Whether you’re trying to build community or not, there’s a good chance that you’ve already got the bones of one in your existing customers. Social media allows people to discuss the brands they love and share their opinions on a wide platform. Fortunately, it doesn’t take a lot for a business to harness these fans to help build a community around their brand. Here are 5 things you can do to help your customers build community.
Knowledge base / FAQ
Your existing customers can help create a knowledge base or FAQ. Firstly, by asking you the questions, you know what information they want. Secondly, you can use your answers to create the information in the knowledge base. Last of all, you can ask your customers if they have any great tips or ideas that they’d like to share. That may give you some great product hacks that you can share with the community (make sure you attribute the customer that supplied the hack).
Community help
Use your customers as a community help system. It’s easy to do using social media, just encourage your customers and potential customers to both ask and respond to questions. On Facebook they can just use your page, on Twitter and Instagram they can use a custom hashtag. Then you will end up with customers talking to each other and helping each other and building a community around your brand.
Case studies
Talk to your existing customers and see if they’ll allow you to use them for a case study to talk about how they use your products and/or services; why they choose to work with you; and what issues you solve for them. Getting several different case studies for each of your ideal clients would be best. The idea is to end up with enough case studies that your ideal client will see something that they relate to personally.
Testimonials
Customer testimonials help build trust and give potential customers a sense of certainty around your services. It’s a good idea to try to spread out your customer reviews around various social media and review sites. Don’t forget to share them all on your website as well! The social media sites you should aim to have reviews on are: LinkedIn, Facebook and your Google Business listing. It’s also important to get reviews on industry sites such as Trip Advisor, Zomato, HiPages, Service Seeking etc. Wherever the testimonial is posted, it should be shared on your website and other social media accounts as well to give both potential and existing customers a chance to comment and start a conversation.
Events
Another way to build community is to host an event for your customers. It doesn’t have to be anything super fancy. Even if all you do is supply drinks, canapes and an opportunity for them to network it will benefit your business. Having your staff on hand to talk to your customers and to introduce customers who have shared interests will help build a community and goodwill towards your business.
Most of these are inexpensive, but well worth the time they take to get up and running. Once they’re in full swing, maintenance and updating will require a minimal commitment of time, and you should be able to outsource a lot of it. Don’t be tempted to outsource it all, as you are the authentic voice of your business.
