A big part of digital marketing is building a strong online community around your brand. That community looks different depending on the product or service you offer. For instance, if you’re a residential real estate agent, it makes the most sense to put your efforts into beautiful visuals and increased followers on Instagram, highlighting your listings and local neighborhoods. However, if you’re a behavioral health provider who receives most of your patients through referrals, it’s important to grow your following on LinkedIn, where you can more easily reach other professionals.
In today’s blog post, we want to share five key strategies to help you build a strong online community around your brand.
1. Define your brand.
What is the mission behind your company? What are your values? Before you can grow your community, it’s crucial to know who you are and what you stand for. Clearly articulate these ideas to your online community to attract a more devoted following and build connection through common ground. At Carlisle & Co., we’ve found that, if our clients can take a controversial approach to a timely issue that aligns with their purpose, it instantly boosts their online community and captures the attention of people with similar interests.
2. Identify your audience.
Of course, it’s important to know your ideal audience too. We guide our clients to develop an avatar for their brand — the more specific, the better. Think about your audience in terms of gender, age, profession, location, life phase, and more. Once you know who you’re speaking to, you can better tailor your messaging to their preferences.
We completed this exercise for Carlisle & Co. at this year’s company retreat and realized that our ideal follower was not who we initially thought. As a result, we shifted our approach when reaching out to our online community and have seen notable results in new client leads.
3. Practice consistent and varied engagement.
Whether it’s responding to comments or online reviews, sharing similar content from other brands, or adding polls and question boxes to your stories, engagement is a great way to show gratitude for your community. Your responses should be prompt and personal. You can, of course, use a templated reply for quicker engagement, but try to add a unique touch to each interaction.
4. Create beneficial content.
Content is the cornerstone of all digital marketing, and it’s especially important for your online community. Keep your posts engaging and interactive with links to relevant blog posts, Reels, live webinars, polls, quizzes, and more. Listen to your audience when they share their thoughts or questions and let their needs guide you. Many brands even lean on user-generated content to highlight their followers and ultimately grow their audience.
You can also let engagement determine your content moving forward. For instance, if you share a poll asking users about their biggest mental health struggles in the spring, use the results to dig even deeper in the coming weeks, delving into body image issues, end-of-school stress, and more.
5. Pay attention!
Finally, remember that building a community in the digital world is an ongoing process. Use your analytics (we primarily rely on our social media platforms, Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and HotJar) to track important metrics and gather feedback about what’s working and what’s not. Then, use the data to adjust your strategy to better serve your audience.
If you notice that your video posts perform better than static content, set a goal to incorporate one additional Reel each week. Or, if you see a decrease in engagement on your blog, take a closer look at your most popular posts and determine what topics and formats resonated most with your readers.
As you can see, building a strong online community is an indispensable part of your digital marketing strategy.
It helps to encourage loyalty and engagement with your customers and serves to grow your brand in a meaningful way. Next month, we’ll narrow our focus and discuss how to grow your LinkedIn following. Stay tuned!
If you’re looking to develop a digital marketing strategy and expand your online reach, please reach out to our team today.
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