Building your brand goes beyond those beautiful visuals! It doesn’t matter if it’s a personal or professional brand; more love and effort is needed to build your brand and make it well-known to your audience. 

It does help to start with your branding visuals (images and the overall “look”) but once you’ve got that out of the way, it’s all about interacting with your audience and creating a space that makes them feel encouraged to keep coming back. 

This is why many brands and companies have a “Community Manager” of sorts on their team. The digital space and social media - especially in 2020 - has become a main spot for communities, and the interactions between you and your audience/followers all ties into that!

How can you effectively create and cultivate a community experience online for your audience? Here are 3 suggestions we have for you to get started ranging from beginner level to intermediate and expert level.

3 Tips For Creating & Nurturing a Community Online

1. Respond to Comments (Level: Easy)

Your fabulous posts (Instagram, Facebook, etc.) are bound to get some love from your followers, and if they’re not, we recommend planning out content that is engaging and encourages comments! When profile visitors do comment on your posts, there are two things that can happen: You reply or you don’t reply. 

When you don’t reply to comments or at least like them, that might send a message to your audience that makes them feel left out. With this being a “social media network”, we’ve got to put the extra steps in by networking to make the community work. Reply to all comments that come in and even pin your 3 favorite ones to the top!

2. Create a Facebook Group (Level: Intermediate)

With how Instagram and Facebook both like to pick and choose what your followers can see, many Instagrammers and brand leaders/owners have taken to creating Facebook groups to continue community engagement.

If your brand is product-based or service-based, you might share tips that are relevant to them there. If your brand is just for fun, think of your potential Facebook group as a clubhouse where people can hang out! 

Pro-tip: The larger the Facebook group gets, it doesn’t hurt to recruit group moderators to approve member requests and posts pending approval. By setting your group to only allow approved posts, you control the content that lives there. For example, if your group is product-based, you wouldn’t want other promos from competitors to be shared unless agreed upon.

3. Use SMS Texting! (Level: Expert)

Not all brands that use SMS texting services are out there to make sales. You can use texting services to keep connected with your followers that subscribe to your text list. Despite being an online store, even we find that text messages are great for community building. 

For example, every now and then we send out a non-product or sales related text message to our Pose Planners community to give a boost to someone’s day! We know we could use a little bit of that love every so often ourselves. Here’s a look at one of our texts that went out.

If you have any questions, don’t be afraid to reach out to us! We’re here to help. For more tips, make sure you’re signed up for our newsletter at PosePlanners.com and check out our other pro-tips and planner walkthroughs on our site! Questions or comments? Drop a line below!