In this article, you'll learn how to build an online community.
Table of Contents:
- What is online community management?
- Why create an online community?
- The benefit of Online Community Management.
- Common Types of Online Communities
- How to make online community management
What is online community management?
The type of community you create depends on your business goals. For a fitness coach, a community might look like a private Facebook group for members of their fitness program to share knowledge and transformation stories.
Source: Safalta.com
For a photographer, it can be an open forum to gather thousands of members, share resources, and provide feedback on others' photography.Whatever your platform of choice, online communities are a powerful way to build meaningful connections among your followers because they allow your audience to:
- Discuss topics that interest them
- Connect with a brand, online course instructor, or another leader
- Learn together
- Collaborate on personal projects or course goals
- Share advice and related news
Why create an online community?
For brands like Thinkific, an online community is a way to bring our current and potential customers in one place to share ideas, discuss strategies, and get actionable feedback on our product.
Benefits of Online Community Management:
- Be seen as a leader in your field. Expand your sphere of influence by increasing your network and audience.
- Create brand ambassadors. Increase referrals to your business through brand evangelists.
- Feedback from your audience. Communicating regularly with your community helps you improve your products and services and serve them better.
- Financial growth. A community can encourage more involved followers and improve retention, both of which can lead to a rise in sales.
- Respond to market changes. Digital communities help you maintain touchpoints with your audience when it is not possible to be in the same physical location.
- Digital entrepreneurs naturally fit into online communities. Two of Thinkific's most successful course creators didn't launch the course on day one. He began creating exclusive professional learning communities on Facebook.
Common Types of Online Communities:
Interest: A group brought together by a common interest or passion, such as Thinkific's Facebook group for online course creation.
Action: Communities that come together to create change. For example, Black Lives Matter activists form a group to plan rallies.
Place: Community within geographical boundaries. For example, one Facebook group focused on activities to do while visiting Vancouver, Canada.
Practice or profession: Also known as a community of practice, this is when members of a particular profession come together to share professional development tips and learn how to excel at their jobs. For example, teachers form a group to further their professional knowledge.
Learn: These are communities that prioritize common learning objectives. Those goals can be related to a profession, but also to a hobby or non-professional goal, such as learning to roller skate.
Brand: Communities are focused on a common mission, goal, or lifestyle supported by a business or brand.
For course developers, learning communities and brand communities are the most beneficial of these six community types.
How to make online community management:
The bottom line is this: it's less about the number of hours, as it is about the experience level of the person who is managing the community, whether they know the right tone to use, and how to interact with others. Do, and how to handle situations. Maturely. Ultimately, you need someone with a specific skill set, and to do it well, additional abilities are needed.