How effective are blogs in creating a community?

Q: How effective are blogs in creating a community?

My A: Blogs are a platform.  Blogs are completely ineffective at creating a community.  There are 99 terrible ghost town blogs for every one rocking blog.  There are 999 ghost town Twitter profiles for every one good, engaging, account.  The community is not in the community center no matter how well-equipped it may be with a pool and a basketball court and a gym and meeting space if it is not well-located, easy to access, and the center of the community’s existence.

This happened a lot in the 70s and 80s when people stopped spending all their time at the public library or community center and spent more time at the mall or at the cafe and sofa-equipped book store. Why? Because the community center and the library didn’t work hard enough at appealing to the people in the community, giving them what they want (and will look for elsewhere) instead of what they think they should have.

So, if you offer only a boxing ring and some weights and a medicine ball in the sweat-smelling community gym then people will reach in their pocket for the money to get a better experience with Nautilus machines and a sauna and elliptical machines and a clean and modern environment.  The same thing with a blog.  Blogs are handy web 2.0 social media platforms with most you will ever need to be able to start creating an engaging environment.

While the machines and the better smell might be a major contributing factor in why people fled from the community center 1.0, it is mostly about people: do you like the staff and are your friends and colleagues there?  Are you children’s friends?  Do you like the people you’re around?  How’re the yoga teachers and the personal trainers?  Is your daughter happy with her swimming coach?  Do you see what I mean?  That is what builds the community.

Too many people build the perfect building but do a terrible job with maintenance and upkeep or don’t keep up with what people want.  Jazzercise was great in the 80s, then it went out of favor over the last 20-years, and is now, finally, back in vogue.  When you’re creating a community online, be it through a blog or elsewhere, it is essential to listen to people who are shopping for a new blog home, a new blog community.  Think of it in terms of people looking for some place to invest their time and you might get some interest but creating a community is not an event, it is a process (to quote Seth Godin).

So, how engaged are the people tasked with writing the blog?  If you think “newsroom” you will realize that they have sorted it all out.  When you’re developing news stories, the reporter isn’t always the best person to assign stories — it is oftentimes a 3rd party who can better organize the paper’s response to what’s going on in the world and be able to task the best and most appropriate writers to the story and also keep track of who is to write what and who has been tasked and whatnot.  There are also editors in a paper and each person has his or her own specialty.

A blog doesn’t have to work like a news room but it also really needs to make sure that it is able to generate regularly and with a certain amount of timeliness, relevancy, entertainment value.  In order to make sure what you’re writing is good, is it also important to listen.  And not simply to listen but to know how to take what you’re learning and engage, moderate, respond, etc…

So, blogs and message boards and email lists and social networks and Facebook Pages are simply platforms and tools with which one may effectively encourage and foster and faciltate and enable community prospecting, engagement, and growth, but it isn’t even 20% of what it takes to make a community work, become a reality, or flourish.  Community online demands engaged, passionate, empowered, and happy people who have a vision and indeed like each other.

(Awesome questions from Madelaine Paterson — more to follow)

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Tagged as: blog, Facebook, Facebook Pages, Internet forum, Online Communities, seth godin, Social network, Twitter