Social Media and Community Building: Best Practices for Brands

Social Media and Community Building: Best Practices for Brands

Human minds are extremely talented & can churn out some incredible ideas due to expertise & deep knowledge. You’ve of course heard of online community building. Picture this. You’re the founder of an e-commerce company which is going quite well. Currently, sales figures are as per expectations, your brand has an incredible image in the market, & you have repeat sales like wildfire. But, the urge to share your insights & give it back to society is where you’re stuck. You know social media brand voice is an ideal option to start an online community for your brand. But the unclear air of thousands of doubts doesn’t allow you to take the plunge to form that community.

You aspire to be the messiah but aren’t sure about how to? Got the gist, didn’t you? Read on to know more:

A. DON’T share your content:

Confused, right? It’s not your content we’re talking about. Content for all of us has become a measure of de stressing ourselves. Watching something that helps us forget the daily stress is what we’re referring to right now. Sharing third-party content like quotes, podcasts, short clips or anything for that matter, is allowed to be shared. This is a very unconventional way to community building. There are 2 possibilities here:

The content whose content is being shared in your community can notice you & opt to collaborate with you. (this can be a gradual process).

Whether collaboration or no collaboration, the individual may come in contact with you & be a loyal friend for life. (you never know).

B. Win them over:

Social listening is often talked about, but right listening? Not much. When you post content in expectation of engagement, & when you’re receiving the same in the form of comments, respond in an ideal way. Understand what the comment says, do not just hastily reply. Often users start interacting after going through posts for a long time as they like what you post. So, this is your chance to win them over by hearing right & responding right. You’d like to try some social listening tools for better performance in this.

C. Build that community literally:

Post being on a stature, regarding sales, brand recognition & revenue, now it’s time to dive deep into the minds of the consumers. Yes, till now you’ve deep dived from the perspective of making money, now you’ll declutter some preconceived notions. Study your target audience, see what they do, how they live, their standards of living & craft that community by sharing it on your social media handle. This can be a lower-middle class family who uses your products which are in their budget, & also an elite-class business family that uses your products according to their demands or needs. Craft a beautiful story out of it with intrinsic videography & art.

D. Share YOUR content:

The above point is also your content, no two ways about that! Here what we mean is while community building is the aim, do not get overwhelmed & ignore your core products & services. Dig out stories with your creative team & share the same over all platforms available at your disposal. This will be your regular content but again in the form of storytelling that’s different from the previous point. Stories are never going out of fashion soon. They are here to stay, so make the very best use of it & craft incredible ones.

E. Don’t “fit in”:

Be unique with your approach. Stop following those trends on social media. Be original. Give authentic brand storytelling. Originality is not dead for sure. Be near your target audiences. This community-driven marketing strategy will take you on a pedestal of being the top voice for sure. Make sure to not solve each & everyone’s problems at once. You’ll burn out. Digital brand presence doesn’t mean being everything or doing everything that you don’t need to do.

F. Ethical initiatives:

Paying it forward that brands implement is a great way to demonstrate values in action. This can be one of the best social media marketing tips to provide a platform where your followers can even participate in your ethical initiatives in whatever capacity they can. This makes them feel empowered & a sense of helping the needy. Man is a social animal & at some point in time feels to do some social activity when reaches a particular stage of success (different for everybody). Encourage them to participate as it helps in customer-relationship building.

Role of Authenticity in Community Building

Forbes has stated that authenticity is the best when building a community is the agenda. Authentic community building takes time. It gradually grows via genuine interactions with some promotion of course. A systematic approach to this is necessary to bring in brand loyal customer base. As you’re an already established brand, remember, that this community building aims to give back to society & bring like-minded people together. Be patient as the commercial customer engagement tactics won’t work here. The whole process of community building is full of social media engagement rates & user-generated content. The content, if found authentic & genuine, the engagement rate will show you in the analytics tab of your social media page.

At the same time, you also need to build strategies for engagement retention. Implement community engagement platforms used by companies or support centers that are highly effective at encouraging users to return to the community. This can be one of the best brand loyalty strategies too, to gain attention for your e-commerce brand. While we know we aren’t doing this community building for monetary purposes, this can be or should be counted as an indirect advantage for your e-commerce brand, isn’t it?

Conclusion:

The rise of digital & social channels has fundamentally transformed how brands think about brand community building, product development & marketing. Long-term loyalty from the customers in this competitive sphere has become imperative for all brands. Be it influencer collaborations, online community growth strategies, or social media engagement all are required with not forgetting authenticity being the key. Giving back to society via community building is the best thing a brand can do.

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