Are You Engaging in Community or Shouting to an Audience?

Ok, so the inspiration bug caught my attention again when I read Chris Brogan's blog post from early June about Audience or Community. Reading this post made me think about my current work situation which you can read here in more detail.

In my current job, as a direct marketing manager, one of my main tasks is to work with our Market Research group to find customers that meet a set "audience" criteria for a direct mail piece we may be working on. So, words like target market, audience, and customer segment are often used to describe who we want to send our mailings. To me, defining individuals as a group consisting of an "audience" is impersonal in a way. As Chris Brogan pointed out, "The difference between an audience and a community is which direction the chairs are pointing" and I truly believe this analogy is accurate.

In direct mail, the main point is to get a message out about your product or service and many times it is directed to a mass audience. Sure, one can add some personalization like the customer's first/last name, product owned, etc. to a direct mail piece to make it more engaging, but do you really know this individual you are attempting to influence?

That is one reason why I felt I could not continue on in my current job role. I want to build "community" with others. As Chris Brogan puts it so smoothly, "Communities empower users of products or services, or people with like-minded interests to interact." As an INFP personality type, I thrive on reaching out and interacting with individuals to get to know them better and introducing them to others who can help them. I am a connector if you want to look at it in social media terms. That is one reason I hold people like Chris Brogan, J.T. O’Donnell, Ramsey Mohsen, Danny Brown, and many other brilliant minds in high esteem for what they do in connecting with others and reaching out to enrich the knowledge of so many.

My goal is to do more in interacting with others in a "community" setting and learning what needs they have that I can help with or connect them with someone who can. I want to build community and not just shout at an audience.

What about you? Share in the comments.