Top 4 Steps for Building an Online Community

How To Build Your Online Community ?

Building an engaged and collaborative community online takes strategy, persistence, and a deep belief in the transformation people can experience by becoming an active member of the collective that you are creating.  

How to find your target audience ?

To find your community, let's start by considering this:  who are the people we want to attract in the first place?  When considering building a community and a support network,  think about what makes up your "perfect people."  In business, the perfect people idea has all sorts of names:  target audience, avatar, persona, ideal customer. To begin, ask yourself about your perfect people:  What are their interests and goals and dreams?  What keeps them awake at night?  What do they read, what do they listen to and watch?  And if you had to name them, what would you call them?

For example, I call my people modern mystics.  Maybe yours are creative fashionistas,  digital nomads, fun foodies,  or empowered mamas.  To keep your perfect people at the top of your mind,  spend a few minutes scrolling through Instagram creating a saved tab of your perfect people.  While you're considering your perfect people, have some fun and envision who exactly your community is made up of.  I used this approach to define them and what they'd be looking for in a community a bit further.

I write, my vision is to be the x of my niche topic.  Here are a few examples of how I would apply that:  If I was creating a blog around wellness coupled with highly curated retreat-style travel,  I might write: my vision is to be the Gwyneth Paltrow of luxury travel.  When we can start to envision ourselves in this way,  we can start to picture the people who would show up to be a part of our community.

 

 

How to position yourself as an expert and leader:

Here's how to position yourself as an expert.  When you get started, what your audience cares about is how well you're connecting them to the topic that they're interested in.  They don't care if you're a world-renowned blogger yet,  they just need to trust that you have more information than they have and that you are a wonderful resource for them to learn more from.  

 

A good place to establish your credibility is your About page.  Be sure to include your mission, what you offer, your training,  your life lessons, or experiences, examples of previous projects and any stats that demonstrate your knowledge.  Now that you've identified your perfect people  and are ready to share your expertise, community building.

let's talk about the four stages of building a community.  

1.     Awareness
2.     Interest
3.     Decision
4.     Action.   

The four stages are: 

1. Let's start with awareness.  
 

In the awareness stage, we're using your most authentic voice to offer your potential community members something that betters their life.  In my case, I share freebie workbooks and videos that are of high value.  

 

They inspire my perfect people to join my email list,  subscribe to my blog, and/or follow social channels.  Use language that you'd use with your closest friends.  Your potential community members want to join a community in which they feel like they've seen and that they will belong.

2. The next stage is interest.

In the interest stage, pique their interest by answering this one primary question:  how do I know if this community is for me? Remember that whatever questions you had,  someone else like you is likely wondering about the exact same thing.  As you continue to focus, interests tell personal stories with a clear purpose that further creates a personal connection to your community.  

 

This doesn't mean you have to be the star of every story,  but you should be open about your experiences.  This gives your audience buy-in for staying interested.
 

3. The next stage is a decision.

in the decision stage, it's time to encourage a deeper connection the way you do this is to keep showing up.  Writing from experience on your blog is a great way to do this.  You can also use IG lives and stories, podcasts, Clubhouse,  and Facebook groups for this. 

4. The final stage is action.

All your work comes down to this stage, the stage of action.  This is the moment when your perfect people either move forward engaging with you, your blog,  and your web business, or they don't. 

Also Read,  What is E-A-T and Why it's Important ?
 

How to network and collaborate with other ?

My final tip for building your community network is a simple one.  Reach out to people you believe would enjoy engaging in cross-community efforts and would be awesome collaborative partners.  You can do this over DMs, however, I like to send emails too.  You can download my two-part email template in the description below. 

 

Wrap up:

Building an online community you love takes strategy, persistence,  and a belief in yourself.  I'm cheering you on as you create a collective of amazing people  who love what you are creating .

For trending information and bank information updates, like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter and Instagram. Read more on after collage entry level job at apnadady.