How to Cultivate an Online Community — Re-cap from Aspen Panels at The Meeting 8

#TheMeeting8 – Recap Video from Aspen/Snowmass on Vimeo.

Some of you might have noticed that I dropped the behind-the-scenes video last week from the shooting of the Aspen-Snowmass campaign. I launched this immediately following a return visit to Aspen to attend The Meeting, the annual gathering of professional filmmakers, media, and brands. The folks at Aspen put together this cool re-cap video – check it out above.

Aspen is always well worth the visit, but late September is an especially stunning time of year. The foliage was popping, the films were mind-blowing and there was even a bit of professional education sprinkled into the mix. I participated in two panels – one as the moderator [Content Distribution] and one as a panelist that focused on how to cultivate online community . This panel was alongside my friends Robert Scoble, Gary Arndt and Alex Hillinger.

Some key take-aways from our panel:

_most of the most successful communities were born of interest and passion – not just the desire to “have” and audience (duh)

_giving content and expecting nothing in return is a key to building a successful communities

_social media is a tool. It is not THE point. Social Media is to Building Community as A Hammer is to Building a House

_spending time responding in person to positive AND negative comments is critical.

_taking advantage of opportunities for physical interactions are great community builders (eg: Recently, I did a tweet-up in South Africa that was an awesome one-on-one interaction with members of this community)

If you want to see the full panel discussions – the results are below for your viewing pleasure.