Growth Hacking A Community People Will Love
What kind of people do you hang around with in life? Hopefully you’ve answered: “the cool, fun-loving, laid back kind”, or something along those lines. If not, you need better friends.
Beyond the humor of that statement, it’s critical to realize that the same principle that governs our social lives offline applies to the brands and people we choose to interact with online. And that’s how clever startups are winning the war on faceless corporations. They are more agile, tend to be funnier (and a little crazier), and generally more connected to the everyday happenings of pop culture just like their audiences.
Megan Berry, of LiftFive, the former chief of marketing for Klout and a StartupPlays.com author, has already spoken about the need for startups to recognize the importance of a social presence and creation of community around their brands as a way to accelerate success. But what are some critical concepts to think about when approaching the creation of a community? And what are some of the most critical steps one needs to take in order to make it a success?
Well, actually you don’t start with a community at all, and a community evolves from a different place than random posts on a social network. Here’s how to build a community that people will love:
1. Product/Service
First off you need a product/service that people will love and remember. A product/service doesn’t have to be something very complicated, I guarantee you’ve recently had moments of frustration with/against something online or offline and thought to yourself that you could do it better…. well there you have it!
Find the simplest solution or unconventional approach to fixing a problem and you have a product/service that’s ready to change the world! Your first 100-200 users are the most critical in terms of shaping you product and giving you insight into their thoughts and the way they use it. I’m not saying ignore the ones who come later, but these people should be treated like gods – they are taking their time to help you and improve your product.
In the early days of Google, they tried to keep people OFF the search engine because they knew it would suck and take a while before the algorithms learned enough to return anything of use… so those first Googlers really improved the actual product for everyone who would join later and have a much better experience.
At StartupPlays.com, we wanted to improve the way entrepreneurs consume information and how they execute it. If you can WOW people with the approach you take to solving the problem you’ll be on to the next critical step of forming a community: creating a connection.
2. Connection
A connection is a personal bond you form with someone. Much like love or friendship it has to be powerful enough for them to love seeing you (and your brand) so much that they come back often.
Don’t tell anyone about what you do or you’ll seem much too self centered. Instead, give them the story behind why you do it and they’ll remember and care about that story much longer. This is the basis behind a connection.
Whether the connection comes though a great way to easily add effects to your pictures (Instagram), great customer service (Zappos), or a really great way to share what’s going on right now (Twitter), your users will remember how you made them feel. It’s everyone’s job on the team to accomplish that mission. From great UX and UI to world class customer support or random blog posts, it’s you’re startup’s job to stand out and change the way people feel.
But remember, this doesn’t happen over night, and like any relationship it takes dedication, time and work.
3. Community
Finally, you’re ready to build a community. Now that you have a product or service that solves a problem in a unique manner and a connection to a group of users that are really excited about what you are building, you can extend both those serendipitous unique moments of happiness with your brand to a more long-term and social setting (the community).
Provide individuals with a great atmosphere and environment to hang out with others who share their same interests (your product/solution/brand) and add a layer of value, unexpectedness and most importantly, helpfulness to all that. Give your supporters responsibilities and roles to play in building and maintaining your community – and reward them for the effort they put into it.
At StartupPlays.com, we know our Plays are top notch – but what makes them better are our users! So we’ve connected all of them to our international mentors, exciting go-getters exactly like them, and of course our authors inside our app. To add more to that I personally talk to 60+ startups a week through email and Skype and do as much as I can to create value for them.
For specific tactics you can execute in each stage, see my post in the StartupPlays.com Global Accelerator Network here.
Continue reading here: Guide to Startup Advertising
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