Being a marketer in the digitized business ecosystem requires you to develop your brand community. With the majority of your potential clients available on social media sites. Why not explore the untapped potential of these platforms for social media engagement?
As much as 86% of Fortune 500 companies consider brand communities to offer valuable insights into the needs of their customers. If you are struggling to engage your customers and boost conversions. The solution lies in building a good community around your brand.
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What is a brand community?
Communities on social media platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and Reddit are small units. And build a brand community on these platforms. And involves rallying your loyal customers on a single platform. Regardless of your industry, building a strong brand community is a massive win. With like-minded customers in one place. You can leverage your brand advocacy and image.
Building loyal customer communities also fosters a feeling of fellowship. People share their common goals, attitudes, and interests. Social media marketers nurture these thriving communities to generate sales from affiliate marketing. As much as 66% of companies claim that their band community has a positive impact on customer retention.
Knowing the importance of building a strong brand community. You must be keen to explore the best principles of developing one. We have come up with some effective strategies that would foster better social media engagement around your brand.
What is the importance of building your brand community?
Digital marketers and social media marketers have been successful. And get the tremendous potential of these informal platforms for branding. With 4.89 billion social media users across the world. You already have your potential customers at your fingertips. On average, a person uses seven different social media platforms per day. With a strategic approach. Your brand can build a happening community on a suitable platform. Building a brand community is always helpful. Whether you want to start a small home daycare or a large eCommerce store. It will always help you to promote your brand and gather new potential clients.
As a marketer, if you are wondering how building your brand community can make a difference. Check out these benefits.
- Brand communities go a long way in promoting engagement
- Active engagement on social media bridges the gap between your brand and your audience
- Through likes, comments, and content sharing, they help in boosting brand visibility
- Loyal customers often advocate for your brand and bring in fresh clients
- They nurture a warm, engaging, and welcoming environment
- Building brand community also fosters loyalty and affinity, helping your brand grow
- People share their stories on brand communities, creating inspiration for others.
- Having a loyal community of customers also speaks tons about your trust
- By attracting more customers. Your brand community helps to generate a higher retention rate
Building a strong brand community: How to go about it?
As a marketer, you know that there’s not well defined one size fits tactic while selling your product. The same principle applies when you try to build a strong brand community. You can build a community to take benefits of social media. Considering where your audience spends their time. Moreover, communities come in different forms and even specific niches.
Here are some guidelines that should help you build a strong brand community.
Express your voice clearly
When you start building your brand community on social media. People should know your brand voice. So, think beyond what you are offering or selling through your business.
Your brand voice should express the mission, vision, and personality of your brand. Who is your brand trying to help or what is it trying to do? Who is your target audience? Consider all these aspects before working on your brand community development.
Try to showcase the character and voice of your brand through engaging content on social media communities. This voice should appeal to your target audience, which would generate more engagement.
Express your goals and metrics
With the right approach, your brand community can spread the word about what you are doing. And prompt customer-driven decisions. Before creating one of these social media communities. Marketers need to coordinate and work on these questions.
- What does the business expect the community to do?
- Do you expect feedback from your users about your product or service?
- Will you provide answers to common questions your users might be having?
- What measures will you take to engage your community members?
- How can you measure the level of engagement you create in the community?
- Do you have a plan to track metrics such as lead generation or conversion?
- How can your brand engagement lead to greater sales?
- What are the next plans once your initial strategy works out?
Answering these questions will help your brand community development gain a goal-oriented stance. Next, choose the right platform on social media. Such as Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, or any other community.
Invite your friends and customers
It’s wise to get started with your friends and existing customers. Once you create the community on the most appropriate platform. Start with people who are already interested in or related to your business. Invite them to follow or like your account. Request your friends to share your content, which would generate more interaction.
This initial audience will help you create more engagement. Work on your reputation, and help in spreading your word.
Be responsive
While it’s imperative to post engaging content on social media. It’s equally crucial to respond to the interactions. For instance, your followers or users would be commenting on your posts or sharing your content. Express your gratitude by encouraging them. And this would help you boost your digital footprint organically.
Break stereotypes
The best tactic to boost social media engagement in your brand community is to blur the formal lines. Treat your community members just like a family. This would help you strengthen your affinity with your clients. Walking in the shoes of a marketing head or a digital marketer, try to break stereotypes. This approach will help you foster better engagement among your community members.
Deploy social interaction CTAs
Why not integrate your business website with a social interaction CTA? For instance, corporate websites have the Facebook Like button. And enables their visitors to like their community page. While remaining on the business website. Besides, successful marketers add social interaction CTAs. Such as Thank you pages after someone signs up for the mailing list. Given that your customers are already associated with your business in some way. They would be interested in joining your community.
Introduce social media employer pages
Being a strategic marketer, have you considered integrating social media employer pages? This can be an innovative tactic to build your community. When your business appears on social media as an employer, you can boost engagement. Explore the potential on LinkedIn and Facebook. Where you can grow your professional network as well as engage users. Simply link it to your business page, so that potential users directly click on it.
Cross-promote on communities
Suppose, you have communities on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram. How do you bring all these communities on one platform?
This is where cross-promoting becomes relevant. The strategy involves promoting one social network community on other platforms. So, when you promote your LinkedIn community on Facebook. Your audience on Facebook would be able to join LinkedIn. Repeat this process on other platforms such as Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. This way, all your followers would be active in every community. This approach is effective in boosting your reach across all these alternative social media platforms.
Also, be a part of groups relevant to your industry. Share a link to these communities on your business page or social media platforms.
Don’t forget to integrate your social page links in your email signature. When you send emails. Your recipient should get an opportunity to check out your community.
Engage in cause-driven activities
How do you plan to strategize your actions in communities to demonstrate your values? Leveraging the potential of social media. Marketers can empower their followers to engage in cause-driven activities. Why not invite your customers to be a part of your brand’s activities?
When you present them with this opportunity to engage in cause-driven activities. They feel valued and connected. This further strengthens the affinity between your brands and the audience.
Create crafty content
Well, you might already have a content marketing strategy in place. How do you plan to transform social engagement with this strategy?
Often, marketers overlook content like memes, images, GIFs, and emojis. Which appeals to users during their interaction. These elements constitute the language of social media! By prioritizing relevancy, your content becomes engaging and sharable. Your audience gets to relate their lives to the posts you share. Naturally, they are likely to share these memes or blogs on their personal profiles. This is one of the best ways to boost your visibility for free.
Make your audience feel special
Everyone loves to feel recognized. When you promote your products or offer promotions. Reward your customers or community members. A cash back, special discount, or one-time offer makes them feel valued. Established eCommerce brands like Ubuy have already deployed this strategy to perfection.
This strategy goes a long way in retaining your customers. When you reward them with special offers. They acknowledge your brand which boosts brand affinity.
Wrapping up
Engaging your social media followers is only complete if you use user-generated content. Successful brands work with their SEO experts to optimize these pages too. By promoting user-generated content such as testimonials and reviews. You can further market your brand.
Rather than posting your content every time. Encourage loyal followers to express their ideas. This would foster engagement among like-minded users. Who share their views by responding to these posts. This approach goes a long way in developing your community culture.
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