Online Communities for Small Enterprises
You don’t have to be a Fortune 500 corporation or non-profit the size of the World Health Organization to benefit from running an online forum. In this age of Internet commerce and entrepreneurship, small ventures and non-profits, as well as solopreneurs such as freelance designers and writers, consultants, coaches, and therapists can all benefit from creating virtual communities. Indeed, organizations of all sizes are enhancing their professionalism, improving communication with stakeholders, and increasing client satisfaction rates, all while promoting community goals and initiatives.
The secret to success for solopreneurs and small organizations is to emulate the strategies of the big guys but scale online interaction to meet your specific needs. Below are three reasons and three strategies for creating an online community as an entrepreneur or small enterprise.
Stay connected. In the Gig Economy, where solopreneurs and small ventures are likely to be working from home or hunkered-down with their laptops in secret cafes, connection to community is more important than ever, especially for inspiration, innovation, and even informal market research. Online community forums offer such a simple way to stay connected to those with similar goals and interests, it’s no wonder they’ve grown steadily in all sectors since the early computer days.
Team-building. Building a virtual water-cooler for co-workers and stakeholders to share conversations can be a surprising boon to creativity, collaboration and team spirit. Build your community to highlight whatever is important to your organization, including photos, videos and a clearinghouse for important documents. And don’t forget to use your forum to plan in-person events from time to time.
Save time and resources. Meetings eat up time, the most valuable resource for small business owners. Shorten meeting times or reduce the need entirely by virtually engaging your stakeholders with everything from surveys and polls to multi-threaded conversations. Schedule and organize events and meet-ups that truly enrich your organization rather than sap your energy.
Own your interactions. Social media may be one of the most important and fast-growing channels for corporate community building, however, smaller ventures must carefully evaluate its worth. If you can’t afford to lose your virtual community overnight when your favorite social platform changes policy, it’s time to move to an ownership model. Cultivating an online community brings the added benefit of owning an email list of real people, along with the tools to evaluate their interests, needs and engagement levels.
Find a platform that is scalable. It’s not enough to choose a right-sized online community platform. It’s also important to choose one that grows as you grow. Signing up for a free or low-budget community forum platform can be a real boon at first. In the long run, however, as your enterprise and community grows, there may be costs to upgrading or switching platforms.
Choose a multi-dimensional platform. While big corporate budgets can handle separate tools and managers for social media campaigns, market research surveys and online forums, small enterprises need to economize with platforms that multitask. Ideally, choose an online community platform with Q&A forums, discussion forums, survey functionality, and content and video publishing.