On Building a Community

Communities are the base stone of successful public relations, they are the sign that all the work you have been doing to get your brand out there have been worth it, and in exchange, you get one of the highest value assets a company could ask for: advocates.

When it comes to suggesting your product to others, defending you in a time of crisis, or supporting your company, no one will do it like your community. But how do you go about building one for yourself?

This is what we will cover in today's article.

Why Community Building Matters

Having a community is, in many ways, the end goal of PR. It is through engaged communities that brands get to raise awareness around their product, or even better, their purpose. An engaged community also means loyal customers whose values align with those of your brand and will advocate them to others, thus drawing more people to you. Your community is also going to be a valuable source of both content and insight on what are the strengths and weaknesses of your product.

Defining Your Community

If you want to build a community from the ground up, the first brick to lay down is going to be your avatar. An avatar is the personification of the group you want to build your community around. The more detailed your avatar is, the better. They should have a name, be a certain age, have a certain way of life, like certain things, dislike certain things, have certain hobbies, and so on. The more you add, the smaller your community will be, but the trade-off is that they will also be more loyal from the get-go.

In order to build this avatar, the best thing to do is visit the online communities similar to the one you’re trying to build and observe how they behave, what slang or technical jargon they use, they’re general complaints and aspirations, the kind of thing that will make them return to your content more often.

Community Engagement

Now, a community, like any relationship, is built on presence and constant interaction, which means that if you want to get yours started and keep it growing, you will need to set up as many interactions as possible.

There are a few ways to do this

Social media: This one’s a doozy, of course. If you plan on reaching large amounts of people at once, the best way to go about it is creating online content based on their interests.

Website and Blog: A great follow-up to social media content is a website or blog where people get a more long form format of content, and even better, you get their undisputed attention as everything in your webpage is related to your brand in some way.

Meet-ups: Why leave things online? Organizing real life events where your community gets to meet and talk about shared interests is a great way to solidify your relationship with them and provide them with an opportunity to give you input and suggestions face to face.

Community Moderation

As your community grows, you will quickly find that it becomes harder and harder to manage it on your own without taking time off of other commitments. This is a telltale sign that you should start looking for community moderators.

A moderator’s main job is to implement the rules you have established around community interactions, when someone misbehaves, or you have people using your spaces with bad intentions, they will be the ones to take action.

Moderators should be picked from those members of the community that are the most active and have the best alignment with your values and intentions. These moderators can be either paid professionals or volunteers, but they will always be the ones ensuring that interactions within the community are kept civil and positive.

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