Yay!!! Our weekly AMA roundup is here. This week it’s all about community for Digital marketers. All praise goes to Gowardhan Doddi who was such a delight to answer all our questions around community building, who is a digital marketer and his passion for community building led him to build a dedicated community for digital marketers called “NicheMarketers” to showcase credible marketers and also create a truly helpful marketing ecosystem for Freelance, Marketing Agencies, Marketing Professionals, and Business Owners.
Let us delve deeper into the AMA session to know more about building communities.
Inviting, adding, and welcoming new members to the community
The best way to get early members to join the community is by inviting known members from your network and those who could add value to your community.
There are strict criteria for adding members into the group - members should be a digital marketing agency owner, freelancer, business owner, or marketing professional. This criterion is helpful to add genuine members to the community who can help each other and have a feeling that they belong to this community. They should also be excited to participate in community activities for the benefit of other marketers in the community.
Welcoming new members is done with a crisp and simple video message asking them about what they are good at and their personal interests. This would make the new members feel the human-centric touch to the community.
How was the initial stage engagement in your community?
Engagement in the community began with a video-first approach, making it a weekly routine which happened live on Zoom and streamed later on Facebook groups, that created scarcity and word of mouth (Members used to tell their friends this week NicheMarketers is doing a session on google ads panel session with google ads experts) if you want to participate either join the group or register with their zoom link.
These live sessions would go on for hours; the attendees actually were sticking to the sessions for 3 long hours, and also there was an exponential increase in credible marketers requesting to join the group themselves. So the scarcity made enthusiasts join in the zoom calls to take a look at how these sessions go and eventually found it tempting and beneficial to join the community.
What are the qualities needed for building a community from scratch?
For those out there who are looking to build their community from scratch should keep in mind the following factors.
Building a community is like building Burj Khalifa!
Ask the following questions:
- Can you invest and spend loads of time everyday trying to build your community? Do you have the necessary resources? Do you have the patience to wait till it gives you fruits for a lifetime?
- Can you spare at least 2 hours/day and do you have the resources?
- Do you have any plans on how to monetize your community?
- Are you passionate enough to be interested in the subject or people even after 5 years?
When you have clear answers to the above questions – It’s a green signal and you can go ahead and start building your community. But if you are unsure of even one of the questions, then it is highly unlikely that you have to rethink your decision about community-building.
Who are the super users of a community?
The super users of a community are identified by observing who is initiating conversations, who is participating in discussions, activities, etc. Once the super users are identified, the next step is to reach out to them over a call to appreciate them for their contribution and also ask if you can help them in any way where you can showcase their work or businesses too.
What are the ways to reignite the spark in lost engagement?
There are several ways to reignite the spark in lost engagement in a community. Albeit, you can ask your initial members to participate and reengage in your community. Other ways you could endeavor to have sparkling engagement is to come up with new initiatives - like a talk show, podcast, AMAs etc. do something out of the box- contests, magazines, and roundtables. You can also find ways to get new members regularly because these new members will be more active who can fuel engagement in the community.
What are the goals and achievements of your community?
The goal of Niche marketers is to build a " Go to place for finding Digital marketing experts/ Digital Marketing advice/ Digital Marketing Ecosystem in India”.
An achievement which I can say is being able to start a paid community for more serious members - NICHE MARKETERS CLUB. This validates that we can provide value to the community members. This was a milestone that got recognized by various members and it also led to a huge brand boost.
And it goes on and on…
To know more about the setbacks faced by Gowardhan Doddi and how he overcame those in a witty way and many more related to community engagement and the community-building process check out our AMA session here.
Oh by the way, if you have any questions related to community-building, or a community enthusiast waiting to ask your questions, then do join our Community cold coffee community and ask your questions every Wednesday AMA session. This week it's all about "How to create an inclusive and diverse community?" with Jephtah. Do ask all your questions, and we would totally love to have you as a part of our community and will be hyped to catch you there!
