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Build, measure, learn<\/em> – without measurable goals, improvement cannot be targeted. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that you can use to align your success can be:<\/span><\/p>\n\nMembership growth<\/span><\/li>\nNumber of participants at events (webinars, offline events)<\/span><\/li>\nNewsletter open rate<\/span><\/li>\nCommunity traffic<\/span><\/li>\nNumber of posts per period n<\/span><\/li>\nSocial media shares<\/span><\/li>\nProduct recommendations<\/span><\/li>\nProduct purchases<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n
6. Business model: how is the community financed?<\/span> <\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n
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Building a community costs resources – time and money. Therefore, when setting up the community strategy, this important point should be considered in the form of a business model. How is the community financed – through membership fees, product sales, paid content (in the case of media companies) or through an investment by your organization? This is accompanied by the question of whether the community has a profit motive. It makes sense to prepare an annual calculation that assigns possible costs to the KPIs of the community and thus provides you with the ability to plan the required use of resources. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n
7. The right community platform as a catalyst <\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n
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For your community to grow and thrive, it needs the right platform. For online communities, this can be social media channels or a company’s own platform. With the former, visibility is higher from the start, which can lead to faster growth. On the other hand, customer loyalty is much lower than on an exclusive, company-owned community platform. The latter gives you the opportunity to tailor it to the needs of your members and the goals of your company. If you choose this option, you should pay attention to the following functions when selecting the software: <\/span><\/p>\n\nContact management<\/strong>: In order to keep an overview of your community members and their contact data, the platform should either have its own contact management or interfaces (APIs) to common CRM systems. <\/span><\/li>\nReward system:<\/strong> It should be possible to award points to members in recognition of their number of posts, recruitment of new members, product reviews, in short: their commitment to the community and its growth. These points can then be exchanged for perks or exclusive products.<\/span><\/span><\/li>\nNetworking: <\/strong>The platform should allow members to share topics and network with each other to keep the community active and growing together. <\/span><\/span><\/li>\nVoting \/ Feedback Tools:<\/strong> It should be possible to conduct votes in the community and share them digitally internally or externally. In addition to such voting tools, there should also be feedback tools that can be used as a gauge of member satisfaction and show them that your organization cares about their opinion.<\/span><\/span><\/li>\nSharing: <\/strong>Content should be able to be commented on and shared – across all channels where members are active. User-generated content should be given a central role. It can make sense to curate this beforehand, which requires the appropriate features in the software solution used. <\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\nIt is important to find out which mechanisms – member activities, content – mutually reinforce each other and thus cause a growth of the community and its importance. These should be used specifically and repeatedly as a catalyst to achieve the goals defined at the beginning. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n
Conclusion<\/span> <\/h2>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n
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In community building, creating and following an appropriate community strategy is important. It defines the goals, players, tools, resources and direction of your community. And helps you to ensure that your community is successful in the long term. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In community building, a suitable community strategy will help you to make your community successful in the long run. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8930,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[108],"tags":[125],"dipi_cpt_category":[],"class_list":["post-7309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-homepage-2","tag-blog-2"],"yoast_head":"\n
Community Building Strategy: 7 Cornerstones - yawave User Interaction Suite<\/title>\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n