Establishing a thriving business isn’t solely about crafting answers and promoting them to an audience. It is crucial to cultivate a loyal following – a set of enthusiastic supporters, who feel a sense of belonging to your community, to something greater than their individual selves. Leveraging social media has made this process simpler than ever.
Here are four suggestions and strategies for creating your community on social media platforms…
1. Give Your Tribe Members A Name
You desire for your group members to feel a connection, and an effective method for achieving this is by assigning them a label.
For instance, individuals in the “Wedding Bee” community are commonly known as Bees. Using the term “Bee” to refer to new members promotes a sense of immediate belonging, and those who have been part of the community for a long time take particular pride in this title. Similarly, participants of the Greater Omaha Area Trailrunners identify as “GOATz”. They proudly display their affiliation through various means such as wearing appropriate attire, putting stickers on their cars, among other things.
2. Know Where Your Tribe Congregates
Many marketers incorrectly attempt to steer their audience members towards specific platforms like Facebook. Instead, it is more efficient to identify the platforms where your audience members are already active, and then engage with them on those particular platforms.
Indeed, it would require you to do some minor investigation to figure out if your audience frequents platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, or any other social media site. However, the time you invest in this is valuable, as it simplifies the process of creating a community on social media when you operate on an already familiar platform to your followers.
3. Root Out the Influencers
While engaging with your audience, you’ll soon notice that there are individuals who consistently share, appreciate and/or respond to your content. These individuals are your influencers or supporters. You should consider building personal connections with these influencers, as they are instrumental when you aim to make your content go viral.
For instance, when you are about to introduce a new product, consider giving a pre-release version to your key influencers. You could potentially invite them to act as “beta users” to help refine the product. When the launch time rolls around, you can count on these endorsers to promote your product on social media and other platforms.
4. Give Tribe Members Perks
Another method to make your tribe members feel valued is by offering them benefits and rewards for joining your tribe, this can be as straightforward as them “liking” your page on social media.
Here are examples of members-only perks:
Gaining entry to an exclusive group, for example, a confidential Facebook group.
A valuable item offered free of charge but with premium benefits, like a report, video or access to a exclusive member website.
Tips, advice, and additional material that are not accessible to non-members are free. (Creating a private group allows you to distribute this free material effortlessly.)
… And any other ideas you have to make members feel extraordinary.
Conducting an online business doesn’t revolve around the product, but rather it’s focused on people. I strongly urge you to use the above strategies to develop your community utilizing social media.