There is often a misconception about online communities - that they are exclusively online. This just isn't true, and indeed shouldn't be true. Online communities are, put simply, communities of people who share a common interest, aim, goal or problem. They meet online but this does not need to be at the exclusion of them meeting offline. In fact there are significant benefits to doing so.
I was reminded this today having spent the day meeting and talking to the members of one of our online communities. Talking to them about how they have used the community to date and about the changes we are bringing to it as part of a fairly comprehensive relaunch. This kind of face-to-face feedback is incredibly useful. You can watch how people use the community, what they like and don't like and prompt them for their thoughts on everything from the look and feel to the navigation and even accessibility issues. Impromptu and direct user testing and feedback at its most useful.
But perhaps even more informative today was to watch the community members talk to each other. Listen to what they discussed and what their common areas of interest and opinion were. This kind of insight is priceless when you are building, growing and managing an online community. The more you can understand about your community members, the better you can make the community for them.
And of course there is a real benefit to members meeting each other. They share a common interest and that's why they get together online. Providing a way for them to get together offline too just enhances their experience. Which has to be a good thing.
So if you can find a way for your online community to meet offline, and go along to meet them too. You'll be surprised what you learn and the benefit it brings to everybody.
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