What is an online brand community and why do you want one? It's an asset that helps humanize your brand, fuel your marketing results and increase customer base. This article reveals three ways to optimize your efforts and improve sales...
Nurturing A Brand Community That Boosts Marketing Strategy
A strong emotional brand bond can do wonders for your business, especially when it comes to creating a sense of loyalty and bringing your customers back again and again. It also becomes much easier to leverage word of mouth and get referrals for your products and services. That is why brand community is important.
However, aside from the connection that your customers might feel with your brand, you can also foster a sense of connection between community members that they can embrace and share. This is what building community is all about.
Here's how to build a brand community of clamoring customers.
Focus On Your Grassroots Efforts
You can’t make your company’s fans and customers engage with each other. But you can incentivize it and show them the way.
Referral campaigns that offer discounts and coupons are great because they incentivize your happiest customers to share with others about your products. That can be the beginning of how your brand community starts to grow.
Influencer marketing campaigns, when done right, can make a big difference toward increasing brand awareness. Though influencers may be “on your side,” they tend to have more clout and perceived authenticity with your target market. They talk about your products and services, which can lead others to start talking about your products and services as a result.
Create A Comfortable Online Community Space
If your products or services, and the delivery of them, inspire a level of conversation then there should be a dedicated program to nurture that energy. Making yours a brand community website can do your company a world of good.
You can do this on social media with the right use of hashtags and by building connections with conversation leaders amongst your niche. However, there are some advantages to building an online community with platforms like Geneva. You get full control over what goes on in your brand community. Additionally, you can help your fans stay connected in a place where they can explore their other interests too.
Social media is moving from the open market to people looking for personalized curated spaces that support an interest specific to them. So it could be the perfect time to create your own online community ... whatever the platform.
Encourage Community Members To Engage With Your Content
One of the most important aspects of any community is positive social proof. If people from the outside can see inside the community and witness people actively engaging, they are more likely to want to participate. Following strategies demonstrated by CrowdRiff to utilize user-generated content is a great signal saying “people like this.”
A little incentive can go a long way. Try making a contest out of community members taking photos with your products and sharing their stories in the community. It builds the buzz that can encourage other people to join your brand community.
Summing Up Successful Brand Community Characteristics
If you’re inspired to build a community around your brand, then you need to do it objectively. You must invest in nurturing engagement and active, efficient monitoring.
But first, innovate quality products and services that earn a flourishing brand community.
