Is community more effective than social media?

Aditya Kaushik
18 replies
We talk about building community around products to be able to launch and have the early support. But if it came to either using time to support and build the community vs building social media traction, which is more effective in your opinion?

Replies

Ingrid
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Chris Watson
Community building can have much positive influence on your business. Also, social media cannot be ignored but community building and engagement are also helpful. One must consider both for business advancement.
Zainab Saeed
Yes, definitely. If the right tactics are used to build that sort of relationship. I work for an ed-tech startup, Qureos (learn.qureos.com), and we have a slack community of 1,500 apprentices. We have a different social media calendar for the Tribe, that's what we call our community.
Rich Watson
This is tough, because community can also be built around a strong social media traction
If you talk about the communities of professionals, like on product hunt, indie hackers, slack channels, etc., these are far better than random social media groups. Yet, you can also build a community of related persons on social media (like in the form of groups). Each channel has its own benefits; no one can be ignored.
Neelam Goswami
In my opinion, social media is more about building brand awareness and a presence for your product/company. Community, on the other hand, is where you can reach out to like-minded peers and high-potential prospects. They can be a great learning opportunity while also bringing in valuable leads at times. That said, a product needs the support of both for sure.
Aditya Kaushik
@neelam_goswami1 That's a very interesting outlook! How do you prioritise between them when you have a time crunch though?
Neelam Goswami
@adityakaushik38 that's the real challenge, I agree. In our team too, we have just one person taking care of both social media and communities. The ideal approach would obviously be to have separate roles for both. But when that's not possible I guess the best you can do is set aside a few hours every day for your social media interactions and community outreach. Or maybe get to them on alternate days, because you wouldn't really miss much of the action in one day. This strategy is working well for us, for now.
Edward G
Your community can be built around social media followings, they're not necessarily exclusive. But a social community where you have a lot of followers doesn't mean you have a community.
Vasileios Karvelis
Both have its importance, community could be better to have a more detailed feedback.
Devyani Gupta
Social media --> bigger community. So I think both are extremely important. Especially because not everyone has the time / similar passion to be on a certain community - but with social media you can address a larger audience.
Emilio Lopez
Yes. And it doesn't even need to be your own community.
Brenna Donoghue
I think you need both, but the feedback and engagement of a community pays such large dividends over time. Social is one strategy for maintaining that engagement over time. Relying solely on social is hard because algorithms change - one day people see your content, the next they don't.
Soumya Chaturvedi
Establishing good connections with other community members is another benefit of building communities. People are able to do more with others than they can on their own, so building up connections is beneficial for everyone involved in building the community. Social media is also equally important but its important to follow relevant content over there