Communities: To Create or Cultivate?

Marketing today is taking a different shape than ever before—or is it? Social media, bi-directional communication, and the latest in interactive marketing strategies—Community Marketing—all share a common thread: the involvement of the customer in communication. Community marketing is based on the premise that customers, if given the opportunity to connect with each other, will collectively become an authoritative voice evangelizing your product and speeding technology adoption, market growth, etc. Yet as I was discussing this concept with a colleague, it was astutely pointed out to me that this is not a new concept, its exactly how consumers always behaved—several centuries ago, that is.

Centuries ago, communities formed around water sources and railways based not on any compelling persuasion to do so, but out of a natural inclination to fill their basic needs. A product at the general store became successful when it was found to be of particularly high value, not hype. One pleased customer in the community told the others in the church, lodge, or saloon. No doubt, the most successful products learned to leverage this phenomenon—today called word-of-mouth—to their benefit.

Given the customer-centric nature of a product community, how can it be “created” in the traditional sense that we “create” an advertising campaign? Consider the X-Box online gaming community. If Microsoft had not created the platform for internet activity within the 360, the community would still have formed. Their tech-savvy customers would have, and indeed still have, created their own online communities. In essence, their customers do for free what some companies would spend millions to “create.”

Vibrant communities that revolve around a product or service are not created by any compelling persuasion. Just as historical communities, today’s communities form out of the market’s natural inclination to fill a basic need. To leverage Community Marketing, then, is not the creation of a community, but the cultivation. Cultivating a community is done through the offering of value-added channels for communication such as a product wiki, forums, and even social components.

The catalyzing factor that we must all consider in Community Marketing is the fulfillment of a customer’s basic needs. Regardless of budget or strategy, a community cannot be formed around a bad product or useless service. By contrast, companies who demonstrate their investment in the product development and quality service will realize a direct correlation in the success of their communities.