solid community. They tend to put aside the power of a community, and leave that to their members to understand. But the idea of a community can actually give customers the sense of exploration and humanized experience that businesses actually need.
There are four foundation for creating a sense of community:
Membership to Belong to
Membership is given for a reason. But whatever the reason might be, it creates the feeling of belonging into something.
The feeling of having a membership compromises: boundaries that separate people from others not in the community, making them special; emotional safety which makes the feeling that people can share their personal thoughts that they can't talk about anywhere else; personal investments that make them feel they have earned their place; and a common system to wrap all those up.
The feeling behind having membership will raise the boundaries of being accepted in the community. This is term will encourage them to personally invest more time and other resources to contribute to the group.
Power of Influence
A strong community is where people are willing to give something to the group, and the group to the people. People will only participate if they feel that they can have the power to influence others in that particular group. Despite not everybody is good at influencing others, the feeling to have the power to do so is needed.
A great community has a strong bond that holds all members together into one solid piece. Each member that participates can influence others to become active and involved in activities.
With a platform, a community members can contribute into certain areas. With a platform, it would be a lot easier to appreciate each and every contribution made. Beside marking a milestone for the business behind the community, the platform can also be used to create a "family relationship" to make members feel well at home.
Once members have the influence they need, they will willingly amplify that influence to others in the community.
Fulfillment of Needs
To have the feelings of "needed", one must have the feeling to benefit. Many communities have the strategy to put as much content as possible to attract as much readers as they can. This is possible and actually may work, but this method will not make people willing to participate.
A community behind a great brand isn't always able to satisfy people's needs if it doesn't have the integration of fulfilling the members' needs.
Whether people likes it or not, and whether they're realizing it or not, people wants to be valued. And that feeling is what pushes them to be better than they were the day before. A strong community must have people that are willing to give something to others, fulfilling the hunger of others' needs. People wants to have that shared value as much as others do.
As people always love to succeed in achieving something, a community, even if it's large, won't be anywhere as integrated as a small active one, if there are no places to achieve something. Small activities that involve active participation will do much better than a large community that have many "dead areas". This makes the community feel very active very early on.
And if a community is already highly active, it must try to showcase this high-level of activity, then try to spread that mass to other places evenly by appealing them to the members' ego.
Emotional Connections
A strong bond is always supported by a strong emotional connection. Humans are social creatures, they have feelings just as like they have thoughts to share. Some are good in hiding their emotions, but no matter how good they bury their emotion deep, it's always there.
People can be happy and sad at the same time. To bond this shared emotions together, the community must have regular contact, high-quality interactions, willingness to share thoughts and experiences, and the joy of expressing emotional feelings.
To make emotions shared, interactions should be meaningful. Each interaction should make a way to open quality conversation to discuss a certain matter. If members willing to participate succeed in achieving something, their emotions will bond.
A community may have rules, but rules are meant to be broken. Not to the very least, but rules that are too strict will just drive people away. A topic of discussion, for example, should allow off-topic talks sometimes in between discussion. Off-topic talks are irrelevant, but those talks are what makes humans humans. Humans are social creatures, having to obey all rules will make them no different that robots doing their biddings. Off-topic discussion will also make members get to know others personally. To create a strong sense of community, getting personal is how people get to embrace each others' emotions.
Conclusion
What makes something big is what's inside it. A brand can be big with resources at its disposal, but to succeed it needs people that are willing to buy. To develop a sense of community involves many aspects. But when successfully developed, it will be the most effective way to create a brand that resides on the hands of consumers.
With a strong sense of community, people will like a brand in a long-term. With each member of the community represents a piece of a puzzle, the intrinsic value that most people want to make themselves complete is the feeling of togetherness.