Ever since the first group of hunter-gatherers decided to build their huts closer together for mutual security and companionship, community building has been one of humanity’s most intrinsic and rewarding skills. But deciding where to pitch your tent can be a little less intuitive when it comes to setting up a community around your brand on the social web.
On the other hand, the pay-off can be valuable in the long term, as you create a low-expense, high impact vehicle for disseminating messages around your brand. It’s all about converting customers into advocates and followers into customers. But it takes hard work and preparation to get there. Here are a few important steps to help steer you on the right course:
- First, listen: Before you begin, find out who is already discussing your brand and where. It’s best to focus on one or two social networking platforms while starting, so if you can find existing discussion around your brand on specific sites like Twitter or Pinterest, those are good places to start.
- Make friends, get to know them: Don’t treat the people discussing your brand as an aggregate audience. Instead of being in a hurry to build a large community, get to know the people you start with; this helps understand the people you need to reach and it also helps you build strong relationships that can help in the long term.
- Work your network: Get your friends and partners involved in building your community. Look for tie-ups that give you access to more email lists in return for shared branding.
- Make it easy to share: Pepper your site with social connect buttons, include a field that lets people who subscribe to your newsletter opt into your online communities and share content that is fun or interesting for your community to share in turn.
- Look for advocates: 5,000 online followers might seem like a great target. But it’s even more important to have online advocates who will communicate their enthusiasm for your brand to their networks. Identify such advocates and reach out to them.
- Be patient: Except for a few lucky cases, communities take time to build. There’s always going to be a long period where people are trying to find their feet and discussion needs to pushed. Wait it out, it’s worth it.
- Provide value and build interconnection: You’re not going to be able to engage with everyone one on one when the community grows. Encourage a lot of connection between community members to make the community more cohesive. Also drive tangible benefits through the community to make continued membership worthwhile.
- Experiment when you’re starting: You should always be trying new things, but the early days of your community are a great time to sandbox all kinds of ideas. Don’t be afraid to try a lot of different things before settling on what seems to work best.
- Be somebody: Don’t just create a vanilla community. Put some personality in it; convey an image and attitude that syncs with your brand values and makes for a more engaging experience.
- Track, track, track: Track all the relevant stats and clearly map out how they link back to your business goals. This builds accountability and the ability to learn from data into the process.
In the long term, a good community will help you attract new customers, retain existing customers and gain feedback on your products and services. It’s not just about getting lots of followers, the right kind of community strategy is directly tied in to delivering measurable business benefits.
Wondering where to get started? The i-Vista digital marketing team can help you!
