Community is not marketing!
Social media is not community!
An email list is not a community!
An event is not a community!
The platform is not the community!
A physical space is not a community!
These are just a few examples of how we talk about what community is not. It's quite tiring to look at community from this perspective.
But here is the problem...
They are all community, because we exist as part of a system. We cannot separate them when we look at it with the lense of how our efforts are interconnected. We cannot pretend that community would ever exist like it does without all these things.
Community also has the added challenge of being a glue role. Our work is often felt, but never seen. But because we help things stay together then we have to accept the fact that we need all these other things to make community work.
It feels futile to make these statements, instead we should be asking ourselves how we can collaborate and enable better community.
Instead of saying community is not marketing, we can flip and say, isn't it amazing how community can support marketing?
Instead of saying community is not social media, we can flip it and say, isn't it amazing how social media can creatively increase the reach of community?
Instead of saying that an email list is not community, we can flip it and say, isn't it amazing how email brings people together to take action?
Instead of saying events aren't community, we can flip it and say, what are we doing to make our events more community-led?
Instead of saying community is not a platform, we can flip and say, isn't it amazing how this platform is enabling our community goals?
Instead of saying that a physical space is not community, we can flip and say, didn't we have an amazing time at that event? And the space we used helped enable that.
Community is care, and when we care, it shows up in all the places.
Community is everything and everywhere. 🫶
👋 Learn community with Rosie. That's me, I'm community obsessed.
I drip feed community insights multiple times per week. Learn in the moment. With trends, articles, courses, curated resources and a community knowledgebase like no other.
I write with heart, yet I'm driven by the common sense of business, research and data.
