What Is a Community Built On?

It is becoming increasingly clear that the real value of an individual community lies far beyond its geographical size. The advantages of community engagement and internet community building are literally endless. It can drive massive leads, enhance brand loyalty, and boost user loyalty. It can also expand and deepen customer relationships, strengthen sales performance, and provide a venue for powerful advertising. And all of these things can happen without the need to spend a single cent.

Community Engagement

How do I define community engagement? I define it as anything that promotes the growth of a business through a mix of traditional marketing and online community building. In other words, I define community engagement as marketing that takes advantage of existing online communities to promote a business. This includes everything from link exchanges to blog posts to forum discussions. I also include promotional activities like giveaways and special promotions. In my opinion, it goes beyond simple marketing.

 

How does a community engagement strategy differ from a social media marketing campaign? Well, for one thing, the goals of social media marketing campaigns are generally focused on increasing brand awareness among a target audience. They are typically customer oriented. Social media campaigns, by contrast, are designed to build loyalty among a target demographic by creating a significant number of inbound links back to a business’s website. This strategy can significantly increase a business’s revenue since it encourages more people to do business with a business. This is because when a business creates content based on what its community members want, it creates content that is relevant to the needs and interests of the community members.

For example, a social media marketing campaign might start off by asking questions about the target audience. Then it might go on to highlight features or benefits that they would like to see a business provide to them. It might even take the form of a questionnaire, giving users a chance to share their views about a business with all their social network friends.

Building a customer community is just the first step in building a brand community. A brand community is just as much about engaging the community as it is about building brand value. For example, a health care company might start off by having its community participate in an online survey. The end result might be valuable data about the preferences of the target demographic. This information would then be used to create or review new products or services.

Engagement Strategy

So how should a community engagement strategy that works for a business compare to a social media marketing campaign? To start, the community engagement should focus on building a strong connection between the business and its target community. This requires that the business design a platform that makes it easy for users to engage with it. It also requires that the business take the time to learn from its existing community and build on its own reputation by being responsive and thoughtful in addressing the needs of its community. Finally, the community engagement should reward the business for its community engagement efforts, as demonstrated through user-generated content that benefits the community.