First Steps To Building Your Online Community

It’s the age old question eh?  How do I get people to like my page? You would think that a simple click to like something would be easy, but folk are now, more than ever, precious about who and what they like and especially whom them recommend.

So how do we get people to buy our product? Use our service? Eat in our restaurant? Come to our event?

I believe the answer  lies in building better communities.

More and more companies are realising that social media and the online presence of their company or brand is AS if not MORE important than what their shop looks like.  I have talked previously, about living in an ideas economy, well, many of you don’t have shops and operate from home. If you are a B2B, you will know how important it is but there are many of you that are still getting your head around it.

I’ve been out this week chatting with folk about this exact circumstance.  We ARE the social media guinea pigs but it isn’t going anywhere and its going to get more and more creative and rely heavily on psychology of people. Therefore, unless you are good at all of the above and have an abundance of ideas, a strategy in place and of course, the abundance of spare time to put it into action, you will simply have to employ someone to do this for you. You simply have to make sure that your online presence is as good as it can be.

Over the coming  months, intermingled with a few brilliant guest posts, we will be looking into practical ways in which you can build your online community.  Whatever your reasons for this build, these articles will help you drive followers and therefore sales to your business or brand, create awareness of your product  or service. I like to look at the emotive, psychology and presence, So if this sounds like it could be up your street…. bookmark me now!

Building your Online Community.

So, you have just written a book? started a company? released a record? launching a new product or service for your brand? Ok, whatever it is, you need followers… right? People that will champion what you are doing and spread the word? So let’s started. Number 1 task at building your community online…Engaging with people.

One of my very first posts was centred around this.  Social Media is centred around this! And the more you realise engagement is about being who you are and being a good person, the more productive it will be for you.  Once you have grasped this fact,  then you can start to devise creative ways in which to engage with your audience, but as mentioned in my post about online positivity, the basics have to be there first!

To understand people is for some, a gift, for others, a task. But none the less, this has to be grasped to a certain level to understand the psychology of people and how you can use that to translate into your social media strategy.

In social media and online engagement, the social sciences of psychology, anthropology, communication, economics, human geography, et al..are essential in building meaningful relationships and influencing mutually beneficial behavior which means that you must first decide and ultimately design what it is you want the user experience to emulate or evoke.

It pays to remember that ‘people are at the centre of their own egosystem’ as Mashable so brilliantly portrayed. They continue to point out “that you must design an experience that captivates the mind or feeds likely emotions to affect desirable behavior in a given context.”

On the whole it is putting a microscope onto human beings and leaving them no room for big social mistakes. Be kind, share and love. What can be wrong  with that?!

This will clearly help you get the best out of people, motivate people and influence and engineer them to shout about you and your brand.  It is possible and some of the best marketers have made even the most unfeeling of people shed a tear, the most impassive respond in the most moving way!

Banks are great at this, Look at American Express or Visa, they both use emotive story lines to capture the customer, one centered around parents looking after their children through ‘the hard times’ and this one, Lloyds, who’s core message is about love.

There are plenty of books out their that tackle the psychology of people and some directed at core values online. I would suggest you get a pile and skim through them making notes.  Once you have had a good think about this, you will find that it translates into your social media marketing plans, beautifully!

Next we will talk about getting your fans  to work for you. Have a great week!

#onlinepsychology #engagement #positivity #psychology #Marketing #sharing #socialmediamarketing #SocialMedia