It’s not that SEO is dead or that links are obsolete, but building an online community around your business is a great way to increase your online visibility to search engines. If you build a community around your business, you’re putting the focus where it belongs – on your business. If your business’ online plan is continually chasing the Google algorithm, you’re putting all of your power in what Google’s going to do next. Building an online community for your business is one of the best ways to weather Google’s algorithms. Besides, building a strong company and brand through building a community isn’t something that Google can take away or change.
One of the Internet’s greatest strengths is its ability to bring together people with similar interests in online communities. Online user communities can be a powerful force for businesses . Businesses with active communities focused on their products or services tend to enjoy higher brand credibility and customer loyalty. Passion and authenticity are baseline ingredients for a shared relationship between a business and its customers. Having a healthy customer base increases your reputation and will also add to the chances that other potential customers will look for your products or services.
There’s a lot of effort that goes into building a community around your brand, and it’s not just about creating content or being on social media promoting it – just because everyone else is doing it. When you build an online community, you have to do a great deal to better serve your customers. You have to create quality content and resources that are enhancing to your products or services, while improving your systems and processes. So what content is going to drive people to your community and keep them interacting with it? To figure this out, you need to reach out to your current customers and ask them. This can be done by surveying customers on what other communities they are active in and why. You can also ask them about other websites where they regularly find information that helps them. Another way to find this out is by inviting some of them in for a focus group.
Telsec Business Centres offers office space for rent in various configurations based on the different needs of its customers. We have chosen to build our community by helping our customers build theirs within our business centre. Yes, our blogs and social media focus on offering small business advice, but our new community is about networking with other office tenants and learning how they might help each other with their products and services.
Besides building your company and brand’s community with content that they want, you also have to offer more. One way of offering more to your community is by hosting live events, both online and even offline. Google Hangouts is a great place to have a live online event – and allows your event to be interactive and have several other people on a panel discussion as well. When you are looking for a more personal interaction with your community, you can also host a live in-person seminar or training session. Besides offering office space, office business centres is a great place to host a live, in-person community event in an upscale, professional environment.