31 Ways To Grow Your Online Audience A COMMUNITY BUILDING TOOL BY CLI If you’re building a community, the chances are you need to grow your audience of ideal community members, so that your community is visible to those for whom it would be a good fit. There are lots of things you can do to build your online audience, and help raise the profile of your community, here’s some ideas to get you started:
Email marketing
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TOOLS/GROWTH
Lead magnets are by far the most effective way to grow your email marketing list – but make sure you create something with real value, not just marketing fluff, or you risk damaging your credibility. Your lead magnet might feature key problems and solutions that your community need help with, so it’s naturally attracting the right kind of people for your community
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Don’t miss the opportunity to include an email signature with a link and strapline for your community
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Create a regular communications schedule but make sure you’re sharing valuable information – you might do a round-up of the week’s activities within the community, or a tool of the week, tip of the week, or provide links to resources like case studies
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Give enough time and focus to building your email list – it’s easy for your time to get swamped with social, but email remains the biggest converter for many businesses. Make sure your subject lines are compelling so it gets opened, and get your tone right so it gets read!
Website
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Growing your email list is a key survival tactic for most businesses – and one of the easiest ways to do so is by providing something of value on your website, a useful giveaway like a report, or how-to guide or template. Make sure your lead magnet is clearly visible on all your pages – remember, visitors may arrive on your site through search and won’t necessarily visit your home page. Creating a pop-up is an effective way to increase the number of people who subscribe for your lead magnet – make sure it’s set to only pop-up the first time they visit your site
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Messenger bots are increasingly popular and can be a good way to deal with enquiries and direct people to call actions
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• Create a landing page for your community that is easily sharable • Add a sign-up box to your website, on all pages – in the side-bar if possible, or the footer. Avoid the wording “subscribe for updates”, it’s meaningless – instead make it personal and compelling – or make it fun or funny
Social
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Create a regular schedule for posts and mix up your content types; quizzes, polls, engagement pieces, advice, questions, blogs, industry insights etc
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Take part and be visible in facebook groups and linkedin groups where your ideal community members are participating
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Edit your social profiles to include your logo or something about your community group so it’s immediately visible from your profile – or, even better, position your lead magnet front and centre of all your social profiles, drawing users in to check it out
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If you’re not camera shy, make use of the FB live feature – engagement on videos is far higher than on posts – and also share FB lives across other social channels
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Invite guests to participate in FB lives – if you use a system like Streamyard, you can simultaneously stream the broadcast to your FB AND linkedin channels, increasing exposure
• Take 20 mins each day to comment on relevant posts where your ideal community “hangs out”
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Ensure your posts are engaging and interactive – use polls, add a question at the end to encourage reaction
• Create a twitter chat, or take part in twitter chats already happening in your industry • Make a list of hashtags being used by your ideal customers and by your competitors, and make effective use of them on your posts
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Make a twitter list of your members and of ideal potential members and make sure to engage with and respond to them regularly
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Get Sales Navigator, on linkedin, and check out Contact Hunter, to identify and connect with potential community members
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Create a group and a page for your community, on facebook and linkedin – use these to schedule relevant content that drives your audience toward your community
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Use linktree if you have multiple links you need to showcase Make use of “behind the scenes” type content to pique reader’s interest Follow journo request hashtags
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Building exposure
• Put yourself forward as a guest speaker at industry events • Reach out to podcast hosts in related areas and pitch them on taking part in an interview – make sure you’re offering real value to their audience, not just a thinly disguised sales pitch
• Write guest blogs for other sites • Look for opportunities to offer a training class or masterclass, to build your credibility and authority in your space
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Host a live event or online event, webinar or masterclass
Join forces with others with complementary skills – for example if you’re a marketing expert for small businesses, find a sales expert and launch a mini-event covering sales and marketing for small businesses
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TOOLS/GROWTH
Create a mini-challenge; a 3 or 5 day challenge, on social, in which you create a short masterclass with “homework” for participants to complete – use the what and why content you’re creating for your community, and drip in a little of the “how” – but save some of your “how” for an invite to join the community and learn all the hows!
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Look for relevant questions on Quora to answer Post a blog on Medium
Look for opportunities to tap a trend – follow the news, keep an eye on what’s trending, look for opportunities to comment on hashtags that are trending, with a relevant comment/ insight from your community perspective
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