The one thing that all businesses should do in 2017!
The one thing that all businesses should do in 2017!
“Community” — an overused word in some cases, but it’s often the right word for what I’m going to talk about.
The chances are that you belong to some kind of online community. It might be a group on Facebook, or a discussion group on LinkedIn, or a specific forum based website and even mobile apps such as Slack and WhatsApp. The sheer popularity and the rise of such groups suggests that individuals do like and use them otherwise all this engagement with online communities wouldn’t happen.
So, if online communities are clearly so popular, then every business should consider building a community, don’t you think?
I think it’s a bit odd that most businesses on the Internet have no community of their own, the question from me is “If online communities are so popular, why aren’t businesses utilising them?”
Getting down to the benefits
Firstly, business loyalty can be enhanced by establishing a community for the business brand especially if it’s on social media. As well as increased loyalty to the brand there is a much deeper and more positive relationship between customers and the business. In other words, having an online community increases the chances of people buying from you or buying more from you and also referring business to you.
It is the social media based communities that often have the best impact. This suggests having a community for your brand based on Facebook or LinkedIn is a rather good idea and here Facebook is doing slightly better than any other platforms. However, it is not where the community is but what you actually do in that community that counts.
How can you be an active — but not too active — community member?
Consider the communities in which you already take part, whatever it is, consider this: does the owner of the community dictate what happens or fills the community with information? Or do the people in the community do that? The best Communities work when they are exactly that — communities. If you want to get the best value from an online community you are going to have to accept and strive for one thing: you cannot be in charge of everything and the community has to participate and lead on certain aspects of it including posts and shares.
That means if you want an online community to enhance your brand or create closer connections between customers, potential customers and your business you have to let the members of that community run it as if it’s theirs. Otherwise, it is not a community; it would just be your platform to talk about what you wanted — and you may as well be talking to a brick wall if you use a community to do that.
The only way I believe it’s going to work well is if you relinquish some control. This is possibly why so few businesses have online communities — they cannot accept any reduction in control!
Face-to-face communities
As effective as online communities can be, I think there is always value in face-to-face as well. At Pathway, we have a number of business communities which regularly meet face-to-face as well as online; Chutney and Chat, PeerMeetUp, Samosa Saturday, and Coffee and Natter. Our communities provide members with mutual support, help them to develop their network, and build long-lasting connections — something that can’t always be done solely online.
Enquire about our growing LinkedIn group for Pathway2Grow and 2 of our Facebook groups: Coffee and Natter and Chutney and Chat
As I’ve indicated in the title if there is one thing that businesses should do in 2017 that is to consider building a “community” for your business. Let me have your thoughts and views by commenting here or tweet me at @SafarazAli
Kind regards,
Safaraz (Saf)
