How to create an engaged community on social media?

Creating an engaged community on social networks takes both time and patience. But believe me, the benefits for your brand are far from insignificant! Bonding with your audience allows you to develop consideration for your brand. And the more engaged a community is, the more likely they are to buy your products. Discover my tips for creating an engaged community on social media.

Engage in conversation to create an engaged community

The first step to connecting with your community on social media is to engage in conversation.

That’s right! Social media, as their name suggests, promote exchanges and conversations between their users. Forget one-way speeches. On social networks you address your (potential) customers directly and you should expect them to respond.

• Interaction tools: a powerful conversation builder

As I was saying, social networks are designed to share, so much so that each platform is constantly developing new tools to facilitate interactions.

On Instagram, for example, you can add poll stickers, quizzes, gauges or even questions to your story to create a conversation with your audience in the easiest way possible. On Facebook too, you can set up a poll but the interaction tools are less developed.

Generally speaking, Instagram is THE network that most encourages exchanges between a brand and its audience, and that’s good timing since it’s the best network to invest in for your brand.

So don’t hesitate to use the different stickers over and over again to ask your followers their preference or to invite them to ask any questions they want about your brand. This is the best way to show them that you listen to them and that their opinion matters to you.

• No caption without a call-to-action

As far as publications are concerned – and this is valid for all networks – I invite you to use a call-to-action every time.

What is a call-to-action? It’s simply a question or a sentence that invites the user to perform an action. This action can be to reply in a comment, to share your post in a story, to subscribe to your newsletter…

It’s essential to get your subscriber(s) to switch from a passive attitude, where they just consume your content, to an active posture, where they show their interest in your brand.

Each of your captions must include a call-to-action, usually placed at the end. Here are some examples to reuse:

• “What about you, are you more… or….?”
• “What do you think of our new product? Would you like to test it?”
• “Identify a friend who recognizes himself/herself in this post/who might be interested”
• “Do you have any questions? Feel free to ask us in comments or by sending us a private message”

• A golden moderation

Engaging in conversation is great… but you have to keep it flowing!

Good moderation, i.e. the action of responding to posts and comments, is essential for your brand. A lack of response or reactivity under your posts or in your private messages can considerably impact your brand’s image.

Conversely, responding to the messages you receive reveals a brand that is accessible and attentive to its customers’ opinions. Having friendly feedback from a brand can tip the scales in your favor when considering a purchase. So don’t overlook this part! 

Quick tip: don’t hesitate to personalize your responses as much as possible with the person’s name.

Include your customer in the brand’s development and evolution

As you can see, the best way to engage your community is to create it. But what if, to engage your community even more, you made them participate in the development of your brand?

If there’s one thing customers love about brands, it’s the little things they do and the attention they get from them. And if, in addition, they participate to a greater or lesser degree in the development of your next products, they will be thrilled!

More interactive and less formal than questionnaires or surveys of any kind, Instagram or Facebook stories remain the best way to ask for your community’s opinion and receive quick and instant feedback. On Instagram, ask your questions as you would in a classic questionnaire and add the “survey” or “quiz” sticker so that your followers can choose between different options.

You can ask them about the details of your products (for example, if they are clothes, about pockets, buttons, closures…), about their colors, about their types (t-shirt, tank top or long-sleeved top…). Everything is allowed!

Build a community of ambassadors

The last step to create an engaged community on social networks is to go further by segmenting your followers into three parts: potential customers, new customers or those who have only bought once and the most loyal customers, who buy from you regularly. 

We can call this last group the ambassador customers. They are the ones who are fans of your products, who are on the lookout for your new products and who recommend your brand to their friends and family. But they are also the ones who comment most often on your posts and react very frequently to your stories. 

To create an even stronger bond with them and make them even more engaged and active, you can create a private group (preferably on Facebook but you can also create a private Instagram account) just for them.

In this unique group, you can share tips, exclusively reveal upcoming products and of course let them interact with each other. This exclusive access to a private group is the highest level of engagement you can create in terms of community. And without a doubt, this privileged access will make them even more eager to buy and interact with you on social networks

Social networks have totally changed the relationship between brands and their target. From now on, a brand must be accessible and present for its audience. It must listen and converse regularly with its customers and potential customers. It’s simple: the more engaged your community is, the more your audience will consider your brand for a purchase, so don’t neglect this part and start, right now, to create an engaged community on social networks!