Written by We all know the way people buy and brands market their products has completely changed. Now customers seek trustworthy information tailored to the customer’s individual needs. They read online reviews before purchasing and expect good support and service. People these days use different methods to decide about buying a specific product or service. Among all that, online communities have started playing a pivotal role. Do you also think a community can improve your brand recognition and image? We are here to explain how to build an online community from scratch in detail.
Customers nowadays look for brands who hear their audience’s voice, and online communities work well in achieving so. It allows the brands to learn about their customer’s interests, thoughts, and preferences.
If you are planning to launch your community or looking for strategies for building an online community from scratch, we are here to guide you through. Let us walk you through the process!!
Why Do You Need an Online Community?
There are several reasons to build an online community, and it is your responsibility to identify what you need from your community. Suppose your brand deals in skin care products, and you need to connect with your actual and potential audience. Now would you like to connect with an audience interested in tech-related stuff? No, right? That is why your goal must be very clear while building a community.
Building your online community from scratch can help you connect with the kind of audience who are genuinely interested in your products and services. It allows you to get feedback from your customers and learn about their viewpoints and interests. With the various interactive activities, you can easily ignite discussions about your products and services to build your team of evangelists.
6 Solid Strategies for Building an Online Community from Scratch
Identify the Purpose Behind Your Community
The first and foremost step behind building your community is identifying the purpose of your community. Do you think you can grow your community without understanding what it stands for? You need to make sure it represents your community’s goals and purposes.
Do you want to improve audience interaction and retention through your community? Or are you trying to share tips, support, strategies, and insights about your products or services? Whatever must be the reason, you need to identify it before getting started.
Audience Identification and Segmentation
There can be multiple reasons for building a community, and the audience plays a crucial role in achieving the goals. Your audience joins a community for specific reasons, and you must ensure you can fulfill their desires. That is why audience segmentation and identification are the two most important tasks while creating a community.
You need first to figure out what your potential audience wants from you and how you can engage your actual audience. Suppose your community revolves around Arts. Now your audience must include people interested in arts who are more specifically known as art enthusiasts or connoisseurs.
Determine the Suitable Community Building Platform
When it comes to building an online community from scratch, people largely choose between Facebook and other social media communities. But do you think these are the best options? Well, we must tell you these are not. You might get attracted to the free social media platforms, but there are several other aspects that you must look upon.
The kind of platform you select must be able to fulfill your community goals. Suppose you want to build only a small community or forum where users visit and exchange their thoughts. Here Whatsapp, Telegram, and other messaging platforms can be the right choice.
If you want to build a larger community, you can choose between the many social media platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn to expand your community. And if you want a community where you can have complete control and ownership, setting up your community on your own hosting platform can be the most appropriate decision.
With a free community-building theme like BuddyX, you don’t have to stress about the overwhelming technical skills. The easy customization feature of BuddyX allows you to design your community in your way without any hard technical skills.
The best part is the easy compatibility with the various top platforms like BuddyPress and BuddyBoss. Now grab your chance to get started with our free BuddyX theme for the best solutions.
Time to Assign Community Roles
Assigning community roles may sound like a very simple task, but it is very crucial to protect your community from spam and abuse. For this, you need first to analyze the size of your community. But what are things to keep in mind while assigning roles to your team members?
Who will be moderating the content shared within your community? Who will manage the tasks of account approvals and rejections? And who will be the one responding to members’ queries and offering support? All these questions will help you assign dedicated roles in your community to eliminate confusion and improve brand value.
Prepare General Guidelines
While building your online community from scratch, you must keep the result of spamming and abuse in mind. That is why you must lay down some general rules and guidelines to prevent such kind of inappropriate activities in your community.
When new members join your community, they’ll know how to behave and what activities may put them in trouble. Mention everything by keeping in mind the overall goals of the community.
Launch and Grow Your Community
The process of building an online community doesn’t only end here. The real work begins when you customize your community, declare guidelines, and launch. It is time to start growing your community by using the vast methods and techniques. Partner with influencers, share with your network, invite contacts, start a referral program, and a lot more to increase the reach and conversions.
Start promoting your community on different social media platforms, and inform people as much as you can using the various mediums. Remember your overall goal is to keep growing your community so more and more people can connect, engage, and inspire.
The Bottom Line
Online communities hold a lot of potential in turning the future of brands. You might be thinking about the best strategies for building your online community from scratch and don’t know where to start. BuddyX is a free solution to launch your online community without much hassle. No need to rely on multiple solutions when you have a single solution for all your community-related problems. Choose this excellent theme that is easily compatible with all the top community building platforms. The above points will help you to start your online community from scratch and grow. For more tips and strategies, you can keep reading our blogs.
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