How do you create a strong, loyal following? You build a community with your brand. Brand communities create business growth by helping a company learn what their target market truly wants.
Brand communities give you the insight you need to create a better product or service. It also creates a constant source of word-of-mouth marketing.
Successful businesses hone in on their loyal customers to create brand advocates. Building a community around your brand will help you use the passion your clients have around your product or service.
Getting people excited and involved with what you’re doing is the best way to see your business grow naturally.
Find Your Cause.
Stop for a moment and think about your brand. What does your product or service add to the lives of others? What inspired you to create your product? Defining the reason behind your product is the first step to creating a community.
You need to be able to get people excited around your idea and get them talking to each other about it.
Maybe your inspiration was health and you created a new water bottle to make healthy living easier. You can build your brand around healthy living and get your customers talking to one another about how they stay healthy during the workweek.
Don’t just create an excitement for your product. Create excitement for the goal behind it as well.
Empower Your Customers.
Now that you know your main goal and idea behind your product or service, you need to use it to empower your customers. The more you empower your customers, the more loyal to your brand they are likely to become.
People love to come up with new ideas and give their opinions on existing products. You can use this kind of feedback to give your clients what they truly want.
You can also create a space, physical or digital, where your community can talk about issues related to your cause. Do not just push your product. You need to ask questions and present topics that will create interaction with your customers.
Encouraging feedback and new ideas is key to business growth. You don’t want to get stuck making the same product that will eventually lose the interest of your community.
Look At Similar Communities.
Okay, so you know what you want your community to look like. Now it’s time to research similar communities. Research is necessary because you need to understand what works for other people and what doesn’t.
You can even join a few communities to see exactly how they function and what kind of topics they talk about. What makes people excited? What topics get more people involved? What methods do these brands use to present topics and ideas? These are all questions you should be looking to answer in your research. This will help you avoid simple problems in your own brand community.
Pick Your Platforms.
Where and how you have these conversations is important. There are many places you could go to create conversations in your customer base. You may choose to use more than one. Pick a few platforms to create and share thoughtful content.
If you have the means to do so, you can create your own website for community conversations and involvement. Every business will need some social media involvement and smaller businesses can have all of their brand community be on social media.
For example, you can use Facebook groups to create a sense of an exclusive community for your loyal members. People love feeling like they are part of a special, exclusive group and will be more likely to interact in something a bit more private. Meanwhile, you can use Instagram and a Facebook page for first contact and advertising.
Make sure to give your audience a reason to follow you. Maybe give a discount offer in your Facebook group that will keep your customers loyal, invested and engaged. Don’t be afraid to let customers take the reigns and start their own conversations. This can lead to more brand loyalty and engagement.
Use Hashtags to Connect.
Time to use the passion behind your product and make it go viral. You can use hashtags and relevant questions to help your name get out there online. A catchy, positive hashtag can go a long way if your audience can relate to it enough. Don’t feel the need to push your product the entire time. Focus on good communication and creating hashtags that are relevant and easy to remember.
Not only should you focus on the online world, but you can also create live events and meetups to make your brand go viral. You can incorporate the two of them by having meetup members hashtagging and posting during the event! This is a great way to let your customers meet each other and build bonds within your community.
Make sure to create events that aren’t just about your product. You can touch on many subjects related to the goal of your product without being too pushy. Your community, though customers, will not be attracted to an overbearing sales pitch.
Interact With Your Community.
Speaking of hashtags, make sure to check out what your community is actually talking about and don’t be afraid to interact or incorporate their questions to your page. If you have a Facebook group, make sure to actually answer the questions people are asking. Messages and tags should be responded to in a timely and personal manner.
Monitor conversations and add your own input. Simple, real communication can go a long way. Be sure to follow current trends around your topic so that you can keep your conversations and content relevant to your audience. You need to be in tune with your community to fully benefit from having one.
Roll Up Your Sleeves.
Creating a brand community is extremely beneficial to business growth, but is also a lot of hard work. You need to stay consistent to truly create a sense of belonging with your target audience.
People expect to be responded to and need to be to feel included. You cannot just schedule posts and create a Facebook group for this to work.
Being proactive and engaging creates a strong community. Through empowering conversations, social media and events, you will be able to gain awareness for your company, product or service.
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