A community’s purpose is to serve and uplift its members that can be built around any particular objective or interest. Although it can exist in any form or over any medium, but in order to reach a wider audience it needs to be on a platform where YOUR voice can be heard by masses and to do this what’s a better place than to start over social media.
Social media holds an opportunity like no other when it comes to building and nurturing a social media community. It doesn’t only help you or your business in connecting with your audience but also helps you understand what truly matters to them.
Now building a social media community isn’t a piece of cake, therefore, we reached out to the community to know their thoughts on it.
Experts on How to Build a Social Media Community
Sarah Rose Levy
Food Blogger at This Dish is Vegetarian
The most effective ways to build a social media community are by creating quality content, being authentic and responsive to followers, and using social media platforms to connect with other communities.
Creating quality content is essential for building a strong social media presence. Your followers will be more likely to engage with your content if it is interesting and relevant to them. Additionally, you should be responsive to comments and questions from followers in order to show that you care about your audience.
Connecting with other communities on social media can also help promote your brand and grow your audience. By joining discussions and sharing your content with relevant groups, you can reach new users who may not have been aware of your brand before.
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Jon Torres
Founder at Jon Torres Marketing
Social media can be a rowdy place. And if you are still murmuring with a few weekly posts on Twitter, it can mute you out. A key benefit of building a digital community is the increased engagement it can provide your brand and ideal audiences. Instead of waiting months or weeks before hosting another event, you can use various online content to engage audiences in the build-up to specific events.
For instance, host industry think tanks on podcasts, webinars, or live Q&A sessions. Then give your audience ongoing tips to check out and follow through with after the event to keep that fire burning.
You can offer part of that content for free. Make others accessible to paying community members only. You can also decide if you want to turn specific content types such as case studies and industry-specific Q&As into a subscription-based model.
To convert social media members into live-event attendees, you’ll want them to be emotionally interested in being there in person. For example, make sharing previous attendees’ success stories something you only talk about in a live event.
Another way is to build an accountability theme around in-person meetings. To previous attendees, emphasize showing up as a culminating event or checkpoint to a goal they’ve been working on. For potential attendees, emphasizing live meetings are reliable ways to begin something new.
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Edward Mellett
Founder at Wiki Job
Figure out what you want to achieve and who you want to reach out to.
Social media platforms are an open stage that gives you a wide range of options for attracting a large audience. Create an engaging social media community by setting goals and taking productive action toward them.
Look for unique ways to catch people’s attention on social media networks, and include activities that will bring people to your accounts. Make sure you have a fair budget in place based on your goals and objectives. This will provide you with a clear picture of your spending as you work toward your objectives, which will help you gain more followers. Also, make sure you do your homework and figure out who your target audience is.
After that, make a list of ways to develop content based on their interests. This not only makes children joyful, but it also helps to connect them with you.
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Rameez Usmani
Tech and Security Expert at Code Signing Store
Interact with the People in Your Audience
You may use many engaging techniques on social media sites to keep your audience up to date at all times. Regular contact with the individuals who follow and admire you on social media is required to grow your social media community. Only if you participate with and respond to your social media community can it become the most potent source of support.
If you choose to dismiss your followers’ queries and feedback, they will feel excluded and uninvolved in the dialogue. As a result, your followers will think your social media account is no longer relevant. Interacting with and replying to your social media community makes them feel more connected to you and your company, which leads to higher income and lead generation.
Finding the right social media agency is critical for establishing a credible online presence. Hire a company with a solid track record and positive feedback. If you need something done quickly, don’t go with a random agency. In the long term, you will not benefit from it. Choose the best agency and keep the information presented herein in mind as you do so.
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Jeff Moriarty
Marketing Manager at My Supplement Store
Our business built up a private social media community/group on Facebook. It has over 5,000 members now. The most effective strategy we used to build this group was through post-purchase automation.
If someone decides to purchase with us, we know they like our company. 1-hour post-purchase we send them an email and/or SMS with an invite to be part of our private group. About 1 in 10 of our customers decide to become a member, which has allowed us to build this group up quickly since starting it last year.
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William Westerlund
Co-Founder at Almvest
Keep the channels of communication open
Dialing a phone number and being put on hold is one of the most aggravating experiences. Set up a strategy for your own personal communications so that you can remain active in your neighborhood. Even though you may not be the center of attention, your community members need to know that you care and that you are there to support them.
The ability to establish and maintain long-term relationships relies heavily on the ability to communicate consistently and reliably. If I keep getting the cold shoulder when I try to talk to you, I’ll finally give up. Clients and customers who are unable to reach you will go to someone else.
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Fahad Jamal
Chief Financial Officer at Puretuber
Be a leader who is driven by a deep sense of purpose
Inspire your social media followers by sharing your passions and thoughts with them. It’s a terrific approach for your business to involve your customers in the process and develop trust with your community. We all enjoy it when someone asks us for our thoughts and really listens to what we have to say.
Do the same for your own neighborhood. Though your brand and emblem are vital, they aren’t what really binds you to your customers. As a leader, it’s important to communicate freely about what you’re thinking and where you’d like to go.
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Edward Eugen
Founder at 10 Beasts
Some of the best ways to grow a community for your brand is understanding what kind of content they enjoy seeing. Some of the best community managers can agree that it’s never about the quantity of content, the quality is important.
And if you are posting just for the sake of posting, your content will not connect with your audience. That’s why knowing your audience should be your number one goal.
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Jordon Scrinko
Founder & Marketing Director at Precondo
Create a comprehensive social media plan to build a successful social media community management strategy. There are numerous social media plans available online, and you can either download one or create your own.
Second, develop a strategy for each social media channel. For example, if you’re creating a Facebook business page, you might want to increase the number of fans. Adapt your strategy to meet your objectives.
Third, create a content strategy. The engine that propels social media is content. You can either create your own content or repurpose content from other blogs.
Finally, carry out your strategy. The best way to carry out your strategy is to publish more relevant content on your social media channels on a regular basis.
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Tyler Crossno
Creative Producer at Revel Energy
Building a social media community can be very difficult and is dependent on many variable factors. Much like orchestrating a community in the real-world, social media communities must provide structure and useful information for their potential members to continue their contributions.
With significant saturation and availability of online communities of many different types, it can be important for newly established communities to determine what sets their space apart from already-established communities with earned authority.
Ideally, these communities are grown organically, through word of mouth, or word of the mouse for this digital perspective! Well-placed and authentic influencers can collaborate with communities for the mutual benefit of growth.
A purpose-driven community that effectively provides a space for its members to share and discuss community-related topics should find growth naturally. Alternatively, communities with intentions to undermine its membership will quickly find how aware internet users can be when it comes to the many false pretenses across the web.
I personally believe that authenticity is undervalued both in the digital and real world. Communities are meant for communication and coordination first, instead of monetizing their own users.
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David Farkas
Founder and CEO at The Upper Ranks
Active Engagement
People want to know that their opinions are being taken into consideration. If a company or a favorite blogger is making an effort to interact with your audience, then you should do the same for your own audience.
There’s no more hiding behind your website if you want to create a real community. Make your communications feel like a real discussion by making them feel more like they’re coming from the heart. In order to stay connected to your community, create a personal communications strategy that you may use. In order to keep your community members informed, you don’t need to be the focus of attention.
Don’t only talk about your products or services on social media; instead, talk about how you live your life. If your material is solely promotional, you should expect to see a decrease in user engagement.
Humbleness and Generosity
Empathy is essential on these platforms, so make sure you follow relevant accounts and you may get them to follow you back. Your social media platform must be a secure location where people feel comfortable connecting with you.
It’s important to have a social media account that people enjoy visiting and where they can learn from your material. Make sure to re-post your followers’ amazing material to your stories or even your static feed if they’ve taken the effort to tag you in it.
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Daniela Sawyer
Founder at Find People Fast
Identify your audience: Your social media community is not a monolithic mass of identical people. Rather, it is made up of people. The way they think and behave determines how they will interact with your brand. Segment your audience and target them with the right message to reach them better. Communication is key to building a strong social media community. And good communication requires getting to know your family. You will have different relationships with different family members. Knowing how to engage with followers will result in better responses.
Solve Your follower’s problems: Use social media to interact with your customers and learn about their pain points. If you want better marketing results, you must help your customers. There are probably many businesses that sell similar products to yours, so you must stand out. To get people to believe in you, you should build trust in your community and help them with problems. Invite your friends and family to help you help others. Promote user-generated content on social media to build loyalty and provide real value.
Listen to your audience: To build a social media community, create content your audience wants to read. Finding out what they want is the first step, and there are many ways to do so. Make a quick video and ask your fans for ideas. When your community responds, implement new initiatives based on their requests. Focus your social media strategy on your followers’ needs and desires. Engage them by actively listening to their social chatter. Instead of asking for product photos, ask for content that shows what your products have enabled them to do.
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Mia Green
Chief Operating Officer at Find This Best
Get People To Interact With Each Other
If you’re looking to build a successful social media presence, sometimes the best way to do that is by getting people to interact with each other. This can be done by encouraging them to share opinions on different topics or to talk about something that’s happening in the world.
There are many ways to get people to converse with each other, but the most important thing is to make sure that the conversation is genuine. It is a good idea to make sure that you are monitoring conversations and checking in often. You may want to initiate conversation topics, especially if it’s getting a little quiet. When someone makes a comment, you can ask another person to respond. This will encourage people to comment and you will be able to build a bigger community.
Giving your readers a way to interact with each other is the best way to build a social media community. Even if you’re writing an informative blog post, you don’t want to keep the audience to yourself. It’s important to provide avenues for audience members to interact with each other. For example, you can offer them opportunities to leave comments on your blog posts, or provide a forum where they can ask questions and discuss each of your blog posts. You can also get in touch with your visitors on social media, and allow them to connect with each other.
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Yasser Al-Dhamary
Network Engineer at Skills Build Training
Get People To Interact With Each Other
The Best Way To Build A Social Media Community Is To Engage Others
You can do this by sharing ideas that are useful to your followers. People love being in the loop and being the first to know about the latest trends. You can also create a group where you share your own opinions about different topics.
The best way to build a social media community is to engage others. By following people with similar interests and the same goals as you, you can start to build a community based on your passion. Be friendly and use hashtags to identify your niche and you will find it easy to market yourself and your brand. Don’t be afraid to share your thoughts and be more personal and authentic with other people.
The relationships you build will not only help you grow your social media community but also your personal network, too! This way, you will interact with other people in the group and build relationships.
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Chris Brown
Founder and CEO at Tudor House Immigration Services
Use Existing Social Media Communities To Learn, then Apply
By joining online communities and social media pages you’ll learn the best practices of other users and get to know the more popular individuals around the topic. Some places you might look for sample communities include Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, and Quora.
You can search for topics of interest and, once you find them, subscribe to the page and join the community by asking questions or helping other users with their problems. When you join a community you’re taking a risk and you’ll see your idea either succeed or fail in front of your eyes.
This can be a bit scary, but it’s also a great way to learn. If you want to learn how to create the perfect social media page, joining existing communities and studying their pages can give you a good idea of how others do it. This helps to grow a new social media community faster.
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Goodell David
Founder at Wood Working Clarity
Share Valuable Content With Your Targeted Audience!
The most effective way to build a social media community is to share valuable content with your targeted audience. To build an audience, it’s important to share engaging content regularly. You don’t need to share every day, sharing once a week or even less is fine.
It’s also important to make your posts unique. You can repost something that you originally posted if you’re adding new information to it. The best kinds of content to share are valuable, educational, entertaining, and original.
This will show your followers that you’re a valuable person to follow online. In short, the best way to grow a social media community is to give people something of value in exchange for their time.
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Jonathan Gron
CEO at Owl Ratings
Find Internet Users Who Have the Same Interests
One great way to build a social media community is to find internet users who have the same interests as you and try to engage them in a conversation. One way to do this is to find people who also have the same interests as you.
This would be through similar hashtags on Twitter or recreating your own on Instagram. It can be a challenge to find people with the same interests as you on the internet, but the occasional search can prove fruitful.
When you find people with the same interests as you, you can start following or finding other active members of the community. If you are active in the community and always provide high-quality entertainment, you will be able to gain fans who will follow your every move and grow a new community.
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Ray Charles
Founder at House Hold Air
Use The Power Of GREAT Content
Content is the strongest way to build and grow an audience. While having a perfect and attractive website is also very important, good content is your main way to build a community on social media. You have to be able to create high-quality, shareable content.
A noteworthy piece of content that gets people talking and sharing your platform, even if it’s just in passing, is worth its weight in gold. Content is the key to creating a social media community. By creating valuable content and distributing it to the right places, you’ll build a community that has positive associations online and will help you spread the word further and faster.
Content is the most effective way to build and grow a social media community. The right content can go viral, which will put your name on the map and get people talking about your product and brand.
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Scott Steward
CEO and Co-Founder at HiCollectors
Start A Social Media Community With Your Friends And Family
Your friends and family are the most likely to be interested in what you have to say because they know you best. They are also the easiest to get in touch with because you already have their contact information. Start by making a list of all of the people who you know and care about.
This list may include friends, family, or even colleagues. Then, pick one or two people in particular to reach out to first. This step will help you to find your target audience, so you can learn more about them and grow your new social media community.
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Chandler Sterling
Co-Founder at Los Angeles 101
In my opinion, the best way to build a social media community requires 3 things: a niche, high-value content, and a consistent presence.
Let’s break down those 3 things.
First, a niche. You will have the most success building a community on social media if the content you create is unique. The more unique the better. There are a million people online- what are you doing that is different? You can stand out from the crowd by offering a unique perspective or identifying a niche that has not already saturated the market.
Second, you must provide high-value content. Note that I did not say high-quality content. The content does not need to be produced in a studio with expensive cameras, microphones, lights, and a set. The content needs to be valuable to the viewer. Even if you film the content on a potato, if you offer people content that they find valuable, they will come back for more.
Lastly, a consistent presence is needed to truly build a social media community. As you grow, your users will begin to expect a routine posting
schedule. If you already don’t have a schedule or content calendar for your posts, you’re missing a valuable opportunity to grow. Think about the
pre-streaming TV era- people would tune in every week at the same time to watch their favorite show. Take this approach to build your community.
Offering unique, high-value content, on a consistent basis is single-handedly the most effective way to build genuine community online.
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David Adler
Founder and CEO at The Travel Secret
Engagement with followers is one of the best ways to build social media communication. When followers engage with you, respond to their efforts. Include questions and answers in your stories. Don’t let comments or questions go unanswered. It will build loyalty and make followers feel more connected. Hosting giveaways is another way. It shows your appreciation for those who support you and your brand.
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Jeremy Haug
Founder at B2B Business Experts
I think the best way to build a community is as part of a bigger movement. If the only piece of a community is the social media platform then you’re missing out on live events, books, zoom calls, coaching calls, etc. There should always be multiple ways for community members to engage.
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Peter DiSilvio
CEO at DiSilvio & Associates Consulting LLC
As I detailed in a recent article post at my newly relaunched blog, Social Media at Law, the best way to create an effective social media community is to create a parasocial relationship with your audience by being authentic and behaving like a living person and not a carefully managed brand.
A parasocial relationship refers to a phenomenon whereby an audience in their encounters with performers in the mass media, particularly on television and on online platforms, forms a strong emotional bond with said performers. By posting regularly so users see you, speaking in the first person so it seems like it is really you (or your business) speaking, and sharing personal anecdotes or items, you will make users feel like they actually know you! That emotional connection will make them loyal and trusted customers in the future, guaranteed!
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David Murphy
Founder at Drop Guys
Want to build a social media community? You’ll have to find a way to keep them engaged and provide something to them. A community will want to be entertained and, to do that, you’ll need to come up with good information.
Compile the information you have access to, find others who could potentially share insight with your community, and continue to engage people. As soon as the information stops – or they aren’t gaining anything from the community – you can expect to lose some members of your community.
If you can find a way to produce good information, your community will naturally grow!
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Paul Baterina
COO at Sleep Advisor
The three best ways to build a social media community using digital marketing are the following: set clear goals for your social media account and your community, and create valuable and engaging content your followers will like.
On my Instagram profile, my goal is to show important milestones from my personal life and my favorite hobbies, like the birth of my daughter, my love of all things basketball, and quality time spent with my beautiful wife.
Most of my followers comprise of my family, friends, and colleagues; I’d like to think they enjoy seeing new developments and fun adventures in my personal life, like when my wife and I visited the island of Coron in the Philippines two years ago. Or the time I made the ugliest (but tastiest) Buzzfeed-recipe cake for my wife’s birthday last year.
Whether it’s for business or pleasure, your digital marketing campaigns or social media shouldn’t be filled with content that’s polished and soulless. They should reflect your brand in a way that engages meaningfully with your digital community.
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Ben Brown
Director at Session Media
Create and maintain a safe online space for your community. Moderating conversations will encourage your audience to engage with both you and other members. By enabling your members to safely voice their opinions your reach will organically grow.
A virtual community operates similarly to your local community. Adapting your strategy to mirror that of a local community by focussing on shared values, interests, and engagement, will have a positive impact on your social media Following.
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Kasia Slonawska
Marketing Executive at Napolean Cat
If you want to build an engaged social media community, you need to make sure your social media audience feels safe and comfortable on your social media profiles and groups. Here are a few things that will help you create a secure space for communication:
- Delete comments that may cause harm to your followers: spammy links, inappropriate language, and offensive comments are a no-go.
- Reply and/or react to all comments under your posts and company mentions – that’s how you show respect toward your audience and encourage your followers to engage with your content more often.
- Be prepared for difficult situations, own your mistakes, and always reply to negative feedback – in this way, you’ll show your audience that they can trust you.
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Venessa Ezekiel
Lead Editor at Oofloo
People will not comprehend why they should join your community if it lacks a purpose. Your community provides something to its members; the question is, what kind of experience does it provide to its customers? Now that you’ve discovered your mission, it’s time to find a home for it. How many people do I want to expand this community to? is a critical question to ask yourself right now.
Create a WhatsApp group chat, a Telegram group, or an Instagram group DM if you want to build a 10 person community. You should consider other platforms, such as Reddit or a Facebook group if you want to build a community of 100,000 or more people.
Your goal is to attract people of your target demographic to your community. Your customer avatar’s profile should be mirrored in your member profile, and it should answer the question: Who is this community serving? While your community exists to serve its members, it does not mean they have complete control over the rules. Show them the ground rules and norms for entrance before they become official members, and have them commit to following them.
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JD Bhatala
Owner at Web Content Edge
Here are my four steps to building a loyal social media community:
1) Choose the right platform
Choosing the right platform is important. This is one of the most common mistakes people make – either they choose the wrong social platform or they try to be everywhere. For example, if you’re a SaaS business, Pinterest or TikTok may not be the best place for you. On the other hand, if you’re in a business where visual content dominates, like cooking, fashion, home decor, etc., Pinterest is where your audience hangs out.
Similarly, if you try to be on every social media platform, you end up diluting your efforts, which is not going to yield desired results. So, choose the platform that suits your business and focus your efforts on it.
2) Be Consistent
Creating accounts on social channels and posting randomly here and there is, again, not going to produce results. You need to be consistent. Create a social media calendar. Schedule your social media content and keep posting engaging content regularly. If you keep following the routine, it will not take much time for you to build a loyal fan following.
3) Be Responsive
Even if you follow steps 1 and 2 – you choose the right platform and are regular on posting, still, you need to engage with your fans. Posting engaging content is important, but responding to comments on your posts keeps your audience motivated. Don’t let your followers’ comments go unanswered. Engage with them, answer their comments/queries. In turn, it will help you get an organic boost.
4) Don’t Be Selfish
Last but not least, don’t be selfish by just posting your content. Sometimes, you should also post/share third-party content that you think may resonate with your audience. This will give you the much-needed social recognition and help you build brand loyalty.
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Seth Price
Founding Partner at Price Benowitz Accident Injury Lawyers, LLP
Building a Social Media Community: The most effective way to build a social media community is to engage with them whilst delivering valuable content. These two aspects of social media are what will help you to keep your audience, whilst also building on the relationship that you have with them.
As a business, this is extremely valuable because it shows your customers or clients that you’re active in speaking to them. Social media, when used correctly, is an extremely helpful tool for getting exposure for your business and bringing in new clients. Even our firm utilizes social media to engage with our audience, educate them on various legal topics, and build a larger client base.
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Sofia Morales
Chief Marketing Officer at Media Peanut
As a digital marketing expert and CMO at MediaPeanut, I always believe that building a social media community for your brand and your community takes commitment and a lot of strategy. To build a social media community, you need to use different strategies to invite like-minded individuals and loyal customers to discuss topics related to your brand or service in one community.
Communities are social entities that foster a sense of camaraderie among members by sharing shared interests, goals, and attitudes. Social media marketers like us are usually in charge of cultivating vibrant communities to increase brand visibility, engagement, and awareness. It also attracts potential customers or retains/gains loyalty from your current customers.
I always emphasize that it is not enough to just have a large social following but you must also have a social community that is involved and as engaged to your industry. There are many effective ways to build a community depending on what social media platform you are using.
To illustrate this further, some of the most effective ways to build social media communities involve inviting members to join your brand or organization’s customer community. You can also create a mailing list that would have Call To Action buttons to let them join your social media community or better yet, include CTA buttons to join your community/discussion forum through your company website.
Another great way to build a social media community or shall we say grow your social media community is through cross-promotions and the use of relevant hashtags to make your brand and community discoverable. You can partner with other similar brands for some cross-promotions. You can also start giveaways, social media competitions, follow prizes, and other gimmicks and competitions to increase your social media community and platform following.
Most importantly, creating goodwill among other users is vital on these social media networks, so follow other related accounts and they may follow you back. A constant posting schedule demonstrates dependability and fosters confidence in your community, which leads to loyalty. Retention is a critical component of social media community development.
All of your efforts will be for naught if you don’t have a strategy for retaining the following you earn. Use emoticons and colloquial phrases where appropriate; this demonstrates that you understand the community’s vernacular and desire to connect in a way that is approachable and comfortable. This will also increase brand awareness and loyalty.
And last but not the least, engage people in your newly built social media community. I always believe that it is a must that you respond to members
of your social media community. If your followers feel like they’re being talked at rather than involved in a dialogue, they’ll conclude your company is self-serving and doesn’t care about their customers’ demands nor does it listen to what they want. Responding to your fans humanizes your brand and boosts loyalty for the company’s products and services.
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Andreyana Kulina
Marketing Specialist at Brosix
I’ve been working in the digital marketing sphere for a couple of years now. What I find as the most effective ways to build a social media community are the engagement and the posts with meaning. These days, I feel like everyone is trying to make something different and we tend to forget about these two, which I see as the traditional recipe for success in establishing loyalty. People enjoy it when their opinion is taken into account, they get e reply or a like, when they’re asked a question.
It’s simple people are commenting and texting because they are looking for a response, when they do not get it, they realize the brand sees them as a customer, not a follower that’s valued. In addition, make sure your content is meaningful – users are not becoming loyal customers to brands only because of their products but because of their beliefs and ideologies.
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Jason Sherman
Founder at TapRm
Be sure not to post and ghost. Customers today are looking to make personal connections with their favorite brands online. While the function of social algorithms is to deliver relevant content to users, they love it when they discover users engaging with other users on their platforms.
Posting frequently and commenting on at least ten other posts per day signals to algorithms that meaningful conversations are happening. So it’s imperative to stick around for the reception to ask questions and encourage comments from your followers. Because the more engagement your piece of content receives, the more likely the algorithm will share it in other users’ feeds.
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Ryan Haynes
MD at Haynes MarComs Ltd
Building a social media community should never be about numbers. A community is about the people and the subject matter involved. Engagement needs to be at the heart of your strategy. One of the most effective ways to build a social media community is by being a part of it and ensuring you put listening first. Whether you’re a brand or a person, you need to believe in what the community stands for and be active on your chosen social channel.
Consider an online community as you would your group of friends: no one likes to be talked at or down to. A community should be a hive of shared experiences. Brands can use Q&A with various team members (not just senior executives), show behind the scenes, and reward active community members. This doesn’t need to be with money or freebies; a simple thumbs up or shout-out may be enough.
Show your brand is run by people and be approachable. Engage with community members by liking their posts, sharing user-generated content, and commenting. If visitors to your social pages see an active, welcoming community they are more likely to want to join in the fun.
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Nikita Dedhia
Founder at MIT City Farm
What are some of the most effective ways to build a social media community?
Recognize Loyal Customers
Take the time to thank a follower or a group of followers who consistently leave comments on your posts, respond to your stories, or message your company. Thank them for their unwavering support; it will go a long way.
Engage With Your Audience
People desire to have their voices heard. If your fans are making an effort to engage, whether it’s with a brand or their favorite blogger, reciprocate. Do not leave comments unanswered, DMs unanswered, or tagged content unliked. Your followers will pick up on whether you care about them as customers or whether your brand’s primary goal is to earn a quick buck. Make individuals feel as if they have been heard.
Post For a Specific Reason
People aren’t interested in following brands that solely write about their wares. Consider the benefits you can offer your followers on social media in addition to product marketing and incorporate them. Everyday promotional posts are far less effective than creating engaging material that your audience will find relatable and useful in their daily lives.
Incorporate Q&A Sessions into Your Story
Giving followers the opportunity to have their questions answered in real-time, whether hosted by the creator or the marketing manager, can go a long way toward establishing brand loyalty. It will not only make your community feel more connected to your company, but it will also provide you the opportunity to publicly react to your most often requested queries.
User-generated Material should be Re-shared
Everyone enjoys some free publicity. Reshare it to your stories or even your static feed if your followers are taking the time to generate amazing material and tagging you in it. This allows your brand to offer additional material that you didn’t pay for while also allowing your fans to feel seen.
Engage With Brands That are Comparable or Similar to Yours
Meaningful engagement entails much more than merely reacting to interactions on your page. Sharing the love and promoting other similar or like-minded brands with similar ideals to yours will help to grow your community even more. The opportunity to collaborate and support one another will only increase once you’ve established partnerships with these brands.
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Christian Velitchkov
Co-Founder at Twiz LLC
To successfully build a strong social media community, you need to focus largely on the engagement rates. An interactive way to increase the engagement rates of your community is to hold Q&A sessions where your followers can interact and share their opinions on different industry topics. You can also answer the most frequently asked questions in the industry and get the conversation started.
Engaging with similar or like-minded brands in the community can also help to strengthen the reputation of the business. Share appreciation with other brands and uplift them. When your followers witness how your brand works with other brands and uplift them in the journey, they will tend to support your business more. This is also a great way to build trust within followers and increase engagement rates eventually.
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Hilda Wong
Founder at Content Dog
As a brand, you need to be highly active in your social media community. Your audiences want to hear more about your brand, especially when it is relatable to them. The key to a successful social media community is to bring maximum engagement. Don’t let any comments or queries go unanswered. Ensure to like or reshare their posts. When followers notice your efforts in acknowledging them, they tend to revert back with the same warmth, building a healthy community.
Another great way to build a strong social media community is to post with purpose and be consistent with the content creation efforts. If you post random content once in a while, your followers may switch to your competitors in no time. It is important to keep your audiences engaged and updated about everything in and around your business.
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Ann McFerran
CEO at Glamnetic
Collaboration with other like-minded companies and influencers is a great way to create and expand your social media community. It is an effective way to tap into your target audience. If followers already trust a brand or person and see your brand associated with them, they are more likely to trust you and your company.
Shout out other brands you love; people like to see people and collaborative brands that support one another. Community is a strong force on social media; finding ways to connect to others in the space is an effective way to grow your following.
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Sumeer Kaur
Founder and CEO at Lashkaraa
Engage your audience and show appreciation regularly to build a social media community. That can include holding Q&A sessions on your stories, responding to DM’s, shouting out followers, and resharing user-generated content. Be active and consistent on your account and show appreciation for your customers who helped you get where you are.
Offering giveaways for people who like and comment on your content will excite people to engage. Show your appreciation often, and you will build a strong community around your brand.
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Harriet Chan
Founder at Coco Finder
Engaging your followers is one of the most effective ways to build a social media community. People want to feel heard, and they expect you to reciprocate their efforts. If you post something and the audience comments, it is good to write a reply. If they send a DM, be sure to respond.
Ensure that your responses are professional and friendly to keep the brand on good terms with the followers. Engaging the customers makes them feel that your brand is interested in them as customers, eventually feeling appreciated. They can therefore stick with your brand.
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Laura Berg
CCO at Kong Club
We facilitate our online communities using expert advice and guidance to spark conversational forums and seminars. Once the discussion was rolling, our pet parents step in to help one another and contribute on their own.
Using experts to unpack a pertinent wellness topic is a key strategy in engaging our member community. Our pet parents are deeply invested in the wellbeing of their pets and want spaces to learn and ask questions about best practices.
After hosting so many expert panels this way, we find that the community of parents provides much of the topics and conversation, looking to satisfy their curiosity and share pictures of their pets. People already want to engage, we just provided the space and educational resources to facilitate constructive conversation.
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Kathleen Ahmmed
Co-Founder at US Car Junker
Reach Out To Your Brand Advocates
When looking to build a community around your brand, it’s essential that you find advocates and recruit new members to your community. And in most cases, you can often start with those followers who constantly share, like, comment, favorite, and tweet about your brand.
You can reach out to them, let them know that you value them, and ask them to invite their mutuals to check out your social media. And while this direct approach can often be time-consuming, it can often be effective and pave the way for a bigger and more engaging community.
Engage in Social Listening
It also pays to engage in social listening, which means finding the conversations that are going on around your followers and getting involved. You can chat with them and ask questions, in order to show them that you’re interested in what they have to say. For instance, the use of Twitter polls and Instagram Story questions can be great ways to get a conversation going about certain topics and from there, build an engaged user base.
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Nyaima Smith
Community Engagement Champion at Convert
Don’t build, attract the community you desire. It may sound like a slight of words, but the mindset behind each is different and drive different approaches. Building usually means chasing tactics and people. Attracting means you put your community member at the center, thinking about their needs and how you can help them achieve their desires.
If you help someone reach a goal, they will join you. Be authentic There is enough of the opposite of this in the digital world. But that’s good for you, it means, being REAL will stand out from the crowd. Build RelationshipsPractice the golden rules of relationship building: be interested in them, listen, and have real conversations. Give more than You Ask ForThink about the takers you have come across in your life.
They are always asking for something and never give. Don’t be that person. Share resources. Give the community things to care about. Celebrate your community members. At Convert.com we highlight phenomenal women working in the CRO space, and also share insight interviews from CRO agencies experts. Give value. Nurturing your existing community attracts new members.
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We would like to thank all of our contributors for taking out their precious time and sharing their thoughts with us! 🙂
