Gaining a lot of followers on Social Media doesn’t mean that you’ve got a community. Follower and customer are one thing but your community is another. It’s another level. Once your follower, customers, or clients decide they want to be part of your community it’s time to celebrate! They are basically said, in love with you! Because they love what you do, say, or sell. They are willing to share, support, or buy and ideally say a lot of nice things about you or your brand. This is where your Marketing gets transformational.

Building an engaged community of loyal customers or fans can be challenging and takes a fair bit of time but the good news is, with the right tools, mindset, and homework you will get there

Who are your people in your community?

The first step towards your community is to identify who your people are. It’s all about your follower, your clients, or customers: Your dream people! The more you know about your dream people the better. Now If I say, the more you know, let’s not spend too much time on findings like where they live, married or not, how many children, income and so on. I believe today it is far more important to concentrate on: 

• What do they believe in?
• What are their values?
• The question that YOU have an answer for
• What kind of problem do they have that you can help them with? 
• What are they struggling with?
• Favorite tools they like to use online and for communication
• TBC…

Try to gather together all information and insights you have about your dream people. Use what you already have from sales, emails, feedbacks, or other contacts. If you feel you have too little information to use why not make your own little survey? Ask your people through an online survey or on social media. If you are a shop owner talk to your customer in real life. Try to find an answer to the following questions: Who are your people? This is the part where you may well include some demographic data (that means where they live, age, gender, and so on) but as I mentioned earlier try to not overthink this. It might be that you end up having more than one group of people. That is absolutely fine. 

Now that you’ve identified your people it’s time to look at ways to make them step up to another level. I have worked out five ways that I believe are the essential basics to start with.

1. Have a conversation (community=communication)

Have you ever commented on a post or asked a question online to a brand or service you were looking for and didn’t get an answer? Frustrating isn’t it?! How likely is it you will try again? Mmh.. thought so!

Let them know they can have a conversation with you. Answer questions, respond to queries, try to help when people ask for your advice. Try to engage as much as possible and show them that you are a real human and not a chat bot.

This will be the foundation of your work and the easier you make it for your people to get in contact with you the better.

2. Make your messaging authentic

What is your message? While creating your message think back about your people. Remember who they are, where they are, and what their problem is that you can help them with. A few guidelines that help you to write down your message are: Try not to communicate more than three key points. That’s usually enough to start with.

Keep it simple and stay true to yourself. The simple things are the ones that people remember. Try to be as clear and precise with your work as possible. It helps people to understand what you want. Be emotional and authentic. Tell stories. People easily remember a good story. You might also add statistics and figures if you’re a science rocket or your business requires data and facts.

3. Provide value to your community & 4. Give more than you take

One of the things we want to avoid is getting people’s attention just to fill them in with sales messages. This is a short-term win. If you would like your people to engage long-term the foundation of your community is to provide them with value. Help them with their problems. This takes you back to your people’s research and finding out what their struggles are. You can ask online, host Q&As, publish free material, or downloadable content. Create pieces that helps your community rather than creating promotional material about you. The more you give the more you will get back!

Now don’t get me wrong, that doesn’t mean you should give everything away for free. These are just small parts of your work that are valuable for your people to make them engage with you. You’ve got a whole lot of work up in your sleeve once they want more.

5. Create groups

Create a community of like-minded people who are interested in your service or brand. Inviting them to a community shows you care and therefore builds trust and loyalty.

Facebook groups are also a great tool to grow your community and therefore customers. It gives you the opportunity to engage, ask specific questions, and support.

Hopefully, those tips have given you the boost to start thinking about your community building. One last thing: Don’t feel like you have to do this! Authenticity is key and you need to be passionate about your people. Love your community and you’ll be loved back!

Speak to you soon,

Gila x