It’s an exciting day when you realize your users want to connect with each other. That’s your cue to find ways to build community for your users online and in person. Many times your users want to learn from each other, but you don’t yet have a community to make that happen.

Pay attention when it’s clear that your customers want to meet and learn from each other. Some users benefit from hearing about success stories, challenges, and solutions directly from each other. They like to talk about your product and other issues facing their business. 

With the right marketing tactics, you can harness the power of this community. You’ll help users get even more from your product and brand.

Launch an online community

Marketers can help you build an online community inside your product or through another platform. Online communities create a space for users to connect with each other. You can moderate the community and create ground rules, prompts, and a structure to encourage great contributions. 

An online community also creates a new, direct channel for your company to connect with your customers to share news, success stories, and tips. A well-moderated, engaged community can be an asset to your users and your brand.

Engage your community through social media

Your company’s social media activity will serve a range of purposes. One benefit is that social media often connects your users with each other through content, events, and comments. Curate your content calendar so your users will get value from your social media account and will want to keep interacting with you. 

You can even enable your users to share user-generated content with each other, such as how-to videos or success stories. The best social media programs don’t just push content out to customers. They get users to engage with, comment, share, and talk to each other about what your content has to say.

Host in-person events

Creating in-person communities can also help bring your users together to help each other. In-person events give your company a chance to share the latest product news and share unique insights and workshops. They’re a great place to get to know your users, their needs, and what they think of your brand.

Events can take many forms, such as an annual event where you host top customers, or monthly smaller events organized by teams in a specific city.  Your company can host the events, or you can empower your users to organize their own events focused on your product. Look for signals that your users would love to meet in person and would benefit from hearing from you and each other in person.

Three ways to build community for your users

You have a range of options to build community for your users. The most holistic is creating your own online community on a dedicated platform, in your product, or even a Facebook private group. Users will connect about product topics and their lives in general. This type of community becomes a new “owned” channel where you can communicate with users too.

Leverage your current social media accounts to help your users connect too. You can showcase user generated content, host events, and encourage comments between users. And when the time is right, consider hosting in person events too. You can organize the events, or you can give customers a budget to host the events for you. There are a range of ways to connect your own users.