5 Tips For Building Social Communities In 2024
In the fast-evolving digital landscape of 2024, building social communities requires more than just a presence on social media platforms. It’s about fostering genuine connections, embracing innovative community engagement strategies, and understanding the dynamic trends of online interaction. This article delves into five crucial tips for cultivating vibrant, inclusive and engaging social communities. We’ll explore cutting-edge tools, user-centric designs, and inclusive practices to not only grow your community but to ensure it thrives in the ever-changing digital world.
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Back in November, we released a blog post on some of our predicted top trends for 2024 with one big part of this being the increase in social communities. One webinar on the topic, and countless proposals which include ‘community’ as a key pillar and here we are.
In fact, revenues from the internet communities market were estimated to have a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 24.3%: revenue increases 1/4 times yearly just showing the continued growth of communities and its impact.
What Are Social Communities?
As discussed here when we looked at the importance of social communities, social communities are a social structure that shares personal values, cultural values, business goals, attitudes, or a worldview. While social communities may have primarily hung out in Facebook Groups or Reddit threads (they still do!), brands are starting to adopt their online community management strategies.
This community building from brands is based on building a community around what customers want. For example, in a recent Sprout Social study, 39% of customers saw creating online communities as a social media behaviour that helps brands connect with consumers. Other aspects come into this too such as inviting user-generated content (39%) and supporting a cause that the consumer personally supports (45%).
Now that we have defined social communities and why they’re important to customers, let’s delve into the building.
1. Understand Your Customers
This seems like a very obvious point, but it’s arguably the most crucial part. Often, it can be easy to fall down the rabbit hole of thinking you know your customers, when in reality they value something different.
When it comes to understanding your customers, there are some key tools and theories that you can adopt to craft your thinking. To begin, we would recommend talking directly to your customers and providing customer insight. Whether that’s through collecting qualitative data through face-to-face interviews, or quantitative through surveys, it’s essential for understanding your customers directly from them. It also shows that you care rather than just assuming their needs. You can then layer on this by using secondary data such as datasets and journal articles.
Next, use this insight to populate key theories such as a SWOT analysis. A SWOT analysis is a good way to understand what your brand’s strengths and weaknesses are from your customers, and where it can be improved. This can then help craft your community messaging. Other theories such as a value proposition canvas and empathy canvas map can help to understand your customers further and build a community around their emotions and needs.
2. Don’t Underestimate The Power Of UGC
We get it, UGC can be hard to get, but once done properly, it can be the missing cog to a winning social community. User-generated content or UGC helps to engage your audience, and build trust. In fact, a brand incorporating UGC on its platforms will likely gain the trust of 65% of consumers. You’re winning as they love your brand or product enough to post about it and you can also use that content to showcase your customer’s thoughts to your wider audience.
But how do you generate UGC? Personalisation will be your best friend here and don’t be afraid to use other channels. Following up with an email encouraging UGC to those who have recently purchased, or using social retargeting ads can help entice this. Just keep in mind why your customers would want to get involved in posting UGC – whether that’s prize giveaways for those who post or giving them ‘bragging rights’ and featuring them on your feed.
3. Align Your Values
For this, we don’t mean finding out that your customers value sustainability and then suddenly greenwashing your brand when you adopt very few sustainable processes in reality (trust us, it happens!) Again, this is where the insights from knowing your customers are going to come in handy.
Another Sprout study found that 53% of people feel more connected to brands that share their values and 51% say the brand understands them and their wants. Looking back to your value and empathy canvas maps that you would have created in section 1, analyse what is important to your customers and what values your brand similarly holds and communicate this within your digital community.
In addition, if you’re using influencer marketing, ensure that the influencers/creators you choose align with your brand and your brand values – not just the influencer that has the biggest following. This can be harmful to your brand as your customers can see through it. This is also similar for influencers themselves – In a 2016 influencer survey from TapInfluence (via MarketingDive), 42% of influencers confirmed that alignment with a brand’s core values is the top motivating factor for a content partnership.
4. Tap Into Emotion
Similar to the above example, ensure that your community taps into your customer’s emotions and gives them a reason to join your brand’s social community. In a Hubspot survey, 23% of consumers surveyed saw a sense of belonging as a top benefit of online communities with 21% saying a support system and 19% saying an escape.
Using this data and layering on the insight from your customer research, create a community which aligns with the emotions and feelings that your customers crave.
Christina Garnett, Senior Marketing Manager, Offline Community & Advocacy, says “The ability to connect without travel or without a sense of forced communication means that not only can people around the world connect with others, but that those who are more introverted are able to participate in the ways where they are most comfortable instead of feeling forced to go to events and have small talk in order to feel like a member” thus showing the overall benefits of customers being involved in online communities.
5. Make Your Customers Feel Part Of Something Bigger Than Themselves
This one specifically goes back to the Hubspot survey mentioned above where 23% of consumers surveyed saw a sense of belonging as a top benefit of online communities. As humans, we like to be part of something that makes us feel valued. We won’t spend time being a part of something we see no value in.
For example, LEGO uses their platform LEGO Ideas where fans can submit their own LEGO set ideas and the community votes on their favourites. Successful designs are then turned into official LEGO sets. This approach not only fosters a creative community but also gives fans a sense of ownership and contribution to the LEGO universe.
Social Communities: FAQs
Social communities are groups of individuals who come together online to share common interests, goals, or values. These communities can form on various digital platforms like social media, forums, or dedicated community websites. They offer a space for members to engage in discussions, share information, support one another, and collaborate on projects or causes. The essence of social communities lies in the connections and interactions among members, fostering a sense of belonging and mutual support. In 2024, these communities continue to evolve, integrating advanced digital tools and focusing on inclusivity and user engagement to enhance the online social experience.
The key components of digital community building in 2024 include a strong focus on user-centric community design, personalized engagement strategies, and the integration of innovative community management tools. Emphasising inclusive social platforms and fostering genuine relationships through user-generated content is also crucial. Additionally, keeping abreast of the latest social networking trends in 2024 is vital for staying relevant and engaging.
Brands can effectively utilise community engagement strategies in 2024 by focusing on creating meaningful and interactive experiences. This involves understanding customer preferences, utilising data analytics for tailored interactions, and encouraging user-generated content to build a sense of ownership and belonging among members. Engaging in transparent communication and offering value through educational, entertaining, or informative content are also key strategies.
Online community management is essential in maintaining social communities as it involves moderating discussions, addressing member concerns, fostering a positive and inclusive environment, and ensuring that the community remains engaging and valuable to its members. Effective community management also involves analysing community feedback and trends to continually improve the community experience.
Brands can leverage social media community growth by consistently engaging with their audience, creating shareable and relatable content, and utilising social media algorithms to their advantage. Collaborating with influencers, engaging in social listening to understand audience needs, and regularly updating content strategy based on analytics are also effective ways to grow a community on social media platforms.
Best practices for building online relationships include active listening, responding promptly to comments and messages, personalising interactions, and showing authenticity and transparency. Building trust through consistent and honest communication, sharing behind-the-scenes content, and recognizing and appreciating community members’ contributions are also important.
Community-building tools can enhance social communities by facilitating better communication, collaboration, and engagement among members. These tools can offer analytics to understand member behaviour, automate routine tasks, manage content effectively, and provide platforms for members to interact and share ideas. They also help in scaling the community while maintaining a personalised experience.
What Is Next For Social Communities?
Customer involvement in online communities will continue to rise in 2024 and beyond, but there are also some key trends which can change the landscape of digital communities.
For example, personalising your community will get easier with the help of AI and people will win over customers. What we mean by this is that people buy from people. By showcasing the human side of your brand, you’re showing a genuine side to your brand.
Customers seek more than just details about products; they are also interested in knowing about the individuals behind their preferred brands. To cultivate authentic relationships, brands must look past their products and focus on understanding and addressing the needs and aspirations of their consumers.
Overall, we look forward to building more social communities in 2024 and see what’s next for this key trend.
