Philip Wride – Social Media Marketer and Community Manager

I finally got round to watching the film Inception at the weekend and it got me thinking. Ideas have always been dangerous things both for good and for evil. As a Community Manager you have to be mindful about how powerful ideas can be and what they can do to your community.

If your community is brand centred and part of it’s purpose is as a place to gather and collate product feedback and suggestions then keep a watchful eye on the ideas posted by your users. Whilst good ideas should be praised it’s your job as a Community Manager (based on the product knowledge you have) to determine what is likely to be possible and what’s never likely to happen regardless of who’s idea it is. You’ll need to keep on top of those ideas that won’t likely ever happen as if the community as a whole start to believe it’s a good idea and something that needs to happen it can change the atmosphere in your community overnight.

Groupthink is a well-documented type of thought and is just as relevant to communities as it is to anywhere else. People grouping together with one train of thought can have a negative impact on your community and lead to calls of “they never listen to us or what we want”. This can lead to dissatisified users with viewpoints that are hard to change and they can also become the vocal minority in your community. If this happens the decisions you have to make are; do you try and turn them round or is it better to remove them from the community in a bid to keep the majority happy?