How to Create a Business Community in Social Networks

83January 31, 2012 by

In 2012, companies and brands are more committed than ever to building a strong community around them, after having good experiences with social media over the past year. They have realized that creating a community around their brand is more than a simple promotion message and when it’s done, well the whole sales process will benefit from it. However, not all companies know how to build a community around their business or brand. Here are some tips that companies must take into account when taking the big plunge and start the real adventure in social media.

Create a business community in social networks

 

Observed before the big jump - Create Community

The first step is to observe, find out where people are talking about your brand or small business and where to find your niche market, so you can best serve your audience of potential customers.

Not all networks will hold the same value and if we did not assess our strengths, our efforts could eventually lead to us not getting the benefits we expect. Nor should we suffer an ‘anxiety attack’ and open accounts in all social networks. The best thing is to focus on one or two, that are more suited to our business or brand and strive to increase visibility in them.

Know your users and supporters -

Once you have determined the social network you want to target,  get to know the users in it. Relationships must be bidirectional but we should not start desperately tracking everyone who crosses our path, but do it more strategically and selectively according to our objectives and priorities. We can use different tools and options to find topics related to increasing business opportunity, analyze conversations, competitors, etc … and start following people truly interested in what we offer.

Slowly but surely - 

The “rush” is not the best partner in this adventure. A community is not built overnight. The ideal is to make a conscious effort to get to know who composes your community, how they react or behave and stop worrying about the amount or volume of users, fans or followers.

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Patience and perseverance as a virtue - 

To succeed in creating a community around our company, brand, or business will certainly take lots of of patience not to mention the all of the continuous work. The evolution in this adventure will pass through different stages and phases in which we will have to face all kinds of challenges and goals. The idea is to establish a solid, stable foundation and we must be aware that we can not have high expectations at the beginning of our journey.

Quality not quantity - 

That’s what we used to have thousands of followers, but if you do not know them, how can you generate reactions or interact effectively with them? The number of followers can be an important indicator of our success in social networks, but this should not preclude us to improve the relationships and connections with them. We earn trust based on transparency, humility and good practices in our relationships or conversations so that our fans continue to increase, thanks to our own supporters.

Experiment without fear - 

A community allows us to experiment, to venture and try new things, especially during the first steps. Yet we must be aware that every action we take can cause reactions accordingly. However, this does not cause insecurity or fear at the time we are doing an experiment or being innovative, we can get good ideas from everywhere and put them into practice to see how they are received by the community.

Use all possible connections of your community - 

Jason Keath, CEO of Social Fresh, makes us a very interesting reminder in this regard: “The mailing lists are often missed when using them to ask our contacts, or if they would be in our community.” We must use all possible channels to attract our current customers. Therefore, it is important to understand the importance of integrating the elements such as icons or social ties and support all areas of our business or any business.

Listen, engage, interact, help - 

If we have taken the leap to maintain a strong presence in social networks and create a strong community around our business, we’re not limited to being mere spectators. The number of followers is not important in itself, a lot of fans does not mean that our community enjoys excellent health. The community needs our constant participation and interaction. Listening is just as important so that we actually provide value to our community by giving answers to questions and solutions to their problems. This can have a positive impact on our business, customer loyalty and lead to increased sales.

Show some personality. We should not be boring. It is best to present a close and friendly nature where conversations can be nurtured in an open, relaxed and transparent environment.

Analysis, goals and objectives - 

These are perhaps some of the most important aspects that must not be forgotten. Metrics and indicators will be our allies in setting up or keeping a record of good performance and progress of our community. But we must also note that we must set goals and objectives to define the way we want our community progress as our social networks continue to grow. If we decided to take the plunge, we must take this into account without involving a barrier to continue our adventure. The results will come sooner or later but not initially appear noticeable, so it is advisable not to be obsessed with the results that we generate after our first steps.

If you liked this article and want to express or share your opinion about building community, you can participate by adding your own comment.

About 

Amrik Virdi is a professional blogger.

83 Comments (click here to leave a comment)

  1. This is called smart work no doubt in that we can take much advantage from social networking with these simple and useful tips no doubt in that all tips are so nice but i impressed with these :

    Quality not quantity – these words are so true we should keep spend much more time on prove our qualities for go ahead in future.

    • Yes, quality is definitely better than quantity. Have a good strong community that will help your branding is definitely the better way.

      • It’s also wise to the use social platform (or create your own) that is most suited for your audience. Communities definitely help with branding because you are helping people reach their goals through interaction.

  2. The statements are strongly holds for social media business. Aiming to target the direct goals in less amount of time and recovering from its on capital. Yes, it’s true that this one is a smart work. I really love the way it is said that “Listen, engage, help-“this one capture my attention. We must keep the strong presence and the strong community around our business.

  3. Cool tips Amrik,
    I think by knowing your users you can establish a good business, especially if you can give them what they wanted. Good read!

  4. Good article Amrik, I worked in an auto dealership as they were trying to build a presence in social media and saw the mistakes that were made as they tried to throw money around to make it work. The patience and personal interaction that is necessary to successfully build an online community is not what they got and in the end, it pretty much failed. Having the right people in the social community that are either actual customers or potential customers makes all the difference in the world.

  5. This is what Internet marketers , and online businesses needs. by reading this great post of yours it shows what good business should be made of. thanks for sharing this, I really appreciate your tips.

  6. Great article, some very interesting points here. I agree that it is important to use social media to actually listen to and engage with your community, so many companies i have seen just want to create a presence.

  7. Edward

    I have been visiting a lot of communities in social media sites that I think are related to my niche. I have learned how being aggressive can shun people away and may provide a bad impression. Patience is indeed required. I plan to join the conversations; get to know the people in the community, invite some of them and hope when the time is right then I can introduce my product.

  8. Hey Amrik. Thanks for the post.I agree that it is important to use social media to actually listen to and engage with your community, it can really help it is a great way to learn.

  9. Hey Great article I had a lot of things to learn from it. I agree that it is important to use social media to actually listen to and engage with your community.

  10. creating a business community on social networks has own benefits as we are knowing about the kind of people to whom we are in touch and this is one of the best thing for business. Because you can offer products and services according to their needs.

  11. Scoail Networks such as Facebook, Twitter and company blogs that are regulary updated by the admin are slowly becoming a huge part in determining how high your sites are ranked in Google. Plus, the more pages you have ranked in google the better!

  12. Hajra

    Hey Amrik,

    Community building is definitely hard work and one that requires persistence; and even more for business community. But once the potential customers, readers or clients realize that you have something valuable to offer then they will stand up and listen to what you have to say. Relentless persuasion of your goals has to be a chief priority. Understanding your goals and setting a practical time limit to reach them is just as important.

    Thanks for the wonderful read! Hope you have a lovely day!

  13. Dear friends,
    You’ll be able to engage a article author regarding community posting, blog site creating, internet marketing, selling your business, creating essays, dissertations, article marketing and many more. This is such kind of site that helps you a lot.
    Thanks

    • Amrik Virdi

      The list is not stop here. There are countless way we can grow our community and promote of product or site.

  15. Asma Khan

    Hey Amrik Virdi,

    Great article about social media its the only thing that make the great stuff and create business community and also you can increase your income and business with that.

  16. hi Amrik
    nice post and creating business community over social site is really helpful as it give us idea to know our user and help us to identify their requirement and when we know this both think no doubt our business and client will increase although it need really a good patience

  17. Brien16

    These is a great ideas in building up such business community, but i think not all can do it as well.

  18. I have been trying unsuccessfully to create more of a community on my facebook page. Thank you for this article and I hope these tips lead to a bit more success.

  20. Amrik,

    It is definitely the trend now to have the company to interact with people via social media. In fact, it is getting more and more popular to have them hired specialist to help to manage the social media aspect.

    Twitter, fanpage are powerful enough to get the word spread out so they just can’t afford to wait for a week to respond to the that. The viral effect in social media will either greatly help or ruin the business.

  21. Very well thought out post. I believe the hardest part is “Analysis, goals and objectives”. Over the past year people have become so obsessed with numbers and “Klout”. I feel that social media is going to have a big sing this year that will throw everyone for a loop.

  23. Thanks for the tips Ileane! I especially like what you have to say about not having fear – thats the key isn’t it… not being scared to go for it and to go for the risk!

  24. It also doesn’t hurt if you seek out the social network pages of your rivals and see what they are putting into their profiles. It helps as a template, only you will put in more and make yours stand out better. :P

  25. If you have no purpose, nor will your blog, blogging efforts or niche. Great article, thanks Amrik for the lesson. Try not to get frustrated when blogging, that’s to easy. Keep searching until you find your comfort zone and you will be of better service to whom ever you come across.

  26. Hello, Amrik! You said “Experiment without fear ” – well, it’s not quite like that. Remember social communities fight against spam and if you are too aggressive with your messages on the social community and members report you as spammer, you get on the black list, which is updated constantly and used on a global scale. So I would adapt your subtitle like this: “Experiment with moderation”

  27. Amrik Virdi

    How about “Experiment without Aggression”?
    I don’t think there is a need of aggression. I also mentioned “Patience and perseverance as a virtue.” ;)

  29. When speaking of building ones brand, we are just doing an extension of what was done offline prior to the internet. The neat thing that the internet allows is for small business’s to be able to interact and sell with people far away. The basics of business have always been give a person good quality be it a service or a product and they will love you. Give them poor quality in either the service or product arena and they will break you. Same lesson different day.

  30. Hi friends…:)
    firstly thank you so much to all for sharing such a good and helpful tips about social media… I recently came across your article and have been reading along about growing business through the help of social media.. I want to express my admiration of your writing skill and ability to make readers read from the beginning to the end of the article… And no doubt your article is very helpful to grow the business gradually…

  31. sai

    hello Amrik Virdi,
    your one of the point ” Quality Not Quantity ” is really very nice .. not only in creating communities also in link building .. so many beginners don’t know that quality is important then quantity . keep sharing mate :)

  34. Hey Amrik,
    Nice to see you again. I believe in quality over quantity. And have started little experiments with my blog looks, articles and graphics as well. :-) Very well, precisely written.

    I guess, you haven’t visited my contest article yet. I’d be grateful if you read the linked post and leave your comments there to let me know. Shares will be appreciated.

    See you there, Amrik, :)

  35. Experimenting with your blog is very important, especially if you are looking to monetize, you should not stop with one technique, try out different methods from adverts to sponsored reviews and more.

  36. These days importance of social media has grown really fast and now accounts for 1/3 of traffic for my websites. Just few years back it was like 5-10% and I really didn’t care about it but now I am trying to expand social activities to gain more visitors.
    Thanks for the tips!

  39. Social networking and building community definitely takes time and works only when you are social with other members. For sure there isn’t a recipe for success and this pretty much depends on business niche, but hard work and consistency are the keys to success.

  40. Hey Amrik ,
    No one underestimate the influence of social media so everyone looking for ways to create a business community which benefits the brand… Social Media is a great for everyone to grow the value of a brand…
    Great post it’s always good to read your article…

  41. Hi,
    Nice information about for the business community its really helpful information about
    the business in social network.Thanks for sharing your knowledge with us.

    Thanks
    Prash patel

  43. Excellent article. Community is what Social Media is all about. Quality of quanity any day. and of course having a goal in mind will set a blogger on his way!

  44. Really thank you so much.Iam preparing to start my new bussiness soon.And i am trying to learn few tricks and tips to build real communities.And getting followers.I saw many sites with articles to get mass follow.But i totally didnt like that concept as we will not have any interaction with our followers.And it wont help our bussiness anyway.
    So i decided to build communities slow and steadily.
    Have a nice day

  46. Hi

    Good stuff- I like the “unlikely scenarios” that one thinks are just that, but are actually VERY likely in the real world. “Proceed at your own risk” with social networks…

    keep going

    Thanks

  48. Great tips here. Sometimes folks just get stuck on where to start… I think after reading this, that will help them get the jump start on creating a biz in social networks. Thanks, Amrik. I always enjoy your posts.

  49. Hey Amrik,

    Great Article!

    Agree with all your points! Building a community takes a lot of time and effort (and the most important of all : Consistency. You need to be consistent with your efforts).

    Thanks for the post,

    Jeevan

  50. Thanks for sharing superb information’s. Your website is very cool. I’m impressed by the details that you’ve on this site. It reveals how nicely you understand this subject.

  52. Forming business communities is not at all difficult especially due to the present social media networks like Facebook and Twitter.

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