With growing online communities, community engagement has become essential for brands to engage their audience. But do you really know what you should or shouldn’t post on these sites? The answer isn’t always clear-cut. In fact, some posts might even cause backlash from the community. This is why knowing the basics of community engagement is important before diving into the deep end.
Social communities are becoming ever more prominent in businesses across industries. As a result, companies today are expected to manage their own customer base through various channels, ranging from email to blogging, live events, phone calls, and text messages.
Community Management involves ensuring that customers are aware of brand updates, responding to comments, or sharing relevant information. These tasks require both time and attention. If you don’t provide enough content, then you won’t receive feedback. And without sufficient interaction, customers will disengage and move on to your competitors. Let’s get
Video content
Video content is one of the most engaging forms of content out there. It can help you create an emotional connection with your members. You can also use video as part of your social media marketing strategy. For example, if you sell WordPress services, you could create a series of funny and unique things about the features of your service.
The key thing to remember when creating videos is to be consistent. Create regular videos at least once every week, but make sure they’re not too long. A good rule of thumb is around two minutes.
You can add a call to action (CTA) button at the end of each video. Make it easy for members to share your videos by adding the Share icon in the corner of the screen.
Post Quality Blogs
Blogs are a great way to keep your members engaged. It allows you to write about topics that interest them, which helps build trust and loyalty.
Make sure that your blog posts have a clear purpose. What problem does this article solve? Why would someone want to read this?
If you’re writing about something personal, such as how to start your own business, make sure that you include links to other articles that may be helpful to readers.
Let your members play around with their community profile
Your community members can customize their profiles using different widgets. They can choose to display their location, interests, age, gender, occupation, education level, relationship status, and much more. If they get enough meat from keeping their profiles up-to-date, they are certain to spend more time on your online community.
You can spice things up by restricting them to view or consume a certain variety of content. This way, the people who fully complete their profile and are showing max interest will only be able to consume top-rated content on your community website. Hence, creating engagement in the community.
Use polls and surveys
Polls and surveys are another effective way to gather feedback from your members. Polls let you ask questions directly to your members. Surveys are similar to polls, except that they require users to fill out a form instead of answering a question. Both types of polls and surveys are useful tools for gathering data.
You can also allow your members to create polls on their feed. For that, you’ll need the WordPress Poll Plugin solution. This will further strengthen their interest in your online community website.
Don’t forget to reward your members
Reward programs are a great way to encourage members to participate in your community. Some examples of rewards include discounts, freebies, giveaways, contests, and exclusive offers.
When running a reward program, make sure that you offer something valuable to your members. Otherwise, they might feel like they’re being scammed. Well, have you heard about the term Gamification? We have added a link to a blog that explains to you all about it. Make sure you read it!
Don’t just feed them, let them express
Feeding your members is important, but don’t forget to give them an opportunity to interact with one another. You can do this through comments, likes, shares, and even reposting.
This will help you engage your members better, and it will also help them become familiar with one another. The more they know each other, the easier it will be for them to communicate with one another.
You can allow them to express their feelings by letting them post texts, images, or videos on their personal feed. Exactly, how people upload photographs on Instagram for their followers.
Organize Contests
Contests are fun ways to promote your community. It’s a good idea to organize some contests every now and then. These can be anything from quizzes to photo challenges.
The best thing about organizing contests is that it helps you increase the number of participants. When there are many contestants, it becomes harder for someone to win. That means more chances for everyone else. Also, pick a good winning prize for the contestants. More and more people will join the competition listening about the crazy price. Hence, it will help you promote your online community and enhance engagement.
Send Newsletters
Newsletters are a great way to keep your members updated with what’s happening around your community. They can be sent via email, SMS, or push notifications.
Make sure that you send newsletters at least once per week. If possible, try sending them twice a week. This way, your members won’t get bored with receiving the same information over and over again.
Video and Audio Tutorials
If you want to improve your community’s engagement, then video tutorials are a must-have. Video tutorials are very easy to understand, and they are also entertaining.
They can be used as a guide to teaching new things to your members. Or, they can be used to explain certain topics to your members. Either way, they are a great tool to boost engagement. Giving tutorials about your product or service is also a major benefit for communities that are built around some brand.
Personalize The Content
Content is king when it comes to community marketing. Your content should always be customized to suit your audience.
For example, if you run a fitness community, then you can create content such as workout plans, tips, recipes, etc. But, if you run a business community, then you can use content such as case studies, testimonials, etc.
Keep in mind that not everyone has the same interests. So, make sure that you customize your content according to the needs of your members.
Community Engagement – Wrapping Up
Engaging your members is essential to building a successful community. However, it doesn’t mean that you have to spend hours and hours doing so. Well, we recommend you equally balance the number of sales and marketing strategies you utilize in your online community platform.
Remember, the key to success is to find out what works for your community and then apply those strategies to your own community. That’s it for the blog! We hope you liked our community engagement strategies. Thank you for reading!
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