Social media is not just a tool for marketing and entertainment, but also a powerful platform for creating and nurturing a community of informed and empowered individuals. In this article, you will learn how to use social media to build a community that shares your vision, values, and goals, and how to engage with them in meaningful and productive ways.
Before you start posting and interacting on social media, you need to have a clear idea of why you are doing it and who you are doing it for. What is the purpose of your community? What are the values and principles that guide it? Who are the people you want to attract and serve? How can you help them solve their problems or achieve their aspirations? Having a clear purpose and audience will help you create relevant and valuable content, as well as establish trust and credibility with your community.
Your purpose should be anchored in providing value to your audience - not using social as a megaphone to shout your message. Social is the one channel where you can build relationships with your customers and establish trust. Only then can you extract from that equation.
Not all social media platforms are created equal, and not all of them will suit your community's needs and preferences. You need to research and understand the strengths and weaknesses of each platform, and how they align with your community's goals and behaviors. For example, if your community is focused on learning and sharing knowledge, you might want to use platforms that allow for long-form content, such as blogs, podcasts, or webinars. If your community is more visual and creative, you might want to use platforms that showcase images, videos, or infographics, such as Instagram, YouTube, or Pinterest. You also need to consider the tools and features that each platform offers, such as analytics, hashtags, polls, live streams, or groups, and how they can help you manage and grow your community.
Content is the core of your social media community, and it should reflect your purpose and audience. You need to create and curate content that is relevant, useful, engaging, and authentic. Your content should provide value to your community, whether it is by educating, inspiring, entertaining, or empowering them. You also need to curate content from other sources that are aligned with your community's interests and values, and that can complement or enhance your own content. You can use content curation tools, such as Feedly, Flipboard, or Pocket, to find and share quality content from various sources. You should also follow the best practices of each platform, such as using keywords, hashtags, captions, images, videos, or links, to optimize your content for visibility and reach.
Social media can be used to build communities by creating engaging content, fostering discussions, and connecting like-minded individuals. Consistent and authentic communication helps strengthen the sense of belonging within the community. Consider incorporating facilitated discussions, user generated content, customer stories/testimonials, and collaborations with influences to build out a robust content strategy. The biggest factor is ensuring your content provides value at the right stage ofcthe customer journey.
One of the main benefits of social media is that it allows for two-way communication and feedback between you and your community. You should not only broadcast your content, but also invite and encourage your community to interact with you and with each other. You can do this by asking questions, soliciting opinions, conducting polls or surveys, hosting live events or Q&A sessions, creating challenges or contests, or featuring user-generated content. You should also respond to comments, messages, reviews, or mentions, and acknowledge and appreciate your community's contributions and feedback. By doing so, you will build rapport and loyalty with your community, as well as gain insights and ideas for improving your content and services.
Another way to build an informed and empowered community is to foster collaboration and co-creation among your community members. You can leverage the collective intelligence and creativity of your community to generate new ideas, solve problems, or create new products or services. You can do this by creating spaces and opportunities for your community to collaborate and co-create, such as online forums, groups, chats, wikis, or crowdsourcing platforms. You can also provide guidelines, incentives, and recognition for your community's collaboration and co-creation efforts, such as clear objectives, rules, rewards, or showcases. By doing so, you will increase your community's engagement, ownership, and satisfaction, as well as enhance your community's value and impact.
Finally, you need to measure and improve your performance as a social media community builder. You need to track and analyze the data and metrics that reflect your community's growth, engagement, and satisfaction, such as followers, likes, comments, shares, views, clicks, ratings, or testimonials. You also need to monitor and evaluate the feedback and suggestions that your community provides, such as reviews, complaints, compliments, or recommendations. You should use the data and feedback to identify your strengths and weaknesses, as well as the opportunities and threats that affect your community. You should also use them to set and adjust your goals, strategies, and actions, as well as to celebrate and communicate your achievements and improvements with your community.
Leveraging your most powerful advocates - your employees - can super charge your community building. An employee’s reach is on average 8x that of a brand’s and ultimately people prefer to hear from other people. Create content your employees can share on their networks. It can drive brand recognition, employer branding and revenue.
Building a strong employer branding strategy and executing it is vital to ensure success. This starts with proper training on your brand messaging and image so that everyone is well-equipped to share your brand story in a way that is both authentic and consistent. Your team members are your biggest advocates and giving them the right tools will go a long way. Start by training one department and then open it up others, gathering feedback along the way so you can shape the training in a way that works best for everyone. Always leave room for questions and ensure each person feels comfortable enough to reach out if they need support!