Building and engaging a community
An active community is your key to success when using social media for your shop. In this class, you will learn how to build a community and then know how to engage it.
Building a community
When you start using social media, it is important to build a certain size fan base in your community so that you can generate sufficient reach. Per brand and channel, it varies how big such a community should be.
In addition to quantity, quality and composition of the community are key. These are measured based on public data from your followers. For example, it is good to analyze whether your followers match your target audience.
Note
Recruitment affects the quality of your followers. In general, a fanbase that has grown organically will be more loyal than one built primarily through advertising and win promotions.
Building a quality community is just the beginning; after that, something needs to be done to keep the community engaged and satisfied. This is where "engagement" with fans begins through sharing relevant content and information.
By building a loyal group of followers, you ultimately create ambassadors for your brand.
These are people who feel committed to a brand. They feel connected to the brand and if something is asked of them they will take action.
This group of people carries your message further and influences the community; because they are "outsiders," they convey your message with credibility.
Community engaging
When working on a community on an online channel, you need to keep this community engaging. After all, that is the expectation of those who choose to like or follow you.
They want to be inspired, informed, convinced and/or helped through content. Content creation takes you to the next level with a content strategy.
Content is the content with which you want to engage your community. This content can include:
- Text
- Photo
- Videos
- Animation
- Livestreaming / broadcasting
In your content strategy, you determine what content to deploy, at what time and through what channel. Structure is the goal here, so that this strategy can be deployed for a longer period of time.
Through a good content strategy, you can engage your target audience with your brand, product or business.
If you do this successfully, you will build a loyal group of followers and ultimately create ambassadors for your brand. These are people who want to establish a (lasting) relationship with your brand. They ultimately provide the most old-fashioned form of marketing or advertising: word-of-mouth.
Another common term for this is earned media. This refers to what is being said about your brand or product by others, without you playing a role in it yourself.
The model below deploys the breakdown of social media into paid, managed and earned media, or Paid, Owned and Earned media. The model helps provide clarity on how to allocate your budget and resources on social media.
Paid media: advertising on social media channels, such as Facebook Advertising
Owned media: all communication channels and assets of an organization, which it owns and where it can determine and control the content itself
Earned media: conversations, discussions and posts about your business, brand or product are the media you 'earn'
With Earned media, a company doesn't actually control the content anymore; it's other people who get to talk to each other about the brand or products. If they do this in a positive way, they reinforce your message. Because they are "outsiders" to your brand, their message comes across as extra credible.
To do
Think for yourself what you could do to earn Earned media. Pick some variations and just give it a try!