Three Tips for Generating Business Through Online Communities

This just in from Kanika W. of StartUpBiz...

New methods for marketing your business are popping up everywhere, and online communities are no exception. So, exactly what is an online community and what does it have to do with growing your business?

The truth is, you won’t know how it affects your business until you try it, but there are three key tips that can help you use them to effectively grow your business over time. What IS an online community anyway?

First let’s be clear about what an online community is and how it can be beneficial. Online communities are like local networking events, only they take place online. They provide a way for businesses to interact with their customers, for customers to interact with a business, and perhaps most importantly, for customers to interact with each other.

Online communities are a form of social media and can often work well when mixed with other forms of social media including blogging, email newsletters, podcasts, rss feeds, and others. So how can online communities help you grow your business?

TIP #1 Be Consistent
No matter how you look at it, participating in online communities is a long term investment. If you stick with it and stay consistent, the pay-off can be rewarding. Frequent your favorite areas of the community, post a blog, post threads, but just like your local networking event, once you introduce yourself, you have to keep coming back so that people remember who you are. People do business with people they know and trust.

TIP #2 Be Realistic
Just because you joined the community, doesn’t mean all of a sudden sales will come flooding through your door (if this has happened to anyone, please send an email to my inbox and let me know your secret). Online communities can be like any other form of advertising-- you try it, you test it, you see if it works, and if it does, you stick with it, if it doesn’t; well, you move to the next thing, but you have to remember that all social media is about building relationship based business. It’s a long term investment and it takes people time to get to know you. In addition, understand why you joined the community.

Growing your business should not be the only reason. There’s significant value in gaining free insight from experts who know the challenges small businesses face better than anyone else, and that’s your fellow business owners. Tapping into the knowledge base of a good online business community, can be just as rewarding as finding a new customer.

TIP #3 Add Value
A wise man once said, “people like to buy—they don’t like to be sold to.” There’s nothing worse than an online community member that spams everyone with there sales pitch in a discussion thread. If you want to lose respect in an online community, this is a great way to do it.

Add value, provide insight, or share an experience that may be beneficial to someone else, but please don’t spam the members—we want to keep people in the community, not send them running.

For those of you that join for the purpose of growing your business, I think plugging your own business is fine, but educate people about your business and tell them what problem your product or service solves. Publish a blog and become an expert in your field, offer advice on solving an issue you recently experienced—in the end, you will get much more respect, meet more colleagues, and gain more credibility for your business.

I hope to meet many more of you as we all continue our path to growth and success.

I’m rooting for you!

KW
www.biznessdoor.com

Thanks Kanika for your insightful post and we look forward to more.

Talk soon,
Frank Tocco--Marketing Mentor
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