What really matters is mindshare.
Mindshare is perception. It is a global gut feeling. Mindshare and perception is the magic that wins hearts and minds. It is also the explosive, seductive substance that clears the path for change, and it is mindshare that enables communities to have a voice.
Mindshare has two potential outcomes, depending on which side of the topic you sit. If you agree with the campaign, it reinforces and strengthens your will and perspective. For those who are not on board, mindshare often causes them to reevaluate.
Building Buzz
Buzz in this world is subtler and more organic. We should encourage everyone in our community to learn the skills behind building great buzz.
This harks back to business expert Peter Drucker's often-cited lesson that great customers help create great customers. You should likewise help your contributors encourage and enthuse other contributors to join the community.
The Mission
Every community has a mission.
People who accomplish great things have a combined passion for a single mission with an unswerving dedication to achieve that mission, whatever the obstacles and however long it might take.
For Peter Drucker, leadership is about communicating with people, uniting them behind a shared mission and values, and mobilizing energies toward accomplishing the mission or purpose of an organization. An effective leader leads followers with dignity, and inspires them toward achievement. That means that leadership is a means to an end--the mission it serves is the end.
You can't expect to generate excitement around an idea you can't articulate, so by developing a mission statement you sow the seeds of buzz. Second, developing a mission statement trains you to describe your goals and excitement succinctly. The mission is what will pique the interest of your next generation of community members. The ideal mission statement is concise, specific and functional.
Uniting Together
Buzz is all about excitement...and...execitement is about dreams. Present a dream so compelling that it will inspire people to join you to make it happen.
"Nothing happens unless first a dream." Carl Sandburg
Inspired Words
Words must be carefully chosen to be visionary but not tacky. Words offer huge hope for many who might be disillusioned. Use of words such as vision, faith and future helps to paint the dream of freedom, opportunity and in some cases healing of wounds. Watch for that tingly feeling up your spine. It is that feeling that we want to create.
Please note that inspirational messaging must be genuine. If your definition of community does not extend to the common expectation of volunteer environments, you will receive short shrift quickly. Seeking to build communities around commercial products should be particularly cognizant of this risk. Always remember that whatever their focus, communities are organic units of interest and collaboration. Anyone who tampers with that ethos will face problems. This is a critically important point.
Sources: Jono Bacon: The Art of Community: Building the New Age of Participation
John G. Agno: Can't Get Enough Leadership: Self Coaching Secrets