The next step for “social communities”

Please forgive the lack of posts in the coming days, with spring break coming up there’s a great deal to do.

This one will be longer and reflective.  It revolves around communities.  In most cases we people in social media talk about communities, they primarily mean those attached to a product or organization or cause.  In this post, when considering “community” I’m talking about an IRL (in real life) region.  In my case, Richmond.

In the past few weeks THP as a company and me personally have been giving a great deal of thought to how far we’ve all come over the past couple of years in the world of social media.  In the coming weeks, we’ll likely be making some announcements about what direction that will take us as a company.

But I’ve also seen signs that Richmond is becoming a more mature “socially.”

My conclusion?  Richmond is ready to take the next step.  Here are some of the signs:

• An active and vibrant social media club that brings in national-level speakers to appreciative people who soak in what those speakers have to say.
• No longer are clients coming to us asking “what’s Twitter?,” or “how do I get on to Facebook?.” they want to know how best to leverage their existing fans and followers.
• Businesses are beginning to get let serious about just gathering those followers and more serious about building two-way conversations with “communities.”
• Organizations are beginning to give people the freedom to use social networks at work for business AND pleasure.  They are realizing the power of building brands from within and with the concept of employees as ambassadors.  They are also wondering the implications of what that means to privacy and HR practices.

Don’t get me wrong, we still have a long way to go.  This is just the beginning.

Last week I was at a conference for non-profits and social media and my old pal Erika Gay of Venture Richmond was at my table for a discussion of social media and communications.  Always about to point her finger on the pulse, Erika made a great point that has stuck with me all week.  She said, while it’s great that we’re all experiencing these social platforms, we’re experiencing them within our usual comfort zones.

At first I thought, that makes sense in social media like in all communications, people seek out people like them to talk about things they like.  She pointed out that just like in real life, in Richmond social media the West End folks hang out with their friends, the Southside folks have their groups, and so on and so on.  And tragically, there are countless groups, organizations and individuals that because of their organizational and  personal situations have no access at all.

So as we take the next step and as a community by asking Google for a “giga” we should also challenge ourselves to break down the barriers as only social communicators can.  Consider:

• Making social connections out of your comfort zone.  The river that divides us should not exist online.
• Working to make sure that non-profits and poor neighborhoods can gain access as well.
• Reaching out to social groups representing minority groups.
• Teaching high school and college students how to use these tools not just to connect with friends but to connect with the community.

One suggestion that I threw out was a Richmond “social media summit” open not only to marketers or focusing not only on non-profits groups, but an event where we as community intentionally bring together people who can use social media to break down geographic, social and race barriers.

If a region can truly be “social” than Richmond is better positioned than most.  We already are more engaged on social media than most, we are not too big so size can’t get in the way, as I have detailed before we have more creativity per capita than any region our size.

And finally technology has given us the tools to bring it all together.  We just have to use it to break down the barriers.

Can we in Richmond can use social media to be one of the first true “social communities?”  Not one where we measure that by how many collective Twitter followers we have, but by how many people we can touch using all social platforms?

I think we’re ready for the next step, do you?  Whether you live here or not please share your thoughts, concerns and ideas.