Here’s an interesting post from the Church of the Customer Blog, The 4 Types of Community:
You’re thinking about creating or extending your customer or member community because it’s central to increased word of mouth and evangelism, but community is a broad term.
What type of community, exactly, do you want to create? Here’s four ways to think about it…
Clique -
Your community could be small, like a clique. Its value is that members know another, look like one another, dress like one another. (To some, that could be its horror.) But a clique enjoys trendsetting and tweaking the noses of convention, just like fashion. Comfort comes from the raft of differentiation on an ocean of familiarity. The value of a clique is dependent upon its exclusivity, but its devotion can be fickle, just like in high school. Like: A Small World.Network -
Your community could be big and resemble a distribution system, like a network. Members pass along data or connections to one another like a fire brigade. Your goal is to catch the tailwinds of the network effect, whereby the value of the community is proportional to the increasing size of its membership. The network can be big, but there’s little to no emotional tax for decoupling. Like LinkedIn.Cult -
Your community could be of medium size and resemble a cult. Its value is a strong belief system not fulfilled through mainstream channels. A charismatic leader has codified the belief system into rituals that people love and believe in. It may not be huge, but its devotion meter is off the scale. Like: Maker’s Mark Ambassadors.Nation -
Your community could resemble a nation. The community owns its destiny. Their destiny is yours. The driving force is egalitarianism; everyone is on equal footing, with a few representatives minding the points of direction. The sense of pride, even sovereignty, is palpable. As is the devotion, which many would view as a mythological life-and-death struggle. Like: Netroots Nation.No matter its type, your community is influenced by the forces of growth and devotion. It’s hard to inspire growth, but easy to measure it and control it.
It’s difficult to measure the invisible cement of devotion. But as the Facebook Beacon program has shown, it’s easy to undermine it.
