A free resource for nonprofit organizations, NGOs, civil society organizations,
charities, schools, public sector agencies & other mission-based agencies
by Jayne Cravens
via coyotecommunications.com & coyoteboard.com (same web site)

 

The Difference in Email, Social Media & Online Communities:
A Graphic Explanation.

It can be difficult for people to understand the difference in email, in social media and in online communities, especially since email can be used to create an online community, or social media can be used to create an online community (Facebook Groups, for instance). And they all are people sending messages to people - so what, really, is the difference? 

This is my attempt to graphically show the difference, but I'll still have to use words to more fully explain what I mean.

Email

  

Email:

  • One person sends a message to one person, or to more than one person.
  • A recipient can respond to the one sender, to all the senders or to just some of the senders.
  • No one can see the email that the email is not sent to.
  • Meant primarily for one way, "top down" communications, or one-to-one communications.
  • There's often a hope people will not react (to keep email numbers low).
  • The "border" on exchanges is "solid."
  • It's similar to a person making an announcement, or a key note speaker at a conference - one person speaks, others listen (read), there may not be any immediately avenue for discussion the announcement among those who have heard it (and there may not be a need for such).
  • Can be used for an online community centered around one program, one event or one topic, with all users receiving emails from all users. Can generate dozens, even hundreds, of emails when used this way.
  • There's usually no overall goal or strategy in one person sending an email to another person via email, in terms of increasing the number of people receiving the emails, but there might be a goal, in a mass email, of recipients clicking on a link and donating, or encouraging them to post something to their social media account with a particular hashtag, as part of an awareness campaign. In short: email is rarely used by nonprofits to "build community."


Social Media
  

Social Media:

  • One person sends a message to everyone who "follows" that person or an organization on the social media platform.
  • If the message is "public", other people could, potentially, see the message as well, if one of the followers forwards it or also shares it to their own followers, or if the message has a keyword that someone that is not a follower is searching for.
  • One person may be making an announcement, but responses from those who hear it (read it) are expected and, perhaps, even encouraged.
  • The "border" on the exchanges is porous - there's no solid wall preventing people from seeing exchanges (unless a person has made their account private).
  • Exchanges can become a "community" via tags used for chatting on a specific topic - like #BlackTwitter, or #LOVols (leaders of volunteers) - with participants getting to know each other, helping each other, working together, sharing resources, etc.
  • There is a goal, via the act of sending the message via social media, of increasing the number of people seeing the message and "liking" it. There may  also be a goal of building community among followers, where they regularly comment on posts and engage with each other in the comment section. 



Online Community
  

Online Community:

  • It's like a meeting room. If you aren't in the meeting room, you can't observe nor participate. And most people in the meeting room are there because there is a specific topic they want to talk about, learn about, discuss, etc.
  • The community is focused on one topic or one audience: it's for people living in a specific neighborhood, or nonprofits to talk about the tech they use, or for volunteers at one specific library, or for people under 50 that are members of a particular religion, or fans of a specific band, and on and on.
  • Members are encouraged to talk with each other - not just one person talking most of the time and hoping for others to react.
  • There is a way to get into the community.
  • The community could be via email (very cumbersome), a social media platform (Facebook group is most common), or a dedicated platform (Discourse, GoogleGroups, etc.).
  • There is a goal of the members on the community working together and helping each other.
  • There may not be a goal to grow the community - there may be a goal just to reach everyone in one community. Or, they may be a goal, through the messages, of increasing the size of the community, the understanding within the community, etc. 
  • May be an activity the program director (the person working with clients) at a nonprofit is interested in more than the marketing director.

All three of these avenues for online communication can intersect:

These online communications activities are divided these three areas with the consideration that communications activities by nonprofit organizations, cause-based initiatives, NGOs, etc., online or offline, have different goals:

All of these can be goals of these three areas of online communication - but some goals are better served by one online communications activity over another. And not note that all of these communications goals are the job of the marketing manager; some are the responsibility of the program director/client services manager, or your manager of volunteers. Just as your marketing manager doesn't run training sessions with your organization's volunteers that work with clients, they aren't going to manage your online community for volunteers, for instance.


What do you think?

How would you change the graphics or the explanation?

What would your graphic representation look like?

Tell me via Twitter or Facebook.


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