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Online communities are growing in popularity. Communities allow customers to learn about new products and services, engage with each other, share their experiences with the products and offer their feedback. Customers today use the internet to connect, communicate, share their thoughts and ideas, and ultimately influence each other.
Online communities also allow brands to leverage the power of peer-to-peer networking. This grows over time in well-maintained communities as members begin to interact more and share their thoughts, taking pressure off the community manager to keep conversations going, and moving the community towards self-dependency.
In this article we will discuss the following topics:
A customer community is an online space where customers can connect, share posts, share their thoughts and bring up discussions with each other.
A customer community can serve as an invaluable platform for you to promote your products and services. It can also promote your company values in many ways. When you engage in community involvement regularly, you create a positive workplace culture and build strong relationships with your online customer community.
A community allows companies to increase their range of products and services based on their customer's needs and quickly identify changes in consumer behavior, leading to adjustments in products and offers to create value for the customer and better products. Creating a hub of expertise around a brand that users rely on will improve product adoption and customer satisfaction.
Online communities help you have real-time conversations with your customers. The creation of real-time connections between the consumers and the brand help in promoting the retention and loyalty of customers. Effective loyalty programs inspire customers to repurchase and build a consistent relationship with brands.
Online customer communities have provided new ways to listen to, learn from, and engage with consumers, and are an important aspect of successfully building a brand.
“People buy from people. Not brands.” Nothing builds brand loyalty and helps in increasing customers quite like a strong sense of community.
Facebook groups can be a great platform for building a customer community. It can help drive traffic to your brand’s website which in turn can help you increase your sales.
Building a customer community from scratch is a great opportunity, but it’s also lots of work. You need to seed it with representative content that will attract and engage your first users.
How to keep your customers engaged?
Building a customer community takes significant effort and resources. To make the best use of a customer community it is important to keep your customers engaged.
Hosting events helps your brand gain exposure. The more events you host, the more you are exposed to the right customers. Hosting an event can help your brand reach people who are currently not a part of the community.
Invite your most promising prospects and communicate your message to them in a controlled atmosphere, immersing them in your brand message and the value of your offerings. Events have the power to turn potential prospects into future loyal customers.
With a rise in remote work, many people are craving face-to-face interaction. Providing that for your customers does not have to be complicated and it can foster deeper relationships between everyone involved.
Being consistent with posting content has a lot to do with keeping your customers engaged. For your audience to recognize your brand, you must be consistent. Being consistent in your brand allows you to grow in audience engagement and reach.
Show what you know and share what your audience will find relevant to their lives. The goal is to be relevant and authentic. Try not to repeat the same content and try encouraging others to share something they have that might bring a positive change to the customer community and the brand.
When new team members feel welcomed and included, it may help create a more positive workplace environment. Always welcome your new community members and make them feel wanted and a part of the community. Tell your team members to encourage them to start posting and making connections early in the process as it will help them get connected to the brand.
Rewards help increase the satisfaction and contentment of the participants. When you add rewards to a competition people will show more interest and the number of participants will eventually increase.
Organizing contests or small competitions within your community can be a great way to gather participants.
Community Management is the process through which an organization seeks to build an engaged audience around its brand, products, and services using social media. It's how a brand uses opportunities (in-person and online) to interact with its audience to create a network in which it can connect, share, and grow together as a team.
A community manager creates programs to bring up a positive community environment and encourage fans to spread the good word to more people.
Creating a place dedicated to customers provides an avenue for them to ask questions, share tips and provide you with feedback. One of the main benefits of building a customer community is that it results in happier customers.
If you build a strong community and encourage engagement, your customers will take the chance to chime in and offer their expertise and thoughts whenever your brand needs it.
Customer communities have proven themselves over the last decades to be very effective tools to provide a great customer experience and have helped brands in increasing their sales.
When online communities are used for customer support, it becomes the perfect channel to capture answers that are in-depth and written in your customer’s tone of voice.
Customer communities can be a great way to increase the revenue of your brand and attract new customers. While it takes a lot of work, it is ultimately worth it as it fosters strong brand loyalty and strengthens your team as a whole.
Good luck! 💪
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