How to grow an online community?
There are tons of articles and guides on how to grow an online community. You can start by creating a Facebook group, you can do your own forum or create an offline event and people will come.
But there is one simple idea that we as marketers often forget:
People are not interested in brands, they only follow what is of interest to them.
Therefore, if you are creating an online community with your brand name, talk about your brand, share news only about your brand while you are not even a big name like Airbnb or Dove or a small local brand that allows you to personally know every one of your customers, you won’t see any results.
Let me tell you my experience on how I created an online community based on interest and not on brand.
I started my own podcast. I was very proud of it. Publishing weekly episodes, talking about podcasting at conferences and also consulting some brands about it, made me get more and more excited about what I was doing.
I thought my podcast has reached the brand level and thus, it would allow me to move forward and create a community around it.
So I started with an Instagram DM small community where I had multiple groups (max. 32 persons) and shared weekly news about podcasting and my podcast. Most of the news was about my podcast. But it took me too much time to write the content, copy/paste in notes, copy/paste in every DM group.
Thus, because it was so much hustle with copy/pasting the same message to different groups on Instagram I moved my group on Facebook.
In the beginning, I chose to name the group with a name that sounded similar to “my podcast listeners” or something like this. So, I created the cover, invited the members from my Instagram groups in it and then promoted it on my personal Facebook account. Then, I started to create content for it.
After 2 or 3 weeks I didn’t see any good interaction. In fact, there wasn’t so much interaction in the group because it was only about my podcast.
I thought that if I gather the members around my podcast brand, they would come and will get together. But it was not like this. These group members weren’t so interested only in my podcast.
Thet’s why, after I had a talk with my colleague about this group, he recommended me to change the podcast purpose.
Instead of promoting it as a brand group, create a group around an interest.
So I changed the name and chose a podcast related topic, changed the cover and started talking more about podcasting and less about my own podcast.
More people were interested in this group. More people asked to join this group and now they are engaging, asking, commenting on this group.
So I don’t have to create a lot of content on it because they are doing it.
Here are my personal lessons on how to start a community around an interest, and not around a brand.
Lesson 1 – Start that community
This is the first lesson I learned about creating a small community. And, I believe this should be a marketing strategy every marketer should do in 2020. Start that community. Create a platform where people can get together.
That’s the first lesson you need to learn today. If you are interested in the street food industry, start a community around it. If you are interested in classic hand watches, start a community around it.
Be the one that starts the community. Just go on Facebook and create that group. Go on Instagram and create that group. Go on Linkedin and create that group.
Be the first who knows the needs of your peers and start that group.
Don’t overthink it. Don’t look at what it will be like, what rules you should put in, what strategy you should have, what’s the purpose of it. Don’t get too deep into it before you start.
Just start that community and you will figure it out.
Lesson 2 – Experiment
If you don’t know what to do after you start that group, just experiment on it.
Be honest and ask them what they want to know about this certain topic. They can give you all the answers you need.
The same thing happened to me too. I had a few ideas on what to post in that group, but I didn’t know what I would do with this venture in 2 or 3 weeks. So, I asked them. And the most interesting thing was that they started asking about podcasting, they started commenting and engaging each other.
The best thing was when I saw some people posting questions while the others were engaging in answering those questions. That gave me the sense of – this is now a community.
Another thing I did was to create a weekly post about something the members of the community have published during that week. It helped keep the community engaged and they also had the chance to promote themselves. You can do this by scheduling posts on Facebook groups once every week during the first 2 or 3 months. You get to choose the day selected for these kinds of posts.
Another thing I know to help my community was when I shared news or case studies with them. Because I use a lot of social media and I’m also subscribed to different podcasting newsletters, it’s easy to get the news, copy/paste the URL in the group and finish the post with a question or something they can engage with.
In the beginning, you can experiment with your group and after a while, you will get a sense of understanding what they need, and of course, what you can do for them.
Lesson 3 – Learn from mistakes
My very first mistake was that I thought that this group is about me. And I’m sorry to say this, but my ego was on such a high level I thought that I could create a group only around my name and my podcast.
But guess what? People are not interested in my name, they are interested in my work and about the things they are doing about which they can learn new things so that they can do them better.
I learned from my mistakes and I changed the name to a topic that they could relate to. Something that was interesting to them. One of my friends suggested that I do so because this group shouldn’t be around my name. I’m not a celebrity, I’m not some online influencer guru or other stuff. I’m just a guy who is creating content and helping people with that. It’s ok to make mistakes.
It’s ok to have the courage to make mistakes but it’s better to recognize your mistakes and change them. These mistakes can be a good life lesson and can make you a better person.
Be positive.
Look at your mistakes as good experiences in your life.
I believe that making a lot of mistakes (and don’t get me wrong, I’m not the kind of guy that only lives in mistakes and thinks that whatever we do it’s ok) can help you experiment more while at the same time, they will help you see the bigger picture of the situation.
Lesson 4 – Create based on interest
According to Google’s latest research, 99% of all search terms fall under 4 different intent categories: informational, navigational, commercial and transactional.
The foundation of every marketing project should be around the interest of the user.
When I started this Facebook group I thought that my name is an important interest people will gather around. And I was wrong. My name is not an interest. Not even my content shouldn’t be an interest.
People have needs and people have interests.
When I think about the interest I’m thinking about how Netflix is using user-based interest on every user profile. Because I’m watching “Friends” and re-watch it every time I have the chance, they already know what kind of movies to recommend to me. They know what kind of posters they should use. Or maybe, I watched a movie featuring Tom Cruise as an actor, and guess what, in the next few days I will see other movies with Tom Cruise or actors who are playing maybe the same role in a different movie, similar to the one I watched before. This means that Netflix is interested in my interest, and as of consequence, they give me the kind of content I’m interested to watch.
That’s what your group should be about. Interest in a topic. Interest in a certain subject your community wants more information about.
Thinking about your group interest and understanding what the people want more will help you create the perfect group according to, or based on their needs. Just think about this.
Somebody has a question (interest) – where are they asking that question (looking for a solution) – solution: your group (because it’s based on interest).
Lesson 5 – Give freedom to your members
You can’t create a community if you don’t have people that gather together under the same interests and the same values. First will come to the interest.
I know I’m repeating myself talking again about “interest” but I believe it’s an important element when we create groups and communities.
I heard many times marketers talking about creating communities and the next slide of the presentation was how a brand created a community because they’ve done a giveaway or something that gathered together all kinds of people. Well sorry, but I’m not buying it.
When you create a community, you are looking for people who are sharing the same interest.
Then, in order to strengthen the community, you have to share the same values. That will give the community a sense of culture. You will start to create a culture around your community.
But without people, you can’t have a community.
And people want freedom of speech. They want to communicate freely. You can’t limit their interaction and engagement. Give them the freedom to talk, to ask questions and to give solutions.
That’s why I didn’t limit their access to my group. They can post whatever they want, but under the same topic, the group was created.
To be sure that people will understand the limits of the group I recommend you to create some rules right when you start the group. Write it down, don’t make it very long, keep it simple and under common sense.
This way, people will know if that is the right community they want to join or not.
Conclusion
There is tons of content about how to create Facebook Groups, Linkedin Groups, Instagram DM Group and other kinds of communities.
That’s why I didn’t want to make another kind of content.
But this is the kind of content I wrote following my experience with a group of almost 500 active members, a group based on the podcasting topic. And that’s a great way of online marketing. Experimenting on your own, failing, teaching and sharing with others.
I hope you learned something new here.
If there is anything else you want to add to this topic, just drop a comment below.
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