To Create a Digital Community, you only need 2 things:
1] A strong common interest.
2] A unique way of communicating can happen from the leader to his followers, from the followers to the leader, and among the followers.
To have an engaged digital community, the leader must transform this common interest into a strong desire for transformation, facilitate communication between members, and make the community grow.
Writers who build true communities around their works manage to attract multitudes of readers and sell millions of copies of their books.
J. K. Rowling is a great example of an author who created more than just a reader base, but rather a digital (and offline) community so engaged that they would be willing to buy even other works outside the world of Harry Potter.
Would you like to build something like this for your writing career?
Then see how to create your own digital community.
What is a Digital Community?
A digital community is a group of people who share interests, who raise the same flag, feel the same pains, and go through the same things.
By sharing a common interest, they collaborate to keep the flame burning and the idea alive among its members, but also by bringing in new members.
The digital community should be a place to strengthen ties with the customer, a safe place for them to talk to other people, co-create with the brand or author, and make suggestions for improvements.
The goal of creating a digital community around your personal brand is to find more people who were just waiting for someone to raise a flag and strengthen the relationship with the audience, expanding the presence of your brand in people’s lives.
By doing this, you create lovers of your brand—people who eagerly await to consume your products, books, and ebooks.
Communities exist both in the physical environment and online, and there are countless tools available to create a virtual version.
However, the best of them are still closed Facebook groups, ideal both for attracting people interested in topics related to your work and for creating an exclusive community of clients.
There, in addition to the live classes that take place every week, we have a space for students to network, share their texts, ask colleagues for suggestions on improvements and also have access to available job openings in the writing market.
The tips we will give you in this article can be applied both in digital communities open to the general public and those that are exclusive to clients.
The Secret to Building a Digital Community of Customers
Stop and think about your closest friends.
Do you have similar worldviews?
Or completely opposite ones?
The natural tendency of human beings is to unite with people who have similar interests.
And who reject the same things…
That is why the concept of “Common Enemy” works so well within any communication strategy.
When we identify something that causes pain to our customers, with which we do not agree, we create a bond.
In addition to creating the feeling of “us against them”, it takes your customer out of a defensive position.
How so?
By placing the “blame” for the problem on something, preferably an idea or institution (avoid people), you take the weight off the shoulders of your customer or reader.
All businesses, in all niches, have a common enemy. If you work in the financial market, banks could be the villain of the story.
If you work in the health sector or the food industry,
It’s up to you to find out what your consumers’ biggest villain is. And show that you have the right weapons to defeat them.
From there, you’ll be able to establish a very strong emotional connection with your customer. You won’t be just another salesperson, but an ally.
In addition to a common cause, you need to share values.
One way to make it very clear what ideas your brand stands for is by creating:
Flag: the worldview, what your brand believes in, and what it stands for.
Mantra: a short phrase that will be repeated across all channels and forms of communication. It can be printed at all points of contact with our community and should summarize everything it represents, loves, and identifies with.
Brand personality: traits that your communication needs to highlight.
These are ours:
- Deboism
- Simplicity
- Excellence
- Clarity
- Happiness
- Creativity
- Courage
- Results
- Integrity
- Transparency
- Authenticity
- Passion
- Acceptance
All this to exalt the most important feeling within a digital community: the feeling of belonging.
This is one of the most powerful survival mechanisms among human beings and has always been to be within a group, that protects each other, collaborates, and shares a similar worldview.
To discover what this worldview is and how to create this sense of belonging, **you need to know the members of your digital community in depth. **
How to Learn More about the Members of Your DigitalCommunity
People who seek to belong to a place where other people have common interests.
With beliefs, feelings, pains, experiences, needs, interests, dreams, and values similar to those of your brand.
To better understand who these people are, you should do some research.
These are the most important pieces of information about your audience:
- Where do you want to get to in your career?
- What is limiting you today?
- What would you like to show the world that you know how to do well?
- What frustrates you the most?
- What are your biggest dreams?
- Is there anything you can’t stand to hear any more?
- What do you wish others knew about you?
- Can you identify any limiting beliefs in yourself?
- What would “solve” your life today?
- How much money would you like to make?
Every Digital Community Needs a Leader and Clear Rules
Digital communities need leadership. People want change and look for those who can show them the way.
Leaders are those who attract others with their ideas, not those who manage resources and processes, making them more efficient.
The leader creates the change he believes in and moves people in that direction.
Contrary to what it may seem, people like to have clear rules and know what they can and cannot do within a group.
When you go to the beach, the rules are not the same as those you follow when you are at the movies, for example.
Knowing how to behave on each occasion makes people feel more at ease because they have a code of conduct to follow and the certainty that they will not be reprimanded for their behavior.
General Rules Valid for Any Community Style
These are the rules we use in our communities to maintain their good functioning and the relationship between participants:
- Make it clear that all discussions need to take place within the digital community so that everyone can benefit from the exchange of ideas, preventing the creation of parallel groups.
- Do not allow excessive self-promotion, which ends up irritating other members.
- Encourage assertiveness when asking questions.
- Remember that if your digital community is an exclusive environment for customers, access to it is personal and non-transferable.
- Direct complaints and support to an exclusive channel, in order to avoid complaints and negative energy in the community.
- Encourage interaction between members, remembering that the creator of the digital community, as well as the team, will not be present at all times.
- Encourage reporting of comments and posts that do not comply with the principles and rules of the community.
In addition to rules and terms of participation, leadership of the digital community also includes encouraging frequent participation of members and one way to do this is through an exclusive editorial line for your Community.
Editorial Line: How to Encourage Debate through Content
Although your leadership and presence are important for the good functioning of the digital community, remember that you should not be the only one to propose topics, post content, or respond to all comments.
Even so, it is your responsibility, especially if your digital community is still very new or has little interaction, to set agendas to organize discussions and keep the conversation going at all times.
To direct the conversation, use specific spaces for interaction. If you want to open up space for people to get to know each other better and connect, make a post asking them to introduce themselves and tell you about what they do, for example.
Here are some tips for content that works in communities:
- Introducing members and encouraging collaborations, partnerships, and networking among members.
- Challenges or interactive activities to get people moving, practicing what you teach, and having fun in the process.
- Discussions: raise controversial (but not so much) topics. Something that no one has said yet, but these people would like to say: “controversial” and out-of-the-box posts that almost no one talks about but that they would really like to talk about.
- Dialogue: dialogue with the community based on a specific topic of the week. Something that these people think: a post that works as a place where they can let out everything they think about something.
- Motivational: motivational content connects feelings in the community. What these people would really like to talk about: posts that work as a “shout out”. Something they have always wanted to talk about, but never knew how.
- Experiences and stories: talk about experiences to strengthen the movement and exemplify the facts
- Information: generates high ACTION value. Like lists of what to do, how to do it, and how to execute an action.
- Case studies: case studies, analyses, and discussions about personalities that strengthen our community.
- Replicable content: can be executed and bring results.
- Frequent surveys to generate interaction, get to know members better and create content on demand.
- Exclusive content for members: only those who are part of the group have access to this material, such as the live classes that take place in our community.
Now your mission is to define what kind of leader you want to be to attract your readers and build your own digital community of fans.
