Technology has given us the opportunity to follow each other, to create and publish content, to create communities online and discuss all manner of topics from Space Exploration to keeping Marine Fish.

Give people the opportunity to communicate, set a topic or theme and people will communicate. This creates a tribe says Seth Godin.

I’m interested how businesses, individuals and movements can build communities and effectively leverage them for mutually beneficial gain. I’m in no doubt of the value in having a community who show great advocacy for your brand, that’s powerful, but how do we make these relationships mutually beneficial.

I guess we listen to Seth and build a community around our product, the industry our products fit into or around a theme related to our product and provide value to those in the community. I get that, that makes sense, and if we can capture an audience that likes the content we put out, the designs we produce, the books we write, then we’re doing a good job.

Where am I going with this: “You don’t need to follow in line…”

Does a community need a leader, does it need someone with a celebrity status who creates the content, who talks the talk and tells us how its done? This is almost becoming the format in the almost cliché world of social media, I hope that we’re not doing the same for our clients. So many brands put them and themselves first fashion pages pumping out pictures, tech brands pushing out products – the brand taking the lead role.

Is a more valuable community one that puts the people first, one that seeks for mutually beneficial relationships to blossom across it, one that shares great content and one that allows is members to engage and communicate with one another.

Lets not follow in line… Lets talk to one other and work it out…

>Why can’t a fashion brand build a community that discusses fashion, a platform to share profiles, ideas and trends which one another, and provide advice and input on that discussion.

>Why can’t a tech brand build a community that rewards members for advocacy with a platform to shape the next product.

>Why don’t we allow our community to collaboratively shape the future of our brand, or at least feel valued and that they’re part of something that is beneficial yo them – if they feel that, they’re valuable for us too…