Friday, 3 June 2016

#EmailChat with Sprout Social: Using Social Media to Build Your Tribe

Social media isn’t just a platform for promoting your latest blog post or product launch. It’s actually a really great opportunity to engage your customers and build a community of loyal followers.

In this week’s #EmailChat, we were joined by Sarah Nagel (@Sprout_Sarah), Community Manager at Sprout Social, who gave us a lesson in empowering and inspiring your tribe through social media.

Missed out on the chat? Here are seven things you should know about community building and how you can start cultivating a tribe of your own:

Your tribe is your niche.

A tribe is a group of people who come together with similar interests, passions and motivators. It’s your community, your people. We all naturally want to feel like they’re a part of something – we’re in this together!

Community building should be a priority.

Community-building is really important. People like to feel like they’re a part of something! If your goal is to create a strong, loyal customer base, community should be a priority. A community gives them validation, education and the tools they need to feel empowered. If people feel like they belong, they’ll keep coming back for more. And they’ll become your most loyal advocates.

Looking for your people? These tools can help.

Don’t be afraid to explore! New groups and communities are forming every day. Start off on platforms like Reddit, Quora or Twitter. Search hashtags! LinkedIn is great for business and marketing. SproutSocial is great for monitoring your social channels and seeing where the conversations about your brand are happening. Community managers should also be great researchers. Social listening is key here.

Keep authenticity in mind.

Transparency is a buzzword these days. And for good reason! You need to form relationships with your people before you try to sell them on a product or service. People won’t trust you if they think you’re only there to pitch a product. Be real and authentic.

Here’s how to measure success.

Quality over quantity. It doesn’t matter if your community has 50 or 500 members – as long as they all feel empowered.

Growth is important and you should have a strategy in place , but what good is a large following if they’re not engaging with each other? How many people are participating, commenting, liking or sharing your content? Can you measure the sentiment of your community? How do people feel? Are there good vibes all around?

These things are a little harder to measure, but they’re just as important as growth.

Still looking for your niche? We got you.

Twitter and Reddit are great for finding those smaller niche communities. Twitter Chats (like this one) are great because they’re so fast-paced and bring together a group of like-minded people to talk about a predetermined topic. Having a dedicated time to come together really helps keep the momentum of the group going.

Bookmark these community-building resources.

Twitter, Reddit, Quora… oh my! Don’t be afraid to explore.

#ComingUp

Save the date! Our next #EmailChat is Thursday, June 16. Guest host TBD.

What do you want to talk about next? Send me a tweet and follow @AWeber to stay up-to-date with the latest news, events and announcements.

The post #EmailChat with Sprout Social: Using Social Media to Build Your Tribe appeared first on Email Marketing Tips.



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