What is online community building?

[Reyed Mia (Apprentice, DIU)]

What is online community building?

- Community simply means a feeling of fellowship with others, as a result of sharing common attitudes, interests, and goals. When we add online building to it, it simply means using the power of the Internet to connect people with what they are passionate about. And the term online means that all activity from that group is happening online. So on places like Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, your websites, and forums. By building communities online, we're connecting people with others that have a common interest, hobby, or goal. If we take a look at our own lives, we can see how pivotal communities are to our day to day activities and general happiness.

So how does online community building fit into your business? Well, building an online community around what you're business is passionate about, or really good at, things like services you provide or the products you make, helps you connect more effectively with your customers. When this happens, it's magic. When your customers feel that they're a part of your mission, it ignites them. Conversations take place, brand awareness grows, and relationships turn customers into brand evangelists. Your goals for online community building in your business will always be to organically and authentically build a base of customers, to be active in the conversation taking place about your business, and to engage directly as much as possible with your customers.

Because your customers are your community. So this process of online community building, which is bringing together a group of people with similar interests using online tools to communicate, work together, and pursue interests over time, is now your goal for the duration of the course. Let's take a look at an example. In this course, I'll be using the fictitious brand Orange Valley Community Arts Association as our online community building example. So taking a look at their Facebook page, it's a perfect example of an online community geared towards people that love to create art.

They're also bonded by their location, being that they are located in the Orange Valley community area. So back to the idea of building a community for yourself. I encourage you to start thinking about the different types of online communities you might be interested in building. What do they look like?

https://www.linkedin.com/learning/social-media-marketing-managing-online-communities/what-is-online-community-building