A robust virtual community can drive sales, boost awareness, reduce service costs, and improve overall brand image multiple folds. We believe the community is nurtured through relationship and interaction. Therefore, while planning a strategy, keeping the customers and their interests in mind is a good practice for an ideal community manager.
People value a community most when they connect, engage, and feel encouraged to share. Communities that thrive on user-contributed content are proven to be most successful. It means that members are permitted to post their own experiences, projects, events, statements, even pictures, and videos.
The current trend suggests the best type of engagement is the one that results in building a robust online community. Online communities help the company by growing its brand recognition, thereby enhancing its reach to influencers with increased website traffic, more reviews, more reliable brand image, and new potential customers.
To grow your online community, it would help if you follow these strategies that have proven to be the best for scaling your online community.
1. Social media platform selection
Every business has realized the importance of social media outreach and engagement. The social media platform used for reaching out may vary based on the styles and interests of the community of people.
Having a real-time forum connects people, where they participate in the group by sharing content and having discussions with members at a global scale.
You can send personalized or tailor-made messages, discussions, and engagement to match their expectations. Established platforms are great, but don’t miss the chance to build on the latest and rapidly growing social networks too.
At its core, a community is essentially a gathering of like-minded people who would like to discuss and share ideas. Platforms like Airmeet can be great to bring your community onto virtual events, interactions and meetups. Regular networking or brainstorming sessions can build a greater sense of belonging and a highly engaged community
2. Choose community managers carefully
Managers that you hire to foster your online community should be people-oriented, passionate, and proactive because their key role is to engage people. Select those bunch of people who can connect better.
3. Make the new members feel connected
As soon as a new member gets associated, set the tone, introduce the brand, culture, and committee through a series of emails, infographics, mind-maps, and FAQs. The sooner they get acquainted with the community culture, the faster they start contributing.
4. Adopt a community culture
Foster a culture by watching the behavior, language, communication of members carefully. Reinforcing a culture where community members themselves play the role of moderator, then the community managers can focus on other areas.
Highlight the relevant and interesting posts and remove inappropriate posts to maintain integrity and ownership.
5. Create the right content
Research, research and research! This is all that helps you generate content to encourage more engagement and interest among community members. The content can be created on specific topics, or on a viral trend or something that would intrigue the community members to read, comment, and share more.
Highlight the relevant and interesting posts and remove inappropriate posts to maintain integrity and ownership.
6. Measure KPIs
Identify, measure, and analyze community engagement based on KPIs. You can measure the number of posts in a day, reviews by the community, or response to a question.
You can measure based on the number of users, the number of opinions per user, or the time taken for a response. Such statistics indicate how people are engaging with your content, are they interacting amongst each other, and help you track the overall success at any point in time.
7. Engage influencers
Moderators perform a dedicated task, but influencers can power up the community. Such advocates encourage new people to join in and also stimulate the passive ones. It can be anybody who either has a strong connection, strong words, or a strong social presence. They encourage people to participate and attract them to invite more personal connections.
8. Promote community discussions
Create intriguing and informative content that inspires community bonding and discussions among the community members. If members connect through posts, like and comment, the community strengthens and improves sustenance. Request members to give feedback or create groups of people based on their opinion to promote discussions.
“Build your community on a value-centric approach, because communities that thrive on generated & user-contributed value are most successful.
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Build your community on a value-centric approach, because communities that thrive on generated & user-contributed value are most successful.
9. Use tech tools
Community managers and moderators should leverage the right technology and tools to manage content and connections effectively. The tools are imperious for measuring moderation, generating reports, and analyzing the data collected. Airmeet is a platform that can help you create events and help your community learn, grow, and connect better.
10. Personalized support
We all desire personal attention, and so do the community members. Each one of them is unique and requires support and interaction. A human connection is always above any canned or automated message. It would be best if you communicate with members to give a touch of authenticity to the process of community fostering.
11. Focus on a long-term vision
A virtual community can multiply rapidly through social media, but unlike other marketing campaigns, the growth of the community has no boundaries. Envision to sustain longer and grow progressively. Keep monitoring the graph, and when you see a sudden dip, put extra efforts to bring it back to its pace.
Final words
Creating a virtual community takes time, consistent efforts, and commitment. Watch out the trends in the community, the highs, and lows, and work to create a better experience for members. It will result in active participation within the community, and it will flourish on its own.
Virtual Events & Community Building Insights
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