It's true, community can't be contained to a single forum, chat, or event. It often lives in the interactions between members that happen repeatedly on social media, in audio and video spaces, and in person, of course.
Yes yes yes been thinking (and working) on this at @OwnTrail so that community thrives in and out of our platform. Recognizing community as fluid, it’ll flow from one container into the one that fits then.
— kt mcbratney (@k_to_the_t) June 3, 2021
This. Community isn't a place, it's people connection which happens many ways. For companies, it can be easier to manage a space but it's good to consider onboarding, implementation, training, success calls b/c customers are building a connection to your people & that's powerful.
— Shannon Emery (@llamasayswhat) June 3, 2021
🔊 More on this: Racket: Listen to The future of community is decentralized.
But here's something I've been curious about lately, in relation to brand or product communities. Is community is everywhere because we've failed to embed it meaningfully throughout the full user experience?
Meaning, can community member stories, along with opportunities for discussions and collaborations, be more embedded into the entire user journey, right in the products we use?
Here's an example of what this might look like: When I go to set up a new account on a platform, instead of a prompt written by a content strategist living in San Francisco, wouldn't it be cool to get a custom welcome message from a community member that has similar experiences and challenges? What if I could drop them a note? Or this person could also drop me a note in a week to see how my experience was taking shape?
Or what if I was using a piece of software, and I could hop into a group chat with a bunch of other users who had similar challenges surfacing?
Or get this, what if it was simply having community groups or meetups near me embedded in my dashboard? A very simple request that even community-first brands take years to implement.
Putting together a proposal to build out my community team next year and that's a part of it...where I believe there are "moments" through the org, and whether they're executed by my team or others, there is some ownership of that throughout the company (like sales/marketing/EX).
— Trish Fontanilla (She/Her) (@trishofthetrade) June 3, 2021
So what if we could have both? Conversations with real community members that we can trust, at events and in online forums, but also, ways to connect, build trust, get support, feel seen and heard right in the user journey?
What other user experiences are ripe for community disruption?
