You have incorporated community objectives into your company’s plan, designed the community to foster member ownership and finally launched your very own community – so now what?
Well, that’s a great start; however you are not at the finish line yet. After the preliminary push to launch the community is complete, you must then shift your focus to a continuous effort to drive adoption. This is a three-step process, which includes:
• Driving traffic to the site
• Encouraging engagement
• Enabling members to become evangelists for the community
First let’s talk traffic. So what can you do to drive traffic to your community? The answer is simple – all the same types of marketing activities you would engage in to drive traffic anywhere. Things such as:
• Marketing campaigns
• Social media campaigns
• SEO-related efforts
So now let’s say that you have mastered the art of driving traffic to your community – how will engagement begin?
The community manager is vital in making this happen. First, he/she will need to engage personally with members. Second, and just as important, the community manager must act as the liaison between the community and the company to ensure that a constant stream of new, fresh and relevant content is pouring into the community and that company employees are engaging and revisiting the community as well.
Engaged members make the best evangelist for your community. Therefore, it is important to design your community in a way that best equips your members to spread the word. Questions that give them an opportunity to provide public feedback, polls, and functionality that allows them to easily share with others outside the community are all examples of ways you can help your members rave about your community.
It is also worth noting here the importance of your continued participation in the other social networks that you were utilizing prior to building your community. So if you tweet or regularly post on Facebook, continue to do those things. Remember that prior to launching your community, the social ecosystem was already buzzing with individuals who were engaging in topics of interest to your organization. Participating in these online avenues where engagement is already taking place is one of the most efficient ways to build both reputation and interest in your community.
The potential for your community is endless. However, nothing just happens overnight; first you must dedicate time and take the proper steps to drive adoption.
Find out more about how you can drive adoption, by downloading our latest whitepaper, Strategies for Building World Class Communities.