What Is Community?

The Merrian-Webster dictionary defines community as a 'unified body of individuals' or a 'group of people with a common characteristic, living together within a larger society.' As unique individuals, we all have belonged to a myriad of different community, throughout our lives. Whether it be the community that you grew up in, which could be centralized around the public schools in which you and individuals throughout your neighborhood attended or a smaller community encompassing people who share a particular interest, such as athletes or musicians. Developing a community, is allowing the participants involved to feel a sense of belonging and pride towards their community and a commodore with others involved. Some communities, in addition, open doors for opportunities and entrance into other, similar or comparable communities, where individuals can overlap. For example, I belong to the University at Albany student body community. I am in the fourth year at this university, there are various ways in which I feel as though I am involved and important on this campus. Just being in the University at Albany community, however, is a large community, encompassing all of the students on this campus, yet, we all, through experience develop smaller communities where we share more personable interest and passions as other members. Finally, the University at Albany community can also introduce a student to the Alumni community- which is marketed as "a world within reach" implying that Albany can give you access to anything you want to do throughout the world, whether you are a student or alumni.

The Internet gives individuals an advantageous edge when attempting to get particular opinions, suggestions and perspectives to large masses. The Internet community as a whole, is enormous. Even dividing that community into smaller hubs, like the Facebook or Twuitter community, the Internet is an enormous tool for various entities, such networking, communicating, sharing and expressing opinions. To identify a target audience and develop readership one must think strategically. Sometimes, a website, video or blog, instantly goes viral and attracts users from all over the world with similar interests, however, in other instances, a person's voice is lost in the vast black hole of 'cyber space.' Gaining attention from an intended audience is most important, however, then the communicator needs to maintain the relationship, which means giving a reason for audience members to come back, as well as, developing new platforms to attract new viewers. The users make up the specific community, all of the audience members keep 'following' the messages you are relaying- they share a similar interest in your material.

To develop a readership around this blog and other blog posts that I have posted or will post in the future, I will add this link to my social media pages, such as Facebook and Twitter. Individuals who are already in 'my community' already share similar interests with me, thus, hopefully, they will be interested to further explore my opinions, even if they are just curious to what the link is and stumble upon my blog accidentally. The content is interesting and hopefully, it will entice them to come back and see what new material I am posting.