What is an online community?
Conversation between you as an influencer or business owner and your customer is not a community conversation. It is your audience.
When conversations happen between your customers regarding your product or service then it is called a community. The online community is a place on the internet where people having a mutual interest, goal, or experience form relationships with each other.
But as a business owner, you may think how is building an online community about my products and services benefit my business? Correct? Well, in this article I am going to tell you exactly how it can bring in more revenue for your business.
Before we start talking about online communities and business let me explain to you, the Levinger’s Relationship Model.
Levinger’s Relationship Model for Online Community
From the picture, you must understand that you have to keep your community in the Continuation stage always. You can do this with the help of your amazing valuable content, and engage with them on a regular basis.
So now, coming to the 5 secrets that how building an online community will help your business
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Increases brand loyalty
When you have an online community, people know in the back of their minds that whatever happens this business is there for us. It builds trust in them for your business. When there is a community of people it subconsciously sends a single to their brain that this product is good since so many people are already using it.
So, people won’t hesitate to share your business with their friends and relatives. Now they have become your brand advocates and hence your sales will increase.
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Builds long term SEO
When Google sees that a group of people are mentioning your business regularly on the internet, it understands that it is loved by people. As you know, when Google’s customers are happy, then Google is happy and if so, then Google will reward your business by increasing the SEO traffic to it.
Eventually, your online community will lead to more sales for you if you have a proper marketing funnel in place for the SEO traffic that is coming to your website.
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Decreases marketing and Customer Support cost
Happy customer support because of an online community Marketing cost is reduced because SEO traffic has increased and trust is high. Customer Support cost is reduced because the members in your online community themselves will solve any queries of each other when it is posted in your online community.
Hence there is less pressure on the customer support team and your cost reduces automatically.
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Brings a sense of belonging among people
When we are with our friends who have the same interest as us it feels good, doesn’t it? It is the same thing here. Your customers will feel like they have someone to share their experiences with each other. They have someone to motivate them to take action and also to learn new things. As a result, their self-esteem increases.
If you know about Maslow’s law of hierarchy, we as humans want to reach the top of the pyramid all our life. You can see that love and relationship, self-esteem, etc are at the top of the pyramid here. Thus, if you can take your customers closer to the top of this pyramid in their life, then it is big value addition in their life.
Conclusion
My final words would be, many giant companies like Apple, go pro, one plus, etc have their own online community. So, nothing should stop you from creating your own. It can be a simple Facebook group or even a proper membership website. GoPro even generates a lot of user-generated content through its community, helping their content marketing strategy.
I hope this article added value to your life. Comment below
Also Read: How Bloggers Make money
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