For more than just great products or services to succeed in business, you need: It requires real relationships with your customers. Online groups and communities have become highly influential for business expansion, particularly if you are one of those social media girls or digital entrepreneurs taking note of the power in real responses.
An online community is a special, insulated space for people to get together and share experiences, information and friendship with others who are interested in the same things they are. For businesses, these communities are an area filled with honey for substantial growth in a sustainable way through loyal customer relationships.
Benefits of Online Communities for Business
Increased Brand Visibility and Awareness
Online communities grow your brand naturally. We’ve found that on average, websites with an online community generate 2x more traffic than those without one.” When your community members create content, chat about products or suggest services, they are creating real word-of-mouth marketing that simply travels further than advertising can reach.
Social groups on Facebook and LinkedIn are marketing hubs, driving brand recognition and audience growth organically. Your members become brand ambassadors by telling others about how awesome of an experience they had and drawing other cool people into your world.
Enhanced Customer Loyalty and Retention
They create an emotional bond, turning even the casual customer into a loyal advocate for life. People begin to feel like they’re a part of something far larger than just a transaction, and in turn are generally more loyal to that brand.” Studies have shown that organizations with strong online communities have shorter paths to new customers and much better retention efforts.
The secret, it seems, is not secrecy. Those relationships built on real value and trust are the kind of relationship that will survive economic downturns and competitive markets.
Direct Customer Feedback and Insights
Suddenly your neighbours are like a live focus group, offering up feedback on products, services and what’s happening in the market. Insight communities enable businesses to collect real input from established customers on potential improvements, new opportunities for innovation and more.
This is the direct channel to customers and thoughts, preferences etc. of customers with which you can make data driven decisions or you can build a proper product for market demand.
Cost-Effective Marketing
Content and social proof User-generated content from the community helps to cut down on marketing expenses. When customers post about their experience or write up a review, you are getting actual content that is inherently more valuable than traditional advertisements.
Communities also help to cut down on costly customer support by facilitating peer-to-peer support, in which sophisticated users can help newcomers in solving bugs and questions.
See also: Relocations That Keep Business Moving Forward With Confidence
Building an Authentic Online Community
Define Your Target Audience
Success begins with knowing exactly who you want to help. Build comprehensive customer profiles outlining who your ideal community members are, including their interests, struggles, aspirations and how they prefer to communicate with you. A fitness brand might aim its pitches at new audience members, long-time customers, fitness aficionados and niche groups such as yoga practitioners or runners.
Choose the Right Platform
Platform choice plays a big role in the success story of any community. Consider these options:
Discussion groups are content focused, message-driven conversations that arrange the posts in searchable categories. They make it great for elaborate discussions and file sharing.
Facebook and LinkedIn Groups let members engage in a more personal way with the ability to share photos and videos, turning communication into a more media-rich experience.
Standalone platforms allow you total control over the experience, but also require a little bit of extra set-up and promotion.
Choose platforms that enable the kind of funky interactions, conversations, user generated content, events you’re hoping for – and polls and feedback if they’re your thing.
Develop Community Guidelines
Straightforward instructions keep the community strong and foster respectful participation. Effective guidelines should:
- Foster inclusivity and respectful communication
- Accept some constructive criticism while discouraging negativity
- Define acceptable behavior and consequences
- Empower moderators with clear authority
- Support peer-to-peer discussions
- Just keep that conversation on track with the community goals
Focus on Emotional Connections
Real is more engaging than advertorial. Utilize employees and brand advocates to get involved on a personal level, telling stories and anecdotes that validate the humanity of your business. When people in the community feel like they can relate to real human beings running the business, that drives stronger loyalty and engagement.
Strategies for Fostering Engagement
Content Marketing as Community Currency
Regular, helpful posts bring people to the table. Share tidbits, tips, looks behind the curtain and industry news that members find relevant. Pose questions that generate discussions and involve your members’ experiences and expertise.
When you produce quality content, it will attract people who think like you, and their feedback and engagement will make your community smarter and more valuable for everyone.
Regular Events and Activities
Host virtual events, webinars, question-and-answer sessions and challenges that unite members with common interests. Routine events build anticipation and provide members with a reason to keep coming back.
Gamification and Rewards
Acknowledge their good actions with badges, titles, shoutouts or special benefits. By incorporating gamification components, the portal drives engagement and makes participating in the community more fun and rewarding.
Community Moderation and Management
Have designated people who moderate discussions, greet new members, and enforce community guidelines. Great moderation is all about preventing bad experiences and the types of things that ruin a community.
ROI of Online Communities
| Metric | Improvement | Source |
| Website Traffic | 2x increase | Wix Research |
| Revenue Generation | 3x higher earnings | Wix Analysis |
| Customer Retention | Significantly higher rates | Business.com Study |
| Marketing Costs | Reduced through UGC | Multiple Sources |
Overcoming Challenges in Community Building
Platform Selection
There are so many options, you might feel lost when it comes to actually determining the best platform. Figure out what you need and want to achieve, and check out the platforms in a free test run before deciding. Think about scalability, integration, user experience and future costs.
Initial User Base
It takes time to create the critical mass and its promotion should be strategic. Use everybody you know, work with influencers, make excellent content, and maximise visibility using social media and SEO. Offer incentives to get early members and focus on value add.
Encouraging Participation
The idea is not just to turn lurkers into active participants, but to create safe spaces, that is, environments where all contributions are welcomed. Begin with small engagement tasks, apply gamification, spotlight good contributions and constantly bring up interesting topics.
Moderation Challenges
Good moderation is about writing good rules, enforcing them with predictable regularity and engendering a sense of community in your readership. Cultivate healthy atmospheres, occupy a middle ground in conflicts, communicate openly and avoid moderator burnout with sufficient support.
Maintaining Interest
Keep communities fresh with new topics, member feedback, creative culture creation and user generated content encouragement. A lot of candid forums do well by tweaking content strategies and adjusting to member feedback.
Establish retention programs and processes that honor milestones, acknowledge success and continue to deliver value so members stay with the program for life.
Transform Engagement Into Growth
Online networks are great drivers for long-term business growth with real relationships created by consumers. To be successful, it takes strategy, constant involvement and a true dedication to serving the community members we represent.
Begin by identifying your target audience and selecting a platform that will allow you to connect with them in more intimate ways. Concentrate on the giving value, networking for real relationships and earning trust from being transparent and consistent.
The companies that have success realize community is a marathon, not a sprint. Put your focus on long-range relationship-building, mindful listening to member feedback, and don’t be afraid to tweak or altogether reverse course based on what works for your individual audience.
