Philip Wride – Social Media Marketer and Community Manager

The London Riots. Pretty much grabbing every news headline over the past few days and while causing unrest and disruption there is a good point to it all from a community management perspective.

Bringing people together. Whether organised clean-up crews via twitter (see #riotcleanup) or people offering support and assistance to rebuild it has galvanised a group of people. This in itself is proof that it is possible to bring people together around a common cause or goal. While it may be short-lived it does highlight that a spark or trigger can unite groups and that they can come together in a short time.

It might be slightly harder to do this for a brand or product the fact that it has happened several times over in the past few months (the protests in Egypt being another example) just goes to show what can be done. Take heart from this and take a step back to see what could be the spark or trigger to get people involved in your community.