Your Voice builds community
I just got done with a particularly nasty Google+ thread in which a moderately prominent video-maker and followers, ganged up on a few people with dissenting views in a comment thread. What occurred to me is that you, the content producer, are responsible for the community that you cultivate. If you as the producer of content take a hostile and confrontational stance towards dissenting views, you will likely build a community of likeminded individuals that agree with you and join in demeaning those with differing opinions.
By contrast, if you approach all comments, including opposing views as an opportunity to learn and grow, while building the conversation into something valuable, then that is the community you will likely build.
Who is right, who is wrong?
No one is right and no one is wrong. That’s the point. This video maker and his fans aren’t wrong, they’re just disrespectful and foul mouthed. It makes them laugh. That’s fine. I just discovered the hard way that it was not the community I wanted to be a part of.
I thought I would enter an intelligent discussion, I was wrong, but I don’t think that was their intention in the first place.
The Law of Attraction
People are drawn to content that agrees with their world view. Cynics agree with cynics, optimists find other optimists, Conservatives watch Fox and Liberals tend to like Rachel Maddow and John Stewart. This is the world, this is how humans behave. We don’t often seek out conflict but our true colors show when we stand face-to-face in conflict.
When building your community online, appreciate that this is the case. Understand that you are personally responsible, through your public actions, for the type of community that grows around your social media presence.
I tend to create content and respond to people in a way that I hope encourages a respectful discourse. I try to be helpful so that others might do the same.
Where are you going?
It all comes down to this; What are you trying to accomplish? Maybe you haven’t really thought it out…well you should, because from posting 0 until the day you die and leave behind your final post, you are creating a legacy. Sure most people won’t care. But when those that do care look back, what do you want them to see about you, or your company? You will be judged not just by the content you create but the community you built and how you dealt with others.