Consumers crave connection. According to a study by Sprout Social, more than 75% of consumers say they would buy from a brand they feel connected to over a competitor. On top of that, more than half say they're likely to spend more with a brand they feel connected to.
Building online communities on the platforms where your customers hang out lets you reach them in a more authentic way than a contrived sales email, making them feel more connected. It also provides a place for customers to interact with one another, problem-solve their use of your products, and sing your praises to friends.
Coming up, find out how to identify your online audience and the best platform for them. Then, learn how to create content they'll love, cultivate a great community culture, and get them hooked on engaging with your community.
Identifying Your Purpose and Audience
Before you jump into creating an online community, back up and consider your goals. What is the main purpose for your community? Is it to answer questions? Collect feedback? Entertain or educate (or maybe "edutain") your customers?
To figure out the best kind of community for you and your audience, consider all of your needs and where they intersect. If you already have buyer personas, these can inform what your customers might want out of an online community. Your marketing, sales, and service teams can also share valuable insights about how they currently interact with customers — including the opinions and wishes customers have shared with them.
You can also look into what your competitors are doing online. Are they answering queries on Q&A sites? Do they have their own Facebook groups? Are they live-streaming? Look into what types of options for an online community they're exploring. Then try to investigate which are working, which aren't very engaging, and which opportunities they're leaving untouched.
Choosing the Right Platform
Once you understand more about your audience, you'll need to narrow down where best to reach them. To really engage with customers, focus on building up one community at first versus spreading yourself thin across several options. Choose between:
Social media groups: Think Facebook groups, Instagram broadcast channels, or private messaging groups on X (formerly Twitter).
- Pros: You can leverage your existing social media following to quickly build a community audience.
- Cons: These are highly accessible options, which may make moderation more taxing. You'll also have to roll with changes made by the software company behind the platform.
Forums: Think Q&A-focused options like Quora, community sharing sites like Reddit, or review-focused platforms like G2 Crowd.
- Pros: This option highlights your company's expertise. You can also link answers to information on your website, creating relevant backlinks and boosting your site's SEO.
- Cons: You have no control over what people post, how they interact with your comments, or how the platform works. It's also a one-trick pony — you can't post a lot of different types of content here.
Dedicated community platforms: Consider creating your own place for customers to connect, like a community help platform or gated content community.
- Pros: You have more control over what you want the platform to be, including how it looks, how it works, and what people can post on it.
- Cons: This takes more work on your part.
Creating Engaging Content
An online community isn't just another place to post your blogs — it's a place for discussion. Foster engagement with multiple different types of content and media. This includes discussions, polls, events, live videos, webinars, and whatever else you can cook up.
You also should avoid a "set it and forget it" mindset. Pay attention to what your customers are saying in the community over time and create valuable and relevant content to address it.
Tips To Encourage More Participation and Interaction
Your content is a powerful tool to inspire interaction. Try to use some of your posts to encourage user-generated content from your members, like asking them to share the ways they use your product within the group.
Once you have an engaging content machine up and running, consider incentivizing participation to get even more from your members. Are there giveaways you can run only for this exclusive group? Can you reward community leaders and moderators somehow? Test different options to see what works best.
Building a Strong Community Culture
When you create your group, profile, or personal platform, set community guidelines that fit your organization's values. Require new members to review and sign off on these rules before joining.
Choose moderators to remove troublemakers and promote a positive and inclusive environment. These can be members of your team or, to save time and manage a higher volume of community users, you can outsource this to some of your greatest brand supporters. To help identify problem spots, you can also create filters on most platforms that flag prohibited language for review.
Measuring Success and Adapting
Track community health and growth through key metrics like:
- How many users join your group
- How many stay in your group and for how long
- How many engage with your content and how often
Elicit feedback from your community leaders and moderators on a regular basis. Then, adapt your strategies based on this advice and analytics.
Launch Your Online Community Into the Stratosphere
Your customers will care more about your brand when you give them more of a chance to connect. If you start with a clear purpose, stay on course with the right guidelines and moderators, and fuel engagement with excellent content, an online community can soon become a powerful piece of your master marketing plan.
If you need support for building your online community and beyond, get a boost from Pyromaniac Digital. As HubSpot experts, passionate content creators, and marketing trailblazers, we'll ignite every aspect of your digital marketing strategy.
Talk with a team member to discover how we can help you spark more leads and fuel long-term customer connections.
