Content drives digital marketing and for it to succeed it needs to hit the right notes with the audience. Websites with active audience participation are the most successful. This is true, regardless of your niche.
Communities are crucial to the success of a blog, business or otherwise. These are the people for which your content aims to help. These are the people who will, hopefully, turn into customers. Communities are also a universal seal of trust. When a business builds a strong and loyal base, it continues to benefit from it year after year.
Here are some ways in which you can build a strong community with the help of tailored content.
1. Start with in-depth market research
You need to possess an in-depth understanding of the market you operate in as well as the consumers it attracts. Don’t look at them as JUST consumers, or as belonging to a specific demographic. These are human beings first and foremost.
Garner data through market research to understand what your target audience wants. Compile a list of competitive keywords for the purpose. The content you provide should match their expectations and needs.
The content should also appeal to the audience emotionally. It could evoke laughter, or sadness – it has to elicit an emotion. Given the explosion of content over the past few years, only articles that touch their readers will have an impact. This means that dry, overly-professional, or even a gimmicky tone will not work.
2. Research the kind of community you want to build
Every niche has its own unique audience.
People who are the most enthusiastic consumers of content browse the Internet in search of answers. Not just any answers, but specific and detailed explanations that strike at the core of their problems.
Because these people are unique, even though their problems might not be so, bringing them together results in the creation of a unique platform.
If there are any communities such as the one you have in mind, go there and study them.
3. Participate in these communities to learn what drives them
Be a part of the kind of communities that you want your blog to attract so you can learn what drives them.
It’s one thing to be an observer, to stay on the outside and dispassionately observe those who participate. The meat, however, is in the middle.
Unless you participate in the discussions that take place on such forums/blogs, you won’t really understand the community.
Participation will also bring you greater understanding that will elude you if you stay on the fringes. You will be privy to emotional outbursts, rants, contrite apologies, trolling behaviour, productive conversations, as well as the moderation of this all.
4. Build authority via great content
So you now understand the target audience and know what they are looking for.
The next step then is to create content that caters to them on all levels – as would relate to your business.
Written or visual, content in order to be considered quality should:
● Be relevant for its audience.
● Address specific topics.
● Provide in-depth advice.
● Be practical in the kind of suggestions offered.
● Backed by expertise and experience.
● Puts the best interests of its readers at heart.
Content moves from good to great when it meets all the above-mentioned criteria.
New businesses, however, might want to guest post on established blogs or appear on popular podcasts/shows to establish credibility. It takes time for an individual for a business to build authority. Do not expect rave reviews and crazy participation right at the beginning.
Keep creating content to the best of your ability and you will eventually see people turning to your blog for answers. Once you have positioned yourself as a reliable and authority figure, you will attract more of the kind of people you actually want to visit your website.
5. Create an intuitive website
You don’t want to lose an audience because it was difficult for them to find the necessary information.
You might have covered the topic of ‘SEO blunders for new websites’ a hundred times, but if you haven’t laid this out on your blog in a manner that a new visitor is able to find all the relevant information easily, you might potentially end up losing potential readers.
You also wouldn’t be doing full justice to the great content you have so laboriously and conscientiously put together.
The easier it is for people to find relevant information, the greater the chances of them hanging around.
6. Market to the right people
Social is all the rage these days, but email marketing is still a great way of reaching the right people.
When you have access to people’s inboxes, you are able to talk to them at length, link them to all the great downloadable resources you have put together and share without worrying about character limits.
It gives your business a spotlight, so to speak. Also, everyone checks their email every day. Make the most of this wonderful medium to nurture leads and build relationships with the people you would want to do business with. Lead them back to your blog/YouTube video where all the action is taking place.
There is no right or wrong platform for marketing. Find what works the best for you. Some people have been able to procure and nurture leads from Quora, Reddit, even LinkedIn.
7. Make the readers feel heard
As a webmaster/business owner, your participation will lead the way. If you don’t have the time, put someone in charge of responding to comments, answering questions, and in general encouraging participation from readers.
8. Find your best platform
Some websites are able to generate great conversations right there on their blogs, others see detailed participation on social.
For some Facebook leads the way, for others Twitter is more exciting.
As you build a community, you will have to experiment in order to find the platform that suits its participants the best, or the one which encourages them to participate more.
Don’t get too attached to any one platform – be prepared to move with your audience. Perhaps they have become less active on Twitter, but are conversing and sharing more on Instagram or Snapchat.
9. Keep innovating and evolving
There is such a thing as too much of the same old, even if this same old was awesome to begin with.
We have seen this with our favorite websites. We have seen this with our favorite Hollywood actors, too!
Your ideas might have sounded ground-breaking in the beginning. But once they have been around for a couple of years and you haven’t done much to build on them, they might lost the charm for the audience.
People need reasons to keep coming back to a blog with the same level of enthusiasm as before. Google rewards fresh content as well.
Innovation is key. But it is easier said than done. For content to stay fresh its creators need to evolve with the times, keep abreast of the changing trends and be able to relate this to their target audience in a manner that might look familiar but never stale. In the world of content marketing, you can never rest on your laurels. Your audience is smart, their needs evolve, and new players enter the market all the time.
10. Give the audience more of what they love
If you have been paying attention to what your readership loves the most, this should be easy to figure out.
If they love videos, make more of them. If they love listicles, give them more of that. If they love motivational stories, then that is where you should look. There is a right way and a wrong way of doing this though. One is to rehash old stuff and bore the audience with each iteration. Eventually you end up losing them. This is the lazy and ineffective way.
The other is to keep the essence alive but offer something new incrementally. It will require you to rack your brains more and more as time passes. It is hard work but ultimately a better and more sustainable approach.
Building a vibrant, knowledgeable, and loyal community is essentially simple. But it cannot be broken down to an exact science.
Content is a strong enabler of it, but you would still have to take care of other factors such as strong technical support, continuous innovation, and a positive vibe that encourages people to open up.
Here are a few websites that have accomplished this. These are mostly established brands but there are a few instructive lessons in it for ambitious businesses of any size. If you know of any excellent communities that you love to visit, please share in the comments.
What are you top tips for building strong communities?