Online communities refer to virtual groups of people who join a platform to share a common interest, purpose, or identity. Social media groups, online forums, brand communities, and online gaming communities all come under the umbrella term of online communities. In the past decade or so, online communities have started gaining a lot of traction and growing in popularity.
Building an online community can be a big decision to make because it requires a lot of time and commitment, but if done the right way, it can be very beneficial for your brand. Here we have discussed some benefits of building an online community that explain why building an online community is worth it.
Increased Engagement
A very underrated benefit of online communities is that they help to increase engagement. In online communities, users are encouraged to ask questions, provide feedback, and actively participate in various discussions. In addition, events, polls, and community-themed tasks also help to improve engagement. This active engagement and participation keep the discussions going and your audience interested. You can check it out on Chatiw how an online community helps boost engagement.
Builds Brand Advocacy
Building an online community also helps with creating a loyal and avid supporter base who become effective brand ambassadors and spread awareness about a brand. One of the reasons why many local businesses are successful is that they are able to build a community, which helps in spreading organic awareness. The word-of-mouth marketing done by loyal brand customers is priceless and helps to instill trust and credibility in a brand by many consumers.
User-Generated Content
One of the major benefits of building an online community for any brand or business is that they can utilize the power of user-generated content. One of the challenging things to do these days is to create huge amounts of quality content. With an online community in place, users contribute their original material to the community, which reduces the stress on content creators and enables them to use that UGC on multiple channels.
In an active online community, users share all sorts of content including user-generated articles, guides, reviews, and even original artwork that the community moderators can use for community growth and increasing member engagement.
Cost-Effective Support
Through online communities, users and members can get effective support from fellow users, which helps to resolve common issues. Online communities are beneficial for both the administrators and members, as far as customer support is concerned.
For members, they can help each other by providing solutions to common issues, answering questions, and offering help, while for moderators and administrators, the workload on support staff is reduced and they can provide support to users that are facing some serious problem instead of focusing on common issues. You can join Monkey.app to see how building a community helps with providing support to new customers and users.
Provides a Sense of Belonging
Having an online community for your users and customers gives them a sense of belonging and fosters a sense of community. Connecting with people who have the same interests, passions, or pain points as you gives you a sense of belonging, as you can share your experiences and struggles with others knowing that you will be supported by them. The feeling of getting supported, understood, and encouraged is one of the best feelings ever and helps to foster loyalty.
Gain Feedback and Insights
Online communities can also help you gain feedback and insights from your users and customers. Unlike surveys or focus groups, online communities provide you with immediate, unfiltered, raw criticism about your products or services. Users openly share their experiences, thoughts, and pain points, which helps you to gain important feedback directly from the mouths of users that you cannot find elsewhere. This feedback is very important to improve your offerings over time and focus on the pain points of the customers.
