An increasing number of senior living, LTC, and home care companies are using social technolgies like Facebook, Linkedin, Youtube, and Ning to engage customers, employees, and prospects and to build a community presence on the web. Companies like Terrace Communities and organizations like ALFA are leading the pack in this space. One of the biggest challenges companies face is lack of involvement and participation from community members. Launching a Facebook Page is pretty easy. Building a vibrant engaged community around your brand on Facebook or any other community platform and extracting value from it is hard.
There are lots of mistakes companies can make with their new online community sites. These blunders can produce “ghost town” communities with nothing but virtual crickets and tumbleweeds representing the brand – not good. So how can your company avoid the virtual ghost town senario? Here a few pointers:
Build community around your members, not your brand. Remember this: your online community is not about you, it’s about the members. Focus most of the activities on what is important to the members. Be community-centric, not brand-centric. Increased involvement (and probably sales) will likely be a nice by-product of this approach. To quote social media expert Chris Brogan, “To me, the new unit of business should be relationships. You get more fruit from an apple tree if you nurture it and pick apples when it’s ripe, instead of uprooting the tree and forcefully shaking the apples into your barrel. It takes a bit longer, but you’re a farmer and a steward, not a machinist.”
Find your champions. Seed the community with members who are committed to its purpose, who care about the community, its members and its mission. Find employee champions who are dedicated to the cause and empower them to participate.
Keep content fresh and relevant. Know what your members want and deliver it on a regular basis. Post fresh content to the site twice a week, add photos and videos every other week, start or join a discussion several time per week.
Be informative. Offer interesting content that will help members solve their problems. What are the biggest problems your customers and their family members face? Provide content related to those problems.
Build a reputation as an expert. In your staff, family members, and residents, your organization has many experts in many fields. Allow these people to share their expertise in the forums or in a blog post.
Be persistent. You can’t expect to build a large vibrant community overnight. Online communities are like marathons, not sprints – gardens, not fast food joints. Nurture, and keep at it.
Welcome new members and encourage them to participate. Send new members a personalized welcome message, make them feel at home, and teach them how to get involved. Avoid sending canned welcome messages.
Create interactions and contributions around your services. Foster opportunities for customers, prospects, and staff to talk about your brand. This is called “social commerce” and it can be a powerful tool to drive interest AND sales.
Focus on inspiring, not perspiring. Don’t worry so much about how many people are visiting the site, how many members you have, and how many prospects who visit the site convert to sales. It’s more important to focus on creating authentic emotional connectedness, interesting conversations, and a sense of purpose within the community. The rest will take care of itself.
Have a good community manager. Your community manager can help with everything listed above and can be a catalyst for growth and a partner for success. What does a community manager do? A lot. Here’s a list.
What other things can you think of that will ensure the success of your online community?
Like this post? Here are more like it:
- Beacon Hill Retirement Communities Launches Resident Blog – Smart Move
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- Can Social Media Convert Senior Living Prospects to Customers?
Need Help Building, Growing, or Managing Your Online Community? Hire The Guy Who Wrote This Post.
