The Six Communal Advantages
Does this problem require a social solution?
A client had launched a Facebook Group and they were struggling to get engagement.
“What we should be doing differently?”, they asked.
I went into the group and found that their posts were mostly educational. It was high-quality stuff, but it was designed to consume, not to connect.
When they did post discussion prompts, they were basic questions that could have more easily been answered by a blog post.
They didn’t need a community for this. They were bringing community to a content fight.
A community works best when it taps into the advantages that ONLY a community can provide.
What are these advantages? That’s what we’re covering today…
Today you’ll learn in 9.23 minutes or less:
✔️ Solving problems with content vs. community
✔️ FRAMEWORK: The six communal advantages
✔️ EXERCISE: Designing for communal advantages
Let’s dance…
SOLVING PROBLEMS WITH CONTENT VS. COMMUNITY
Take any problem and it can be solved with content or with community.
Say, for example, you want to eat healthier at home. You can solve that problem:
📝 With content: Take a cooking class
👨👩👧👦 With community: Join a group of people who are learning how to cook
Or say you want to improve your newsletter’s landing page. You can solve that problem:
📝 With content: Read an article on “10 High-Converting Landing Pages”
👨👩👧👦 With community: Get direct feedback from a group of creators on your landing page
Say you’re struggling with depression. You can solve that problem:
📝 With content: Read a blog post with 10 tips for improving your mental health
👨👩👧👦 With community: Join a small with other people who are struggling with mental health
Content can be anything from a Tweet, to an article, to a course.
And here’s the harsh truth…
Content solves most problems much more effectively than a community.
Content will be more readable.
Content is going to be better researched.
Content will be more concise and actionable.
Most problems don’t require a social solution.
So why do we need communities? Why don’t we just use content?
FRAMEWORK: THE SIX COMMUNAL ADVANTAGES
You must figure out how community can solve your members’ true problems in a way that content can’t.
You must play to one of your community’s advantages.
There are six of them:
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1. BREADTH
Content can only provide one point of view. Even if it curates a number of different examples, it’s still all coming from one person.
Communities allow you to tap into “the wisdom of the crowd”.
A community provides a range of different perspectives from a range of different people. It can shine a light in the dark corners you didn’t think to explore.
When a problem requires a range of insights and perspectives, it’s a good fit for your community.
✅ Put into action: Review all the questions someone might post in your community and identify which would benefit from a breadth of ideas and perspectives. Deprioritize asking questions where just one answer will suffice.
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2. PERSONALIZATION
Content is always going to be generalized for its audience.
A community allows members to get personalized feedback from members.
I can read plenty of articles on how to organize my Tiny House, but only a Tiny House community can tell me exactly how to squeeze that fridge in next to the sink.
Whenever a member would benefit from getting personalized advice, it’s a good fit for your community.
✅ Put into action: Encourage members, when asking questions, to include as much information about their situation as possible. When they ask general questions, they get general answers. The more specific their question, the more personalized the responses will be. If a member posts a general question, private message them with a recommendation that they add more details.
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3. TIMELINESS
Content can only cover what’s happened in the past.
A community is a living, breathing organism that exists solely in the present moment. So if you want the most up-to-date insights, news, and information about a topic, you need a community.
Say, for example, you’re getting into buying and selling stocks. Every piece of content you read will be outdated in a matter of weeks. Only a finance community will give you the chance to get the most up-to-date information on specific stocks and markets.
It’s no surprise so much content today is sourced from communities like Reddit. Communities are where trends start and end. Communities ARE the zeitgeist.
When a topic is constantly evolving and would benefit from having the most up-to-date information possible, it’s a good fit for your community.
✅ Put into action: Prioritize questions where the right answer is constantly changing and revisit these topics regularly. Share breaking news that’s relevant to your members as a way to spark discussion. Deprioritize questions that have the same answer forever.
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4. ACCESS
If I had a nickel for every time I’ve seen someone start a sentence with “please don’t share this publicly but…” in a community, I’d never need to do insider trading again (JUST KIDDING, for any readers who happen to be building community at the IRS).
Content is where transparency goes to die. It will always be packaged to be consumed by a large, public audience. Even with the most “transparent” content, creators have to pick and choose what they want the world to see and what they don’t.
Communities, especially small and private groups, are where the real talk happens. Insider trading isn’t just for stock markets. If you want to know what’s *really* happening behind the scenes of any industry, join a private community where members have skin in the game.
✅ Put into action: Model the behavior of sharing things in the community that you’d never share elsewhere. Consider implementing Chatham House Rule. Organize small group discussions to increase feelings of safety and privacy.
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5. CAMARADERIE
Why do I call my mom to translate Hebrew for me rather than Google it? Because it’s a chance for a connection.
Content can solve your problem but community will make you feel like you’re not alone in navigating that problem.
Sometimes people will ask a question in a community that they easily could have looked up elsewhere not because they’re lazy, but because they’re using it as a reason to connect with other people.
Any time members are facing a challenge that makes them feel vulnerable or alone, it’s a good fit for your community.
✅ Put into action: Create “raise your hand if…” posts that show members that they’re not alone. Model the behavior by sharing experiences that make you feel vulnerable or embarrassed.
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6. COLLABORATION
You can watch a YouTube video about how to build a house but a community can actually build it with you.
This is where the biggest community advantage lies.
Nothing connects people more strongly than building something together or working together toward a shared goal.
It could be accountability groups for a fitness goal. It could be a massive collaborative art project. It could be building a piece of software. It can be as simple as creating a piece of content together (that’s right… the content 🔄 community flywheel is real).
If a member’s problem can be solved by building or working toward a solution together, it’s a great fit for your community.
✅ Put into action: Start simple by asking members to contribute their insights and expertise to a piece of content. Look for opportunities where members could build a new solution to a problem that many of them face. Design experiences (monthly pods, hackathons, etc.) dedicated to cocreating something or progressing toward a shared goal.
EXERCISE: DESIGNING FOR COMMUNAL ADVANTAGES
To put this framework into practice, grab and duplicate this worksheet or read the instructions below…
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DIRECTIONS:
Choose a problem that your members might be struggling with (you can pull from the turpentine exercise for this).
Write down how it can be solved by a piece of content first. This will define what you should NOT do.
Then, write down how community can solve that problem using each of the six advantages: Breadth, Personalization, Timeliness, Access, Camaraderie, and Collaboration.
Repeat this process for 3-5 problems until you have a strong list of ideas you can try with your community.
EXAMPLE:
Problem: A member is trying to figure out what community software they should use.
Content solution idea: Publish a guide on how to select community software with a comparison chart of the features of each.
Community solution ideas:
Breadth: Encourage the member to ask others in the community, “What is your favorite platform and why?”.
Personalization: Encourage the member to share the list of platforms they’re considering and ask for feedback.
Timeliness: Post a monthly thread where members share the newest community technology they’ve discovered.
Access: Host a private discussion group with Chatham House Rule so members can share their *real* opinions about the software without fear of angering the vendor.
Camaraderie: Start a discussion about how damn stressful it is to select a piece of software and how annoying it is that all of these platforms are so opaque in their pricing and features.
Collaboration: Host a hackathon for members who want to work together to build new plugins for their community software.
Are all of these ideas good? Nope. But I came up with them in five minutes and there are definitely some gems. The private group discussion where you get to collectively poop on software actually sounds like it would be super fun and valuable.
You’re not looking to bat 1000 here. Just get those ideas flowing and see if any gold comes out.
HERE’S WHAT WE COVERED TODAY:
✔️ Solving problems with content vs. community
✔️ FRAMEWORK: The six communal advantages
✔️ EXERCISE: Designing for communal advantages
I hope this framework helps you unlock the value that ONLY your community can provide.
Your comments and feedback keep me going. Please, hit reply or drop a comment with your questions, reflections, or what you ate for breakfast this morning.
🍭 Brain Candy
Some goodies to get your community gears turning…
🥕 You’re growing, even if people can’t see it yet.
📝 Take this survey to contribute to a thesis on the business value of community.
🧠 New research shows that our brain waves synchronize when we feel connected.
💣 Could our tribal mentality could lead to a nuclear apocalypse in the next 100 years?
❤️ The six provisions for social health [research paper].
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🫡 That’s all for this week…
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Until next time…
Thanks for building community.
- David
This is awesome! Really really valuable. I think it’s going to help me identify best ways to help dads understand how the Council of Fathers men’s groups I run will help them/“solve their problems”. And I love the idea of highlighting how a community specific solution will solve problems that a book or a podcast simply can’t. Thanks David as always!