- [Instructor] A community, just like your business,
needs a strategy.
This type of roadmap shows you
where you want to go and how to get there.
Think of it like your community mission statement.
Maybe your reason for starting an online community is
to provide exceptional customer service,
or you want to better connect
with your customers and gather feedback.
Maybe brand awareness
and brand recognition is really important.
Let's dive into building your community strategy.
First, choose a platform.
You have a couple options.
You can choose to use a platform
from a social media channel, like Facebook or Instagram,
or you can use an owned community platform.
That'd be using something like your website,
and if you're using WordPress,
you would install a plugin like MemberPress,
and that would build in that full community functionality.
If you're unsure of what platform to start using,
to help you decide, consider your audience's demographics.
An example is you'd use LinkedIn
if you're targeting a more professional crowd.
Other examples of platforms you might consider
building and managing your community on
include Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest,
or Quora, or Hivebrite.
These alternatives like Quora and Hivebrite will offer
you more control over your community.
Some things to consider when choosing these platforms are
they are going to boost your search engine optimization
and give you considerable control
over your content online.
It will be more difficult getting members to sign up,.
Unlike social media,
your potential members will need to sign up
and understand how to sign in and use the platform itself.
There also may be a fee to using other owned platforms,
and that's totally okay,
just be sure that you're choosing
the right one that will work for you and your members.
Next, identify your audience.
Once you've chosen a platform for your online community,
identify who your community is.
What're their likes, their dislikes?
What is it about your community
that makes them want to join?
The beautiful thing is you get to choose who you attract.
The strategy of identifying your audience in marketing
is called your buyer persona or your customer avatar.
Simply put, it's identifying
the unique characteristics of your members.
Creating your buyer persona
for your community members will go a long way
in helping you create the right content
and how to target them online
in order to invite them to your community.
You're going to be looking at things
like their job title and description.
Demographics, so their age, gender,
income level, education, where they live.
You're going to look at their psychographics.
You're going to get into their head.
So you're going to understand their hobbies,
their values, and their attitudes.
And you're going to be really clear on
what their goals are in life
and what challenges they face, and their pain points.
And then media use,
what does your avatar use to get their information?
Did they go to specific blogs?
Do they view specific websites?
And you may already have a great idea
of who your persona is and that's awesome.
I want to you how you can dig
a little bit deeper with some research.
First, don't be afraid to interview existing customers.
They're going to offer some valuable insight,
grab coffee, pick up the phone, chat with them.
These are your most valuable resource.
Talk to your sales and marketing team.
What do they know about the people
who buy your products or services?
What are some frequently asked questions and objections?
Ask your customer service team,
what do people love,
what do people hate about the products
and services we provide,
and what features are they looking for us to add?
Conducting an online survey using
SurveyMonkey or Google Forms is so easy.
You simply create the survey,
you get a sharable URL,
and you can post it on social media,
or include it in your emails out to your audience.
Next, you're going to compile all your findings
in a Google document.
And when you think you have enough information,
you're going to start filling out your buyer persona worksheet.
Here are three resources for buyer persona worksheets,
and they'll also offer some support
in building your buyer persona if you have some questions.
Let's talk content.
This is where you're going to strategically determine
what content you need to create to engage your community.
With your content strategy, again,
you're going to ask your audience
what type of content they want to see from you.
What do they find valuable?
And luckily in all your buyer persona research,
you're likely to have gathered a lot of that information.
You're also going to use Facebook Insights as a tool
to see which posts get the most engagement.
And at the end of the day, post regularly and consistently.
That's the only way that you're going to be able
to see which posts do the best
and also to help your audience
kind of vote with their content.
They can say, "We love the recipes."
"We want more DIY articles."
How will you determine your success?
This is how you're going to figure out
how you know what you're doing is working.
And this is completely based on
what is important to your company.
Ask yourself, what is ideal for my brand?
That way you can see what's working
and what needs some tweaking.
Some success identifiers you can take a look at are
new member growth,
the number of new conversations
or conversations happening within your community.
You can look at the amount of content
that's being shared or liked by your members.
And you can also take a look at your overall engagement.
These are your likes, shares, mentions, and comments.
Again, this is going to be customized to your brand's goals
for creating an online community.
You're going to measure these results using methods,
such as social listening, platform analytics,
and other analytics tools.
Social listening tools include Hootsuite,
Google Alerts, Mention, and Brandwatch.
And when I talk about platform analytics,
I'm talking about Facebook, Twitter Analytics,
and Instagram Insights.
This might seem like a lot,
but a clearly defined strategy will help you
build a strong platform for your community.
Know that over time this strategy will evolve
and so will your community.
So the better you understand the heart of your member,
and are able to serve them at a really powerful level,
your online community will always be vibrant.