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Notes on building community

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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.

Written by NathanielDean

September 18th, 2008 at 3:53 pm

Posted in Notes on