The imagined community. It is something that I have thought a lot about since my time at University where we studied critical theory and analysis. This is a very interesting theory about how people enjoy being in a community, even if it’s pretend. Take a look at a restaurant; we go into those that have more people in, assuming they are better. The same is true of social media and business.

If you build up this community; of businesses and of customers, you become more and more appealing to people shopping for your services and products. By giving them pride in their local community, joining with other business for cross promotion, you convince them that this community, and your business, is doing well. So gather up those followers, get talking to neighbouring businesses and slowly build that community up. It will take a little bit of hard work, but it’ll all be worth it in the end.