If you are exploiting social media for your business, well done! But have you built and maintained a robust social media community?

Having a social media presence is essential for a modern business – but on its own, it is not enough. You not only need to ensure you use the right platform/s for your business, brand, and customers, and that your social presence is dynamic, but you also need to have a strong community supporting your efforts.

Your Social Media Community – What is It?

A social media community is a group of people who share common experiences, attitudes, goals, or interests and who converge online to have friendly, like-minded conversations and collaborate on a specific topic or niche in forums, social networking sites, chatrooms, channels, and more.

Social media communities include everything from YouTube channels to Facebook Groups and Twitter comment feeds.

It’s not enough to just have a certain number of fans or followers – your social media community must be actively engaged with your profile and your content.

A strong social media community can be a powerful asset for your business or brand…

Your social media community is important for your business because:

• It promotes engagement with your brand and business.

• Active engagement further aligns users with your brand.

• Your brand visibility on the social platform increases and prospects are attracted to your profile.

• An active, positive social media community creates an engaged, welcoming online environment – which is directly associated with your brand.

• It fosters trust, loyalty, and brand affinity for members and places your brand front-of-mind.

• Encourages conversation, creates connections, attracts more followers, and inspires and motivates both you and your social media community members to share ideas.

How to Build a Strong Social Media Community for Your Business

Grow and engage a social media community that actively participates and enhances your social media marketing efforts, providing value and a distinct ROI for your brand.

Audience engagement matters more than follower numbers!

• Know your target audience – this should have been the cornerstone of building your brand from its outset! By knowing your target audience (i.e., your target customer), you will understand who they are, what solutions they seek, how they use social media, which social platforms best suit them (and your unique offering), and what type/s of social content will most resonate with them.

• Maximise your visibility – you need to be found online! Make sure your social handles are simple and that they align with your brand name. include social icons on your website to redirect to your social profiles – invite customers and prospects to join you on social media. Also, offer links in your email signature. Use relevant hashtags as appropriate (but not too many!) and join niche- or industry-related social conversations.

• Create relevant, relatable content – you need to deliver the type of content that your audience wants to see. From links to your onsite blog to the latest news about your brand, educational how-tos, infographics, GIFs, memes, videos, images, quotes, polls, and any other kind of content you can create, you need to deliver something that captivates, informs, entertains, generates an emotional response, motivates, or inspires – and which compels positive action in the form of engagement, shares, and/or click-throughs.

• Be “social” and responsive – social media is not the place to advertise as such. While you may succeed with a minority (no more than 20% at most) of promotional posts, social media is a channel through which you should strive to connect, converse, and build real relationships with your customers and prospects. This means two-way conversations, dynamic engagement, and communication for tangible, high-value interactions. Respond to comments, messages, and queries promptly.

• Cross-promote – when you post to your Facebook page, for example, cross-post to Instagram, or share a link on Twitter to your Facebook Group. And use hashtags!

• Seek feedback – people love to give their opinion! Generate engagement by asking questions, running polls and surveys, inviting feedback, and rewarding your community with competitions, contests, draws, and similar from time to time.

• Be predictable – but not boring – strategically and reliably post – ideally at the same time each day so your followers know what to expect from you. Beware of not posting enough – and of not being present to reply – but also ensure you are not spamming your audience with too much content. From time to time, do something different – try going Live, posting a video, a poll, or a funny meme or GIF. Just make sure that everything you post and say aligns with your brand and niche.

• Unless it is industry-specific for your brand or business, avoid controversial posts relating to politics, religion, and other such “taboo” subjects that might alienate some of your audience … but do showcase your values in terms of sustainability, social justice, and other timely, relevant topics that align with your brand identity, mission, and goals.

• Understand your audience through social media analytics – track mentions, comments, reviews, and shares. What works for you? What doesn’t?

There are many other strategies you could adopt – from hosting events to rewarding your top consumer contributors to partnering with an influencer … you are limited only by your creativity and imagination.

And don’t forget to include calls to action!

A strong social media community requires ongoing nurturing for maintenance and growth – and a professional social media marketer or digital strategist can help.

Book a digital strategy session today to chat with us about your brand, business, customer, vision, goals, and strategy for social media marketing and much more! We look forward to helping you discover how we can help you connect the dots – and have fun doing so!