Leveraging social media to build your community

- [Narrator] Social media can help grow your online community exponentially. It not only acts as a platform for your online community but also is an effective way to promote your community in front of potential fans and community members. The beauty is your tribe is on social media, and when you post helpful content, they have the chance to see it. The key is to use social media to connect your content to your community. But how do you know what people want to see? First, take a look at your analytic dashboard. If you're using Facebook, Facebook analytics, Instagram has analytics, so does Pinterest. All the social media networks have insights or analytics for you to see what posts and what content your audience likes the most. Let's take a look at an example with two trees olive oil, and we're going to look at their Facebook analytics to try to determine the content that is the most popular with their fans. Here we are on the two trees Facebook page. I'm going to select insights from the menu on the left. Here we are on the insights dashboard. This is a snapshot of all the activity that has happened on the page within the last seven days. If I want to change this number, I can choose from the select down and select last 28 days. Now I see all the activity from that time range. To see what posts are resonating with the two trees audience, I'm going to select posts from the left-hand menu. Here we can see all the posts that have been published. Starting on the far left, we can see the published date, to the right of that, a snippet of the post itself. Next we have the type of post, whether it's a link, a video or a photo, but what we really want to pay attention to is the reach and the engagement. We can see that at the top, the top post about the dressing recipe, the reach has been the highest out of any post that is shown. If I hover over this, I can see that this post has not been promoted since all the reach is under the organic section. If we had promoted it, we might have gained more reach and that'll show under the paid column. Now, what I can hypothesize is that recipes do really well on this type of page. And I know from experience, that is the case. Typically audiences love recipes. People love memes. People love pictures of cats. So there's some foundational content that you know is typically going to engage your audience. But here we can see some hard data. This post outperforms all the others. I might also look at the time of day to make sure what I'm posting is delivered at the right time. And I could see that with the when your fans are online at the top. Now, this is a fictitious account, so we don't get quite the same data, but hopefully you can see that for yourself. What I would do is now replicate this dressing recipe. Perhaps I promote a contest where I ask people to submit their dressing recipes or their favorite recipes that use Mediterranean style food. Use your own Facebook insights to start gathering information and understanding better the content that delivers really well. As I discussed, Instagram insights are going to be really powerful, just like Facebook analytics. And don't be afraid to ask your community what content they want to see. If you're considering building your online community on a social media channel, let's talk about two of the most popular ones right now. That's Facebook and Instagram. The biggest benefit of Facebook is that everyone is already on it. When you build a group on Facebook, they don't need to create a new account. Once people are in your Facebook group, you also don't need to spend much time teaching and instructing them on how to use it. It's a really easy transition for members to join. Plus Facebook messenger and groups add a new element and it makes it really easy to manage your community from one central location. Next up is Instagram. Just like Facebook, people are really familiar with how to use it. A lot of people actually prefer Instagram. They feel it's less contentious and more aesthetically pleasing, and it translates really well to communities or brands that are able to convey their message visually. Some tips for using social media to build your community is to try your hand at Facebook events. The Facebook algorithm loves Facebook events. It's a great way to get your community together and engaged, and you don't have to do in person events. There are some really fun ways to virtually connect your community using Facebook events. Use video and live streams. There is a reason why Instagram and Facebook have this built-in. Consider sharing behind the scenes footage or create an Instagram reel. Get familiar with holding a Facebook live. Perhaps you create a Q and A about your community. Seek others out on social media, know that not everything needs to happen within your own group. Try using hashtags to find future members on Instagram or Twitter. And essentially, you're going to spend time where your tribe spends time. Don't be afraid to join in on ongoing conversations, and remember, not everything needs to happen within your own group. Think strategically and authentically when it comes to using social media to build your community. Leverage the channels where your audience is, and connect with them to begin to start to build your tribe online.