5 Things to Look For When Starting Your Own Online Community
Subscribe to Articles
The benefits of having an online community for your business or brand are infinite. You can optimize your networking, create collaboration opportunities, and build win-win relationships when you have the best online community possible.
In this article, we can show you how to build an online community that can grow your business.
Define Your Community
The first thing you must do overall is determine who you want in your online community. There are four main categories of what defines a sense of community.
- Membership – This is a sense of belonging to a group with similar interests.
- Influence – Members should feel like they have some power and influence on the group.
- Fulfillment of Needs – Group members should be rewarded in some way for their participation in the group. This is how to add value to your relationships for members being part of the group.
- A Shared Emotional Connection – You know your relationship strategy has been successful when there is a shared emotional connection in your community.
Find the Right Social Platform
You can grow your business with LinkedIn, Facebook, or any of the other social media platforms. One of the best advantages of building your community on these platforms is that your online community can be easily discovered by new users looking for communities like yours or who are already engaging in similar communities.
You can also create your own branded community platform. One of the major advantages to this is the ability to control all your content, branding, and the entire experience. Since you are the one controlling this platform, it will be free from advertising and other distractions that occur on the popular social media platforms.
Identify the Stakeholders
The relationships with your stakeholders are extremely important. Define your stakeholders through the following categories: marketing, sales, support, and product. You will also need to know what kind of value your stakeholders are looking for. This will help you know which influence and benefits your stakeholders can bring to your community.
Build Engagement With The Community
When your online community is engaged, you will have better results. There are a few ways you can build engagement with your online community.
- Create a Daily Theme – If you create a theme for each day of the week, it is a creative way to keep the community focused on a specific topic. It can also encourage participation from community members.
- Ask Questions -You can encourage conversations and engagement if you ask specific questions to the group.
- Create a Title For Community Members – If you give your members a name, it gives them a sense of identity. For example, an online brand known as The Budgetnista refers to its community members as Dreamcatchers and addresses them this way. This helps your members feel like they are a part of something special.
- Share Exclusive Content – Post content that your members cannot get anywhere else.
Grow the Community
Once you have your online community established, you need to expand it. The best ways to promote your community are:
- Send out emails to newsletter subscribers and existing customers with a call-to-action to join the group.
- Add a link to your business website.
- Promote it on appropriate social media platforms.
- Encourage members to invite others into the community.
Promotora Systems Inc. can empower your success with our many coaching programs that can help with all your business development needs including building profitable relationships in your online community. Contact us today to get started.