Advantages of a community or user group meeting.

A community or user group enables people to come together and connect with each other. Listed below are 7 primary reasons why people participate in a user group or online community.

Community Managers, evangelists of vendor companies, need to understand that if they want to reach out to user group communities, they need to be cognizant of these seven member motivations before they can set out to pitch their wares to these communities.

Benefits and Purpose of User Group Meetings - CommunitiesBenefits of Joining a Community.
Learning
– User Group’s provide a unique opportunity for people to learn from their peers.

Networking – The opportunity to network and make new connections with industry peers, make new friends is endless.

Sharing Experiences – Human beings love to share and showcase their expertise and knowledge. During most community meetings members share their challenges and experiences with each other.

Job Opportunities – Many a door has opened up due to new contacts made via the community.

Meeting Experts – Typical user group meetings feature an expert speaker who shares knowledge among the community members.

Solutions to Problems – Community members are very helpful in helping one another. Most user group sites feature an online forum enabling interactions between members.

Free Giveaways – Communities are magnets for various vendors and most meetings often have giveaways for their members.

One of the big mistakes vendors make while approaching a community is being blind sided by the beauty of their products or services and reaching out to communities talking about the product/service benefit. Looking at the above motivations of community members it’s obvious that one needs to consider much more in terms of community member motivations rather than just product value and benefits. Ok, so I’m sure you’ve got new ideas, or are wondering, what do I do now, and well that’s a post for another day.

Do you feel there are other reasons one participates in a community/user group? Or does your organization have a comprehensive community plan? Do post a comment if you do.