Online communities have become crucial to companies.
A solid online community converts active users into loyal customers for most brands with an online and social presence. These loyal customers eventually become brand evangelists.
However, you need more than just an online presence to build a community online.
In this guide, you’ll learn more about how an online community forum works and its benefits. You’ll also learn how to build an online community that boosts customer loyalty. Let’s get started.
What is an Online Community?
An online community is a space where a company’s current and potential customers can connect. It is also a platform for sharing information and experiences and interacting with the brand.
These communities can take many forms. Think of social media groups like subreddits, Facebook groups, and discussion boards. If you use community platforms to create your online community, you can do other things like set up rich member profiles and personalize activity feeds.
The specific type of community you create will depend on your business goals and your customers’ needs. However, here are some of the critical types of online communities you can consider:
- Product or service-focused communities: Centered around a particular product or service. The community members can discuss the product, share tips and tricks, and provide feedback to the company.
- Support communities: Designed to support customers with questions or issues related to a product or service. They help members easily connect with customer service representatives. These communities also enable members to help each other troubleshoot problems.
- Brand advocacy communities: Foster brand advocacy and loyalty. Members may be invited to participate in exclusive events or share their experiences with the brand.
- Interest-based communities: Centered around a particular hobby or interest related to the company’s products or services.
Decide how long your online community shall be active. You can have a vibrant community that exists on an evergreen basis or a timed private community that will expire or dissolve once it has served its purpose.
4 Benefits of Building an Online Community
Building an online community can be a powerful tool for businesses looking to connect with their customers and drive customer engagement. In this section, you’ll learn the benefits your brand can gain if you build a community online.
Here are those benefits:
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Helps Grow Your Business Network
Building a robust online community is an effective way to grow your business network. It provides a platform to connect with your customers, who may also be business owners. This comes with new opportunities for your brand’s growth through collaborations with other brands.
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Transforms Your Audience into Brand Evangelists
As I mentioned, an online community can also help transform your audience into brand evangelists. Brand evangelists are customers who are so passionate about your brand that they promote it to others. Often, this happens without your prompting.
How does this transformation happen? With online communities, customers can connect and share their experiences with your brand. Over time, then, customers develop a sense of community.
This Instagram post is an excellent example of brand evangelism; notice the #notanad in the caption.
Since these brand evangelists become invested in your success, they won’t just promote your brand to others online and offline. They may also leave positive feedback and Google reviews, recommend your products, and defend your brand against criticism or negative feedback.
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Helps Improve Your Offerings through Customer Feedback
When you build an online community, you create a platform where your customers can share their opinions and experiences with your brand.
You can, therefore, gain valuable insights into what your customers dislike about your offerings. You can also identify trends in customer feedback, such as joint pain points or feature requests. Then, you can use this information to guide product development and improve the customer experience.
For instance, from this thread on Sephora’s Beauty Insider Community, the brand can tell that some of its clients have an issue with their eye masks. The brand can use this feedback to improve the product.
Notify your online community when you make any adjustments and changes based on their feedback. This will show your audience that you listen to your customers. This may earn you more loyal customers.
What if you get positive feedback through your online community? You can take advantage of this, too. Post them on your marketing channels to attract more customers and community members. Check out how this company for dishwasher repair services in Melbourne does it.
It posts positive feedback on its services on its homepage for every website visitor.
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Enhances Revenue
When customers feel like they are part of a community that values their opinions, they are likelier to remain loyal to your brand and continue purchasing from you over time. The customer lifetime value leads to increased revenue.
Generally, revenues from the internet communities market have a compound annual growth rate of 24.3%. Payment can increase 1/4 times yearly, too.
An excellent online community can also provide monetization opportunities. For example, businesses can use their community to promote and sell products or services. They can also offer paid memberships or subscriptions, or generate revenue through advertising and sponsorships.
4 Tips for Creating an Online Community to Boost Customer Loyalty
Creating a solid online community takes time, effort, and commitment. In this section, you’ll learn four essential tips to help you build a community online and boost customer loyalty.
1. Determine Business Core Values
Determining your core values is the first step to building a community online successfully. This means identifying the values that guide your business.
To determine your business core values, ask yourself: What are the fundamental beliefs and principles guiding your brand? What are your goals and aspirations?
Communicate them clearly to your audience through your community guidelines. Check out the Lego Ideas house rules. Lego is all about fun and innovation while promoting respect. You can see these values reflected in its online community regulations below. Use them for inspiration to create your own based on your values.
Focusing on these core values will help you attract like-minded people passionate about similar issues as you. You also cultivate a sense of connection, belonging, and loyalty by creating a virtual community that aligns with your beliefs.
2. Go Live Often (At Least Once A Week)
One of the best ways to build community engagement and foster a strong sense of community is to go live on social media regularly (at least once a week).
It lets you interact with your audience in real time, answer their questions, and collect feedback. This strengthens your connection with your audience and increases customer loyalty. At the same time, it allows you to humanize your brand and build trust and authenticity.
However, having a clear plan and purpose for your live sessions is crucial when going live. To run these sessions effectively, ensure you:
- Plan your live content: Consider what content your audience is interested in and design a content strategy. Whatever your topic is, as much as possible, it should relate to what your brand offers. For instance, if you sell makeup, an excellent live session could be tips on how to mask a pimple on the face, for example.
- Promote your sessions beforehand: Let your audience know when you will go live and what topics you will cover. Use social media platforms, email lists, or other channels to promote your sessions.
- Engage with your audience: Encourage them to ask questions, leave comments, and participate in the discussion. Respond to their comments and questions in real-time.
With these steps, you can easily create a sense of excitement and anticipation among your audience. This boosts attendance and leads to increased engagement and loyalty.
3. Speak the Same Language as Your Audience
When building an online community platform, you must also speak the same language as your audience. This means understanding your customers’ needs, preferences, and communication styles. It also means tailoring your content and messaging to resonate with them. This will boost your audience engagement and make them feel valued and understood.
Listen to their conversations on social media, forums, or other channels to learn how to speak your audience’s language. Pay attention to their interests and preferences. Then, personalize your online community’s experiences, from recommendations to promotions and rewards.
Also, note the words and phrases they use. For example, a brand can use words like “plant-based” and “cruelty-free” because its target audience commonly uses them.
4. Co-Create Other Types of Content with Your Audience
To keep your community engaged, you can create other types of content apart from your live sessions. Involve your community in creating these different types of content, which can be user-generated, member interviews, contests, or challenges.
User-generated content (UGC) is engaging and serves as social proof. You can ask your audience to submit photos, videos, or stories about your products or services.
For instance, the Beauty Insider Community dedicates a whole page of its platform to UGC. The brand adds product tags if other members want to shop for similar products.
Member interviews are another way to co-create with your members. By asking for their experiences and opinions, you create content that resonates with your target audience and encourages customer loyalty.
The Peloton website community platform is an example of a brand that does this. It invites its members to tell their stories to the brand.
Contests and challenges are a fun way to encourage your audience to create brand-related content. For example, a clothing store could run a styling challenge. In the challenge, customers can style their favorite store items and share them on the social community.
Overall, involving your community in content creation makes them feel valued and ultimately ensures they stick to your brand.
In Closing
Creating a solid online community can benefit your brand in many ways. It can help expand your networks, nurture brand evangelists, and enhance revenue. It can also help you collect feedback you can use to improve offerings.
If you want to build a community successfully online, follow our tips above. Determine your values, go live often, and speak the same language as your audience. Co-create other types of content with your audience, too.
Take the time to create a robust online community, and you won’t just have a loyal customer base. You’ll be well on your way to business growth.
