Community Building: Does Size Really Matter?

With so much focus on “building” and “adding” friends, karma, votes, points, followers, kudos et al, we may tend to lose sight of the quality of our online connections and friendships. Does size really matter when it comes to building your online community? In short, more could equal less.

I have this imperfect habit of adding most people who add or follow me. It seems the polite thing to do. Unless they are hocking something unsavory or obviously trolling the online waters with some free, downloadable spamware and clearly not really interested in me as a person but rather my keyword profile, then I’m game to be pals. But we all might be diluting our online cup of wonderful by falling prey to the numbers game.

Colloquially speaking, “It ain’t about quantity; it is about quality.”

And now I step upon my cardboard box to share a bit of unsolicited advice. Determine the goals of your community first, be they profit for not, and be strategic about building your community in whatever venue: Facebook, Ning, Twitter, Friendfeed (insert ad nauseam list of social media sites.) Building an online presence is all about personality. And with your online persona comes the responsibility of the company and the conversations that you keep.

Things for brands and marketers to remember when community building:

1. Lose the obsession with adding people for the sake of numbers but rather take the time to befriend people specific to your niche and engage in and provoke quality conversations.

2. Define your voice and build a trusted and consistent body of work before you begin shot gunning every social network; remember it’s not a race.

3. Let the community know you’re listening by inviting them to a conversation thread, sending out a welcome post listing all your newcomers, and inviting people to list their own social networking profiles to expand their own networks.

4. Don’t be afraid to hold the mirror up and ask the community what they see. Don’t be afraid to ask people how they perceive your brand and see if that matches up with your brand’s vision.

5. With your community building strategy in mind, create a physical map of your social network. Check out Mind Manager as a resource for online flow charting software. Seeing is believing.

Thoughtfulness need not lose its footing when mining for quality community members be they in the form of friends on third-party social media platforms or on your own company-owned website. Slow down, take your time and remember, “It ain’t about quantity; it is about quality.”