Love your neighbor, your customer, your partner, your employees, and your vendors.
You’d better be careful if you want to build a digital community. In modern business, there may be no other situation that demands such an unabashed need to be selfless and put others before yourself. The rewards are well worth it.
In 2014, I started working on a plan to create a “social network” for my trade partners. I thought that there was more to be done than just a Facebook or LinkedIn Group. I thought our clients would prefer something more personalized and customized; I felt that people would value the opportunity to connect with others who share similar interests and affinities.
At the time, as the executive sponsor of the project, I faced a lot of resistance and pushback. COVID changed attitudes, however, as the community grew to over 75,000 members.
By changed attitudes, I mean the global view of digital B2B communities; last year, the hottest topic at most big conferences was “community.” This included Dreamforce 2022 Conferences in San Francisco and Inbound 2022 Conferences in Boston.
How to Build a B2B Community
The community approach is superior to any other strategy for managing trade partnerships, sales channels, and franchisees. This claim is supported by research and both experiences.
A paper published in the Journal of Business Research in September 2020, entitled “Unpacking The Relationship Between Social MediaMarketing and Brand Equity,” stated that “An online community is defined by a group of people who have similar interests, and they communicate about a particular brand using computer-mediated communication.”
This is a clinical definition of a community, but we, as marketers, want to look at the reality to exceed the expectations of our communities.
In the paper, it was also noted that “customized content can strengthen consumer-brand relationships” and that “entertaining marketing content that is trendy stimulates brand memory.” We get excited when we hear that creating content is important for marketers. However, this can be dangerous and cause us to focus on the wrong things.
I used an analogy from the real world to guide my thinking about what content we should have in our community. We would try to translate every question into real-world community terms. We had a cartoon of a village to help us map out the process.
What makes one community more desirable than the other? The requirements for a digital community will be the same as the requirements for a physical community.
- Safety People like to feel that they can speak their minds.
- Diversity It is a positive sign when people feel included.
- Options The options are different, but they all work together harmoniously.
- Education Quality of schools is a good indicator of community quality.
- Welcoming: Are people friendly? Are the people offering services accommodating or not?
A URL or a town can bring people together. It’s not necessary to have everything the community has to offer, but it is nice to know it exists and to feel part of an area that provides those things for others.
In a real community, things improve when all members are friendly, when they wave to strangers as they pass, when they follow the rules because they want good neighbors, and when they support education and efforts to assist those in need.
These are the KPIs that we use to gauge the success of an online community.
Many “digitally-focused” people will say that it is difficult to track these contributions. They’d prefer to be able to track clicks, pixels, page visits, or open rates for emails. It’s the inability to shortcut that makes communities beautiful.
As an organization or company, you can’t be a passive owner. You have to be active in the community. Model the kind of engagement that you want your partners to demonstrate. Your organization must be a good corporate citizen and set an example to others in order to have a positive impact on the community.
It is not possible to cultivate a vibrant digital community solely with technology. A real commitment and honest communication are required.
How to Measure the Success of Your Digital Community
How can you tell if your B2B business partners like it? How can you know if your channels are enjoying what you’re doing?
It’s an emotion.
You can feel the community when you are walking your dog in the park and you hear people saying hello. It would be best if you had a commonality with your B2B customers to promote your product or services. It’s the job of community managers to make sure healthy competition does not turn into rifts that can tear your community apart.
You feel proud and good when you see families enjoying the park on a Saturday. You want the right people to be active and enjoy their time in a B2B group. Find out why your clients or partners don’t enjoy the community and make it better.
Decide early on who you want to work with. Are you looking for owners, executives, managers, or frontline staff? You want all of them, so long as they are engaged. People who interact with your service or product, regardless of their title or position, are the right people.
We are always happy to welcome new members into our community. It makes us feel popular, and we enjoy the unique diversity they bring. We also want to see a constant flow of visitors in our B2B community. This new blood brings fresh ideas and energizes discussions. In one field, you might be adding hundreds of users per month. But in another, it may only be a handful. New blood is important to keep the conversation going and provide value for the community.
We are all happy to see new independent shops or restaurants open, as we want more choices and love economic signs. We learn in a B2B environment to celebrate our partners’ and clients’ successes. We share abundance. Some people find it difficult to sell or network in a community. Beware of partners who try to create purely selfish business opportunities. Instead, encourage those who offer tips and suggestions to help the group improve.