How can we foster a strong community around our product?

Question

This question aims to understand how to build a loyal customer base. By creating a community, companies can gather feedback, increase product loyalty, and generate word-of-mouth recommendations.

Nancy Wright · Accepted Answer

Fostering a strong community is so key! A few ideas: 1) Create spaces for your customers to connect, like forums, slack groups, or IRL meetups 2) Engage with them regularly - comment on posts, run AMAs, share behind-the-scenes content to build rapport 3) Show you value their input by acting on feedback and highlighting their success stories 4) Offer special perks/access to your biggest advocates to turn them into champions. Building those relationships takes work but the loyalty and word-of-mouth is totally worth it!

Udaya Sri · Answer

I may not have much experience but, from what I understand, you can achieve this by posting good content regularly, joining in on discussions, and asking and answering real questions and being consistent with all this in all your social media platforms.

Answer

Thanks @udaya_sri for that input. Yes, we have been doing that lately and we are seeing some positive results around it.

Shiva Tejasvi · Answer

In my opinion, I believe that building a strong community around your product depends on understanding your audience's needs and engaging them with exclusive content, social media groups, and events that foster interaction and shared experiences.

Answer

@stanley_igboanugo Absolutely! Learning from our competitors is smart, but understanding our own audience is even smarter. Figuring out why people love (or hate) other communities will help us build a better one. We're definitely thinking of building a Zixflow community but just exploring things at the moment. A little humor never hurt anyone, right? We want to create a place where people actually want to hang out.

Stanley Igboanugo · Answer

If you have a competitor with a strong community, a quick tactic would be a comprehensive analysis of their community, followers, growth strategies, content direction and messaging, and other perks like freebies, etc. If possible, interact with their current community members to see if WHY they joined, HOW often they interact with others, and HOW often they are active on platforms (if it is platform-based like a WhatsApp or Slack community).

Also, you should gain clarity on WHY your TARGET AUDIENCE should join the community. I expect that your audience would include prospects, buyers, and non-buyers (like advocates, fans, or even journalists covering your industry beat).

The insights gained from these two steps can get you to a strong start and help inform tactics to grow yours as well.

If you don't mind me asking, is this community for Zikflow? And will it be based on a platform... Telegram, WhatsApp or Slack?

NB: If you can, try to incorporate humor in your content as well. Humor attracts eyeballs, which can be useful in increasing content engagement, growing your army of non-customer advocates, who will in turn (directly or indirectly) spread the word about your brand.

Stanley Igboanugo · Answer

@sajin_s great! Wishing you the best at it!

Answer

I agree @shiva_tejasvi

Answer

@nancywright That's a fantastic breakdown of ways to build a strong community. I especially love the idea of offering special perks to your biggest advocates. It's a great way to show your appreciation and encourage them to become even more invested in your product. Your insights are invaluable.

Have you tried any of these strategies yourself? I'd love to hear more about your experiences.

How can we foster a strong community around our product?

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