Social media is more than just sharing selfies and food pics; it’s where brands and businesses are strong by making connections with their audience. Social media platforms are an excellent opportunity to create a community that aligns with your brand vision and is about what you stand for and want to achieve with your story.
How do you make a community that not only exists, but thrives?
In this guide, I explain how to create and maintain an excellent social media community that engages users and builds lasting relationships and commitment.
What is a Social Media Community?
The foundation of a social media community is a group of individuals who’ve come together for a similar interest, passion, or connection. Whether you run a brand or personal account, your social media community cares about what you share, your values, and your content. But it’s not all about the number of followers or likes. It’s actually about two-way interactions, forming genuine relationships, and engaging in a meaningful way.
Why is Building a Social Media Community Important?
A thriving social media community can have a significant influence on your brand in lots of ways. Here’s why:
- Increased Brand Awareness: the more voices within your community, the greater the reach for your brand and the more people will know about it. As a byproduct, people begin sharing their experiences, which creates additional visibility for you
- Trust and Loyalty: trust comes from a well-managed community. When people trust that you embody your words, believe in your message, and feel connected to your brand, they are more likely to be loyal and organically promote your products or services
- Direct Feedback: the social media community is a significant place to get immediate and valuable feedback. Your community is the heartbeat of what works and what doesn’t — whether it’s a review of your product or people’s reactions to your latest content
- Content Generation: User-generated Content (UGC) is a big goldmine for social media marketers, especially if it’s happened organically through shared posts, reviews, or engagement with your content
- Community Engagement: better brand visibility is what you can get from your social community with high engagement. On the Instagram or Facebook platforms, betting that the algorithms favour content from active and engaging accounts will boost the visibility of your content
It’s time to build and manage the organic social media community that will thrive.
1. Define Your Community’s Purpose
Defining the community’s intent before building your social media community is essential! So why does this community exist? Who do you want to be your followers in this space?
Finding your core reason, or purpose, for why your community exists is precisely the kind of thing you want to attract the people who connect with your message and values. It will also be the foundation of a transparent and honest relationship. For example, if you’re a fitness brand, your community will likely work to motivate and support those who want to live healthier lives. If you can discover your purpose, you can create your content and engagement strategy from there.
2. Choose the Right Social Media Platforms
To build a healthy community on social media, you have to face reality – you can’t be everywhere. Which social media platform is appropriate for you and your target audience? All platforms aren’t the same and come with different ways to engage a community:
- Facebook Groups: perfect for creating narrow, focused communities around related interests. Facebook Groups give community members a place to have more discussion. They can be a great space for direct interaction
- Instagram: a platform with interesting features such as Instagram Stories, Reels and Instagram Live, which allow you to share interactive and visual content. Here, the Instagram community is based on visual identity and video marketing flourishes
- X: It’s a good platform for real-time interaction and discussions. X communities are fast-moving, and you must constantly communicate and engage with them
- TikTok: short-form video platform popular among Gen Z and Millennials, with a global user base that skews younger, as 60% of its users are aged 16-24, offering content ranging from entertainment to education, driven by an algorithm that personalises content for each user
- Mighty Networks: If you have a lot of folks interested in the life and culture of your brand within one group, this platform lets you create a space where you have more control and customisation
Choosing the right platform for your audience and brand is crucial. Your target audience will be younger if you want to use Instagram or TikTok. In contrast, Facebook groups might be more effective for a wider demographic.
3. Create Valuable and Engaging Content
Like any online community, the social media community breathes and lives through content. There’s more to it than that. It’s not just about posting frequently; it’s about sharing high-quality and valuable content that your community members care about. With that said, we should strive to build our content strategy around the value we serve to the reader, encouraging them to engage with us and foster a conversation.
Here’s how you can ensure your content stands out:
- Interactive Content: ask questions and use polls, Q&A sessions and quizzes to get people to participate. The kinds of content do this: they make your audience feel involved and engaged
- User-Generated Content (UGC): ask your followers to share their experience with your product or service. You can help boost your community in the posts by including user-generated content
- Video Marketing: use video content to connect more people. People love engaging with video content through Instagram Stories, Facebook Lives or pre-recorded videos. It’s also interactive and makes your brand personal; it induces a sense of being a real-time communicator
- Engaging Content: think of the content that gets people talking, reading and discussing. Whether provocative questions, inspirational stories, or ‘Get inside the mind of…’ features. Keeping your community members interested and invested in your brand involves keeping your community content engaging
4. Foster Community Engagement
Even if a social media community is broadcasting content, it’s not just that—it’s about connection, about building engagement and conversation. Members need to feel included in the conversation to thrive as a community.
Ways to Encourage Engagement:
- Ask Questions: ask your community questions and encourage them to give responses. It makes for a conversation and provides you with great nuggets of information about what’s important to your audience
- Respond to Comments: if comments and DMs exist, you’ve engaged with your community members. Acknowledging the comments and responding to them if needed builds trust and rapport
- Host Contests: contests are a fun and effective way to increase engagement. It’s about creating contests that prompt your followers to help share and curate more content, engage more posts, and bring people onto the platform and into your community
- Instagram Live or Facebook Live: Connect with your community in real-time going live. Lives give you that personal touch and enable you to interact with the audience in a Q&A session, product demo, or community updates
- Create a Hashtag: A community hashtag can help bring a sense of belonging. This makes it easier for you to track community participation and for community members to use the hashtag to share posts for your brand
5. Establish a Strong Social Media Strategy
The best social media communities are all backed by proper social media strategy. An appropriately crafted strategy narrows down your efforts, keeps your community engaged, and keeps your goals clear and concise.
The elements of a solid social media strategy include:
- Content Calendar: consistency is the key here. Plan your posts. A content calendar will also help you keep promotional content in check while providing engaging, value-driven posts
- Consistency: the most essential part is consistent posting. The more they see your content, the more likely they are to engage with it
- Data-Driven Approach: use tools to analyse how your content has performed. Engagement rates, reach and clicks – all can tell you what’s working and what’s not
- Target Audience: know your target audience like the back of your hand. Ensure you tailor your content and messaging to their needs, preferences, and behaviours
- Brand Voice: ensure your social media content speaks the language of your brand’s personality and tone. Whether playful, professional or quirky, your brand voice should come across consistently in all your posts
6. Build Trust and Authenticity
Building a loyal social community depends on being authentic. People want to follow brands they can trust, and trust is earned by being transparent, relatable, and honest.
Tips to Build Trust:
- Be Transparent: share your brand’s story, you learn from, wins, and everything in between. Your community feels part of your brand’s story because it’s authentic
- Showcase Behind-the-Scenes: showcase behind the curtain and give your community a peek behind the curtain. It humanises your brand whenever you put the human touch behind the scenes
- Honest Communication: no matter what feedback you get from your customers or what new products you launch, always talk to your community openly and honestly
7. Empower Your Community Members
You want to empower your community members, which is one of the hallmarks of a thriving social media community. Create a real opportunity for them to contribute, share their ideas, and actively build the community. Some ways to empower members include:
- Feature User Content: showcase the content your following is creating on your social media platforms. Not only do you increase engagement, but you also make the community members feel valued
- Create Leadership Opportunities: leading will keep people engaged in larger communities. In Facebook Group, for example, you can give moderators or group leaders roles that allow them to help moderate and foster discussions
- Encourage Peer-to-Peer Interaction: build a space where your community becomes comfortable conversing with each other, not just you. Promote conversations, discuss and collaborate activities
8. Practice Social Listening
Social listening is monitoring conversations in your community and using them to influence your social media strategy. By paying attention to what your community members say, you can adjust the way and content that you publish to better cater to their needs and interests.
While you can’t track hashtags and mentions with exacting fidelity, some tools can help you track mentions and keywords surrounding your brand. Social listening lets you keep up with your community’s beat and keep your content strategy on par with their likes.
9. Encourage and Leverage User-Generated Content
User-generated Content (UGC) is a powerful way to build trust and engagement in your social media community. Sharing someone else’s content about your brand makes them a spokesperson and advocate for it.
Run campaigns encouraging user-generated content from your followers to submit their stories, photos or experiences using your products. If you see this content, feature it on your social media accounts to recognise and reward their efforts.
10. Regularly Assess and Adapt Your Strategy
Building a functional social media community isn’t one-and-done. It needs to be continuously reviewed and changed. Use this to track your community’s growth, engagement, and feedback and identify what’s working and what’s not.
Thanks to online tools, you will have access to in-depth analytics and social listening tools, which you can use to refine your strategy over time. Staying adaptable means shifting your content strategy, trying out new social media features, or even taking your social channels to a ‘new’ platform if your content calls for it.
Final Thoughts
Time, effort, and dedication are necessary to build a social media community that will thrive.
It’s not only about following or getting the most likes; it’s about building a network through constant engagement, sharing helpful content and being honest with your community.
Whatever you’re looking to build your social media community with, be it a Facebook Group, Instagram community, or Mighty Network, these strategies will enable you to build a solid, tight-knit group of people that will thrive over time.
Empower your community members and keep your content valuable. By defining a clear purpose and having the right tools, the social media community will grow and thrive, allowing for successful interactions and lasting connectedness with your brand.
