1. Planning
Plant the right seeds
Communities that lack a clear goal or mission are set up to fail from the start. To avoid this, we recommend using our WHY, WHO, WHAT, HOW method to clearly define your community mission.
Community is more critical for companies than ever before. The Social+ Community Corner is anyone's go-to place to discover how to build a thriving digital community.
The Social+ Community Building Framework is a comprehensive and constantly evolving guide for building and maintaining an online community. It covers all aspects, ranging from initial planning to successful launch, ongoing operations, and effective monetization strategies. The framework highlights the importance of understanding your community's goals and purpose while ensuring value is delivered to both users and the business.
Communities that lack a clear goal or mission are set up to fail from the start. To avoid this, we recommend using our WHY, WHO, WHAT, HOW method to clearly define your community mission.
Not only do you need the right seeds, but you also need to nurture your community with the right team to ensure a strong start to its growth process. Make sure you understand the stakeholders you need and get them prepared.
You only get one chance to make a first impression. Planning a successful launch with a seamless user experience is vital for community success. In this section, you'll find metrics and strategies to create awareness, attract members, and drive activation within your community.
After the initial onboarding of users, it may seem challenging to encourage engagement among community members. But it doesn’t have to be. By diversifying your engagement strategies, you can improve your chances of success.
To build a self-sustaining and lasting community, you need to recruit, recognize, and give responsibilities to your power users.
Learn how to effectively track the success of your community and its impact on your business. Discover strategies to monetize specific aspects of your community for direct revenue generation.
If you've identified your WHY in Section 1 of this framework and aligned your data tracking and metrics accordingly, you'll have no difficulty understanding the value your community brings.
As your community continues to evolve, it may start to deliver value across multiple areas of focus outlined in David Spink's SPACES Model. It's natural for your community to touch upon and provide value in various aspects as it grows and matures.
• Data: customer insights, customer feedback, personalization
• Loyalty: relationship building, brand awareness, retention
• Marketing: educational content, user generated content, word-of-mouth acquisition, mobile metrics growth
• Monetization: increased sales, new revenue streams, lower marketing costs, lower support costs, customer ROI.
By clearly defining and tracking metrics for the key areas of your community, you ensure that you’re constantly aware of its value. This proactive approach allows you to measure the impact and success of your community in a meaningful way.
In addition to the metrics discussed in Section 1, it can be beneficial to identify additional metrics that align with your goals and target areas. By customizing your metrics to fit your specific objectives, you gain deeper insights into the progress and effectiveness of your community.
• What are the success metrics for your community?
• What are valuable, measurable actions that will help achieve your business goals? Increased sales, new revenue streams, lower marketing costs, lower support costs, customer ROI.
Establishing an efficient system for tracking and organizing these metrics is just as crucial as selecting the metrics themselves. A well-designed system ensures that you can easily monitor and analyze the data, allowing for informed decision-making and continuous improvement of your community.
• How you will track participation in your community over time?
• How often will you interview community members ?
• Where the data you need lives and how you will access it?
• Where you will organize and efficiently track data to report on community performance (dashboards, reports, etc.)?
• How often you will report on community metrics and who will you be reporting to?
Defining how, to whom, and what you will report regarding the value generated by your community enables you to structure your tracking and effectively measure return on investment.
The advantage of building communities on your own platform is that you have ownership of all the data, so make sure to leverage it to its fullest potential. Harnessing the data allows you to gain valuable insights, make informed decisions, and maximize the benefits of your community-building efforts.
In addition to driving app metrics and delivering value in the areas mentioned earlier, communities can also be utilized for direct revenue generation.
By collecting and analyzing community habit and engagement data, you can determine the most suitable strategy to enhance the user experience while generating revenue. This data-driven approach allows you to align your monetization efforts with the needs and preferences of your community members, creating a win-win situation for both the community and your business.
Display, native, affiliate or text ads in any part of the community.
Paid subscriptions to access community, subscriber only groups or subscriber only profiles.
Sponsored content from your own or partner businesses.
Collaborating with brand partners for a fee.
Products and/or services being sold through live-stream video.
The ability to purchase products and/or services in chat.
The ability to purchase products and/or services directly from posts, groups, or feeds.
The ability to tip creators, influencers, and experts through their profiles.
In addition to driving app metrics and making an impact in the areas mentioned earlier, social features can also be utilized for direct monetization. Here are a few initiatives to consider:
• When evaluating the return on investment (ROI) of your social implementations, it's crucial to consider all areas of your business that could be impacted. Understand how different departments benefit from your community content and utilize user or sentiment analysis to support their objectives. This provides a clear understanding of the impact of your social initiatives.
• Set appropriate metrics and continuously evolve their tracking at different stages of community development to maximize their effectiveness. By adapting your metrics to the evolving needs of your community, you can accurately measure progress and drive continuous improvement.
• Incorporating direct monetization techniques as part of your social integration can directly impact your revenues. Explore revenue-generating opportunities that align with your community and enhance the overall value for both your users and your business.
