Online communities can be defined as a gathering of like-minded individuals that has an outlet on the Internet to discuss their interests on-line.
As with any physical or “real life” community, members get together to share common interests. These communities are terrific places to connect one-on-one while building relationships with a larger audience and industry influencers.
With the meteoric rise of social media, online communities have seen a boom in popularity. You can find online communities ranging anywhere from cooking, theme parks, marketing, sports to politics.
Not unlike their real life communities. Online communities look to serve a specific target audience to help one another better themselves. To teach, to learn and to connect.
Whether you can recall your local Y.M.C.A. from when you were a child, or the Boy and Girl Scouts. These very niche communities have been intertwined in our cultures for a lot longer than you may think.
Even as far back as ancient Greece, communities have been a part of social life for most people.
Although individual poleis—plural of polis, or city-state—each had their own particular institutions and practices, there were several features common to the majority of Greek city-states.
In most poleis, the majority of the population lived in the city rather than being spread across small farm communities in the surrounding territory; also, the heart of the urban area was usually a sacred space with one or more temples.
In Greek society, men were the most powerful group, but other social groups—women, children, enslaved people, freed people, laborers, and foreigners—could make up as much as 90 percent of the total polis population.
All of these groups had to be included and involved in the polis in order for it to function as a cohesive community.
Which brings us back to our point of building online communities. A community is only as strong as the sum of its members.
It doesn’t matter if it’s a Facebook Group, YouTube Community or your own platform such as a website or membership site. Everyone plays a key part in it’s ultimate success or failure.