1) Facebook
According to Alexa rankings, Facebook is the second most popular place in the world today. With that type of reach it’s a no-brainer if you are looking to build a community around a niche, idea or a brand. Facebook is the right place develop relationships online and now boast over 500 million users online with a 50-60% of this user base returning every day. This offers community managers opportunities for social community building & marketing as long as you are willing to build relationships first.
Some best practices:
- Minimize the sales pitch
- Ask open ended questions
- Engage/Interact with your audience
- Offer promotions/Give-a-ways
- Build a FAN page over a GROUP
- Work the FBML or hire someone who can
2) Linkedin
Although Linkedin is number 21 according to Alexa rankings; it’s a huge source of relevant and targeted people which are decision makers and thought leaders. It is B2B unlike Facebook which leans more to C2C, but gaining interested users to your community will be possible by engaging with current groups or even starting your own.
Since there are thousands (if not more) of groups which range in size from 10 members to 100k or more you will be able to ask your peers questions about your community while engaging them on their levels of interest. If what you have to say is interesting to them or appeals to them they may very easily join your social community.
Use Q & A section of LinkedIn to build up your personal network and then tie the communication back to your goals; to build community either on Linkedin or off Linkedin.
Some best practices:
- Minimize the sales pitch
- Know your facts
- Ask open ended questions
- Ask for feedback
- Find collaborators
3) Twitter
Love it or hate it; the 140 character microblogging platform is here to stay. Your peers, business associates and top brands are all using Twitter.com these days. With this type of reach a 140 character message can travel the 7 continents in seconds with just a few retweets. Your community is there just waiting for you to give them the information they need and desire (as long as its 140 characters or less).
Search is your friend; the twitter search allows for a multitude of various regular expression searches. This alone should be where you spend your time finding your audience and determining how they communicate. Make a plan and use your knowledge of your space to speak to your potential audience and have a goal of ultimately re-directing them to your community.
Some best practices:
- Minimize the sales pitch
- Know your facts
- Always add followers who fit your community requirements
- Interact with your followers
- Search, Search, Search – do your market research!
- Make lists to organize your space
Now that you know where to start; or if you have already started and plateaued - it's time to think about next steps.
EVOLVE.
Social Media & Community 2.0 Strategies is a unique event that focuses on the business value of social media for established brands, as well as entrepreneurial companies. It brings together community experts with lines of business leaders who are using social media strategically to drive their business.
From setting the strategy, to operationalizing it, to measuring the results – this event is a high-level overview of the Social Media & Community space.
| Why Attend? Social Media is an evolving business that is reinventing how we interact. Learn about campaigns that have worked and ones that have failed. | What's New? Everyone has invested in Social Media, NOW find out how you can operationalize, measure and make money off of this investment |
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