The first few episodes have been all about demystifying the blockchain. Showing how creating content on the blockchain isn’t all that different from creating content on traditional social media.
Diving into Communities
Keeping in that vein of things are somewhat similar, today we’re going to dive into communities. On the blockchain they are topics of interest which brings folks together to share stories, tips, experiences and be with others who are passionate about that topic as they are. Sounds kind of something we’ve heard of before, right?
For those of us familiar with Facebook groups it’s easy to understand how a community might function. You can either join an existing community or create your own community if one doesn’t already exist. As the community owner you create a set of guidelines or rules for which community members should abide by in order to keep it healthy, focused, and on topic for the continued benefit of the community.
When joining a community it’s a good idea to take the time to get to know the community first before ever jumping into the conversation.
Read through posts. Get to know the nuances with in the community and folks who are actively posting and commenting. Give yourself the time to get a sense of the overall vibe. I recommend beginning with a few comments to go along with your introduction post when you’re ready to take an active role. Remember yesterday I spoke about not just posting willy nilly? Well this is a reminder that good content begets good engagement, feedback, and more good content.
Lessons Learned
Now I am going to pause a moment and give you one of my“lessons learned” moments to say that not all communities are for you even if you think they might be. I’ll give my own example. I have begun experimenting with my phone photography on the walks around my neighborhood. I even thought a few of my shots were decent, but was looking for some advice to improve my skills and knowledge base so I posted a few shots inside a photography community and asked for some advice. Can you guess what response I received?
Crickets!
No one was mean, but the reality was no one was interested either. After a few posts I realized this just was not the place for me and that’s okay, because when I shared my experimental phone pics within another group that was not a photography specialized community I received a much warmer reception. We had engaging discussions about how we were each taking photos both with DSLRs and phones. It was fun and much more my speed.
So, again. Not all communities are for you and that’s okay. Find your people. Or create a community for your people.
Thank you for joining me for another episode of Social Media and the Blockchain. On tomorrow’s show we’re going to talk about ownership and what that means on the Blockchain.
