Greetings you fine Felines and Hoomans of the Hive! Hope this week is treating you well, so far!
This is Part 2 (of many) in a series of thoughts about Community Building, with the express objective that we want to grow the Hive Community, but in such a way that it makes sense to the new potential user. It's partly inspired by reading posts from the @hiveonboard and @hivepeople projects.
Why Do People JOIN Things?
It may seem like a super elementary question, but at the heart of community building lies the fundamental "macro" question: "Why do we JOIN things?"
Sometimes we join for causes, sometimes we support an interest, sometimes we support a friend, sometimes we are promoting something, sometimes we are promoting ourselves; the reasons are many.
Bottom line, though, is that we join things that offer value to us, in some fashion. Conversely — and perhaps more important for the purposes of this exploration — we tend to NOT join things that don't feel relevant to us; things that leave us asking ourselves "and why should I CARE?"
If you're into gardening, it's unlikely that you're going to jump at the chance to join a motorcycle repair community, even if your best friend insists it's "brilliant!" And think about all the requests you may have gotten on Facebook: "So-and-so asked you to like the page Tiddlywinks!" You ignore the irrelevant ones, right?
Simple enough, BUT...
Organizational Myopia Strikes Again!
Part of the challenge we face with a niche community like Hive is that those of us already inside the community can easily grow rather myopic in our perception of How Wonderful our community is.
And we don't quite get it, when our enthusiasm falls flat on its face, and feels a bit like... well, like telling grandma how awesome an iPhone is, and mostly getting a blank stare in return.
Organizational Myopia is that thing that happens when we forget (or "conveniently overlook") that the majority of the world actually does not operate the way we do.
An excellent example happened recently when Harry Potter author J.K.Rowling asked — on twitter — for people to explain Bitcoin to her.
To the crypto community's credit, there was a flood of answers. Largely to its DIS-credit, most of them utterly missed the mark, by showing a great lack of understanding of the minds of those outside the community.
As an oversimplified analogy, when someone asks you what time it is, DON'T give them an explanation of the history of time, along with instructions on how to build a clock!
How People USE Things...
When it comes to building the Hive Community, what do we have here that people WANT and CARE ABOUT?
How do we explain Hive in terms that not only can be understood by people who have no idea what Hive is, but that also is relevant to their worlds?
What are the highlights that have NOTHING TO DO WITH witnesses, block size, encryption, smart contracts, dApp development, Hardforks, etc? Because I can ASSURE you, those things are utterly irrelevant to 99% of the population!
In fact, most people don't even care about decentralization, itself... unless it can be wrapped in "packaging" that's relevant to their lives... like...
It means there's no "company" like Facebook or YouTube that's going to tell you that you "can't post" that and shut down your account.
What DO We Have?
Well, the way I see it (and how I explain it) — and keep in mind that I am "very ordinary and non-technical" in the sense that I am a CAT, with a CAT blog — is that Hive is an emerging Social Content Community that a growing number of features including social blogging, video hosting, gaming, niche interest communities and other areas of web based social interaction.
What makes it DIFFERENT and BETTER than other social venues is that it is community driven rather than company driven, which can help users feel safer and more empowered than they do on larger mainstream platforms. Your content won't be censored or taken down or banned. Also, you're not bombarded with advertising.
As an additional feature, while Hive community members can build their followings through engagement and interaction, they will gradually build stake in the very platforms they are participating in. It's a bit like a giant "virtual co-op," where you gradually build a sort of "ownership," as a result of your participation and social popularity.
Hive also offers much better privacy and potential for anonymity than other venues, and there's no central organization that's going to "harvest" your data and sell it to dubious marketers so your in-box suddenly fills with SPAM.
Did You Notice...?
How I never mentioned blockchain, cryptocurrency, decentralization, anarchism or any of those terms we toss around every day?
That's because they mean NOTHING to a potential new user who's mostly worried that Facebook will shut down their page because they are saying something "Controversial" about Aliens, Antifa, Police Brutality or Covid Conspiracies.
WE know those things matter, but I'm sorry to tell you they don't amount to a hill of beans for the average person in the street.
Like J.K.Rowling, and the Bitcoin question...
These are not selling points, they are hidden bonuses people can discover after they've already been here a while.
So, to sort of summarize, in order to persuade people to become part of Hive, we have to sell them on the points that matter TO THEM, not the points that matter TO US!
And I think that's where I'm going to end this "chapter."
Next time, let's talk about retention and what makes communities "sticky;" i.e. why people keep hanging around and participating!
Thanks for reading!
=^..^=
Love Cats? Get Involved in Hive's Cat Communties!
If you're a cat lover and often/sometimes post pictures or other content that includes your feline friends, why not become an active part of Hive's growing Cat Communities?
These are some of the more active Cat Communities — why not join them ALL? Remember, you can also "cross-post" your cat posts to them!
HiveCats by @curatorcat is a central "gathering place" for cat content on Hive; promoting the use of the #hivecats tag for feline content!
Cat Snaps by @manorvillemike is a place to post pictures of your cats when you don't have a whole lot to say beyond just sharing your cute photos!
Caturday by @saboin is a community where we get to celebrate posts relating to Saturday — aka "Caturday" — our own special day!
Cat Photos by @andrarchy is a "mixed use" cat content community; posts can be just photos or longer, as long as the subject is CATS!
Cats by @captainklaus (and Sissi!) is another "general" cat content community.
Last but certainly not least, don't forget the dPet Community created by @kona, which is the original pet related "channel," and which typically also has lots of cat photos! This is also the home of the Daily Pet Photography challenge!
There are a number of other feline communities listed on Hive, but I am not sharing them for now as they have not had any activity (by their Admins OR users) since the Steem/Hive fork. Updates as they become available!
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