Build an Online Community and Influence Your Audience in 5 Easy Steps

Whatever the reason, online communities present a chance for your business to find and engage your audience.

That relationship is fundamental to your business — no audience means no customers, and no customers mean no sales.

Creating and maintaining your own community comes with several huge upsides:

All of these benefits directly contribute to your audience’s perception of your brand and business.

Overall, a positive experience for them will lead to more sales for you and brand loyalty from them.

Now, let’s learn about what kinds of online communities you can create, and how to get started.

Depending on the size, structure, platform, and intended function behind your online community, one or the other will work better for your business.

Which type of online community is right for you?

As implied by the name, these communities are free to join and usually require just an email address to enter.

Free communities tend to use free online websites like Facebook, TikTok, Reddit, and other social media platforms.

Here are some other pros and cons of free online communities:

These kinds of communities require far more than just an email address or password to enter, adding an air of exclusivity to them.

They’re also often called a private community, private group, or brand community.

A branded online community requires specific credentials or a paid subscription from users, so they often appear on other online community platforms rather than on social media sites.

These more select online communities have their own set of pros and cons:

Armed with the above information, it should be pretty easy to decide which kind of online community is best for your business goals.

A free community might be easier to create, but you’ll be relying on a social media platform to keep you connected with your audience — one algorithm change is all it takes to lose that following.

We suggest you opt for the branded approach because a successful brand community lends itself better to supporting your online business.

Next up, let’s get started with actually building it.

Building an online community doesn’t have to be a stressful or time-consuming process.

Follow these 5 simple steps and you’ll have a fully-fledged online community, made to flourish!

Before you even look at any software or platforms, you need to decide on what you want your online community to achieve.

Some common goals include:

When setting your goal, ensure it’s a SMART one — a goal you can measure is a goal you can track and improve on.

Clarifying your goal is also what will help you decide on whether you want to create a free or branded community.

With so many options to choose from, finding the right community platform can be tricky.

You can use the following social media platforms to create free online communities:

It can be difficult to monetize your online community using these tools, and you’ll have to check whether they allow for integrations with the rest of your marketing suite.

Be sure to check out all of the details before committing to a community platform.

When launching your online community, you need to complete the following steps:

The next step on your journey involves promoting your online community to your target audience.

An empty online community is a wasted opportunity, but you also don’t want to let just anyone join — this is where your ideal member profile comes in handy.

There are several different ways to leverage your marketing efforts and start gathering community members:

These methods can also help you make your community visible amongst other digital communities and to future partnerships.

If you’re looking to add rocket fuel to your growth, you can assign part of your company’s advertising budget to pay for social media ads.

Remember, a new community is bound to start out small, but big crowds don’t guarantee conversions or engagement.

By utilizing the strategies mentioned, you’ll grow a vibrant online community in no time.

Not all content works for all communities, so try out a couple of different content types and adjust them to suit your goals and community members.

Here are 5 key performance indicators (KPIs) that’ll help you track the effects of your online community and content:

Building a functional online community and building one to achieve and exceed your goals comes down to 3 factors:

Keep reading to find out 3 strategies to maximize the success of your online community.

Part of building a vibrant community for your audience is creating and enforcing rules to keep your community members happy.

Before launching online communities, it’s a good idea to have your community guidelines already set up.

As your community evolves and grows, these rules might change, but it’s always harder to set conventions if none existed in the first place.

One of the best ways to get other members to follow these conventions is by using a community manager.

There are many different people who can take on this role:

Different types of online communities respond to different kinds of content and getting this wrong will only drive away your members.

Here are some content ideas to help you decide what suits your community best:

Aim to create and share content that will engage your audience in some way — get them to read, comment on, vote on, or share your posts.

Online communities work best when they encourage participation and collaboration, while still working towards your business’ goals.

Much like an email list, an online community is only as good as the quality of its members.

While cleaning your email list is a tough task, cleaning up your online community can be even tougher.

There are 3 simple strategies you can implement to keep your community group members active:

While removing people from your group may seem counterproductive, it will actually boost your engagement rate by removing unnecessary dead weight.

For a final dose of inspiration, let’s check out 3 examples of what a successful online community looks like.

These span different community-building platforms, audiences, and content types, so there’s something for everyone.

And more.

They have several community managers from within the community and then a dedicated team maintaining the site.

Take a leaf out of Duolingo’s app and apply this kind of multilayered support to your members too.

Also, with just under 3 billion active users, Facebook gives Peloton access to a massive built-in audience that they couldn’t ignore.

Finally, if anyone is looking for more technical support, the Peloton forum caters to any troubleshooting.

On top of this, you’ll be able to easily create sales funnels, build entire websites, and compile online courses in just a few clicks.

Systeme.io is a real game-changer for any online business — just ask our customers!

Armed with this complete community-building guide, you can support your customers and reach your fans however you choose.

Select the perfect platform, create interactive content, and make the most of community moderators.

With a power-house like systeme.io supporting you, growing your business and your new online community is easy.

Sign up and take us for a test drive today!