Nearly Every Business Can Bring Their Audience Together With Basic Community Building Principles

Most community literature can be boiled down to this: 'get people in the same room and get them to talk to each other'. If you can do this, you’re usually doing a great job. If you're a business, getting your audience talking in the same room is easier than you think.

For example…

• A plumber can host a monthly gathering of customers where he demonstrates how to fix basic plumbing problems. Teach customers some basic trade skills and ensure they enjoy talking to each other. Perhaps team up with a mechanic and an electrician for a big winner.

• A pizza place can invite their best customers each month to an evening of free pizzas. Drinks, pizza and food. Nobody will turn down free pizzas. They might just enjoy meeting up with each other too.

• A communications consultancy can book a venue every month, provide free dinner and drinks to clients. It's simple to organize, clients might like the networking opportunity and you become the centre of your client's community. 

• A super-huge organization can invite their best customers to come by to the headquarters once a month. They can give honest feedback to the company whilst enjoying the open discussions, drinks, food and first look at new products.

Do you notice a pattern? By offering something ridiculously simple (free food and drink, usually) you can bring the people you want to talk to each other into a place where they will talk to each other. This is such a cost-effective step to building a sense of community, it's staggering more companies don't do it. 

Comments

[Wayan_vota]

Agreed. I found great success with the international development clients I wanted to reach by offering Krispie Kreame donuts and a guest speaker at my Technology Salon. The meetings got so high profile, it's now backed by the UN Foundation's Technology Partnership with the Vodaphone Foundation. See http://technologysalon.org

[Beckyparker]

It's certainly true that you have to give before you get. In an online community where you can't give free food and drinks, you still have to provide some offering of value.

In my opinion, providing professional content is one of the best ways businesses can offer value to their community. I say "professional" because it's not just user-generated content, but content provided by the brand. Find out what your customers are interested in and how those interests are relevant to your brand - much like the plumber example. Offer that valuable content to your community and you provide a strong incentive for your customers to show up, discuss, and establish strong long-term relationships with your brand.