Defining Your Community’s Purpose & Audience

Ghost Town

Why do people interact online? Are these the same reasons for interacting face-to-face? These are two questions I’ve been asking myself while considering a redesign of my social networking site, Science For America. These are questions you should consider before creating your social networking space. By having a clear purpose that makes sense to you, the space designer, and the members, you can give yourself a head start in designing and running a successful online interaction space or community.

What I’m hoping to accomplish with my social network is motivating teachers to collaborate online and share science teaching strategies. They are going to have to overcome time and technical barriers to do this. I’m working to demonstrate to potential users how participating in the space will benefit them. Two of the best strategies to accomplish this is defining who exactly I’m going after, and what will be our community’s purpose.

How to Avoid an Online Ghost Town… Have a Well-Defined Purpose!

The purpose of your social network helps you decide both its structure (what tools to use, how to apply them), and what resources (time, information, and expertise) you will need to support and facilitate it.

To help you articulate and clarify your purpose, you should ask yourself the following questions (I’m crediting Full Circle Associates for coming up with these):

  • Does your community have a mission or a vision that you can communicate to potential members?
  • Are the benefits measurable and visible to members and potential members?
  • Is the outcome determined by the organizer? Group members? Both?
  • If the group is part of a larger organization, is it consistent with organizational goals and culture?
  • Is the group’s purpose something that can only be done/accomplished online? Will it replace something offline? Or is it some combination?

Purpose helps you articulate your community story which helps attract and draw members in. It sustains interaction. I’ve mentioned the importance of story in a previous post reviewing Daniel Pink’s book A Whole New Mind.

As far as Science For America goes, our purpose follows:

“To empower educators as teachers and learners as they develop and implement new themes, ideas, and curriculum. Educators are given the opportunity to learn and build networks with leaders, experts and each other.”

I believe our purpose is articulated well in these two sentences. Our story is in our empowered members. Ideas to make this story stronger might be to include quotes from teachers who have used the website to make a difference in their classroom, or show a picture of the network of teachers who have connected through the site.

Sighting in your Target Audience

A tightly defined target audience will make it easier when developing content for your site. You will be able to look at everything through a lens, asking “Is this what my community members want?” While defining the target audience for Science For America, I found that defining a single target audience was actually impossible. Instead, I had to focus on two audiences- a group of experienced science teachers (5 or more years in the classroom) and a group of inexperienced teachers ( 5 years or less in the classroom).

Here are some questions to help guide you (from Full Circle Associates, with some modifications by this author):

  • How would you describe the website’s visitors? It may help to articulate the difference between a visitor vs. participant.
  • How motivated are your visitors to participate?
  • What is “in it for them?”
  • Do they have adequate computer equipment and Internet access to have a satisfactory experience on your system?
  • Do you tell them the minimum requirements up front?
  • Do you want your community to be public or private?
  • If private, what determines eligibility?
  • What is the ideal size for your group?
  • Is there a limit to how many members can participate?
  • Do you have a sense of how your community can expand if there is greater interest?
  • Where might you find potential participants?
  • How might you communicate with your participants to market your online interaction space? (If you build it, they may not come!)
  • Are you building from an existing pool of participants, or drawing in new people?

Of these, I believe the “What’s in it for me?” question should drive everything you do. Ultimately, all visitors, whether they are just passing through or returning participants, have come to your site with a purpose. Whether that purpose be to connect, or learn, or download or submit content (we’ll look at defining WHAT your visitors do once they arrive at your site in a later post), the closer your site’s purpose is to their purpose, the more likely they are to become loyal participants.