A lot of early web adopters understood community right away. It’s the chance to reach hundreds, thousands, no – millions.

Unfortunately, most got it wrong. A web page isn’t like a television ad, reaching out to million of viewers at one time. A web page speaks to the one, a single representative of a community.

A community doesn’t start with millions. It starts with one. If you serve the one, the one will tell one, who will tell two, who will tell six, and so on and so on. If you don’t serve the one… and each one after… bye bye, community.

Social media is about the social as well as the community. This means that you have to service the individual’s needs for them to come together as a whole.

Today’s businesses have to do a total rethink. It no longer is about serving their market, it’s about serving the like-minded individuals as a collective. read more