Notes on building community
I met recently with a friend of mine who’s starting a online news site as a side project. I helped him a bit with go to market strategy and then asked if he had a plan to build community.
His answer: “Why do I need one?”
I thought about this because I always imagined the need was implicit. Here’s why you need a community.
Path of a customer:
1. Get the attention of Ideal Customer
1a. –engage–
2. Customer
3. Long time customer
4. Evangelist Customer
The growth towards evangelist customers is time consuming - but this group is extraordinarily valuable. These are the water-cooler conversationalists, the ones who invite their friends to a great new service: the leaders of your soon to be created community.
Most consumer orientated sites today have ‘users’ - you’re still making a sale to them whether you’re convincing them to buy something or take some action. In more general terms, customers could refer to users who make conversions.
