10 Steps for Building a Community 🚀

1. Read. Read & Read 📚

The first step towards building a community is that you know about the concept of communities in & out. Go through blogs here, chalk down everything you read and contemplate on them.

You read, you lead; so never stop reading

2. Attend meetups as much as possible

• Meet people, talk to them, most importantly listen and fill your mind with thoughts and ideas.
• Process on those ideas and once you are clear, you will be clear with the strategies.

3. Know your audience & set a greater goal 🎁

• Do an extensive research on various communities, get the data and interpret on it.
• Understand WHY should anyone join your community. Always make sure you are clear on what are your members going to get out of the community.
• Anticipating the needs and concerns of your members as a community manager helps you calibrate your mind-set as you prepare and execute your community.
• Tailor your community to suit your members challenges and set a greater goal.

Because in the end; A community should always be of the members, by the members and for the members

4. Go easy and do not rush 🐢

• Never throw a bunch of ideas at the beginning, since it is a new initiative and people might get scared to hear a lot of stuff.
• So plan accordingly, start with smaller ideas and once the team validates it and feels comfortable, then you can go ahead and pitch bigger ideas.
• Always be a team player and work along with your team and make them understand your goal.
• Pitch it to your colleagues and make sure that when you pitch your ideas, they are crystal clear and people say “Hey, that makes sense”

5. Pitch to people 🗣 about your community

• Have a short, crisp and intriguing pitch about what you do & and what is your community all about.
• Talk about the kind of impact your community can have on people and collect their feedback.

6. Look out for similar communities

• Document various organizations which have communities and are delivering specific aspects of your vision or strategy.
• This is to show similar successful examples and results that people can refer to.
• This way you are also motivating people that we are capable of doing the same and we can also be the best in the world.

No People, No Community; Know People, Know Community

7. Know what you do & do what you know

• Know who your audience are and how are you going to serve their purpose to achieve the greater goal.
• Know what kind of content is going to be out there.
• What are the kind of events or meetups you are going to plan to grow and support your community.
• After all this ideation process, make a roadmap on timelines, dates, milestones, content, collaborations, and KPIs.
• Most importantly make sure that you and your team along with the people who are responsible for the tasks are on the same page and agree to do whatever is planned.

8. Requirements for planning ✅ your first community meetup

• Have all the resources in hand so that you don’t get stuck at the last minute.
• Get the budget approved beforehand.
• Fix a venue, have a minimum and maximum headcount. Also make sure whatever you have planned is linked to each other, for example: to do our first community meetup, we need a venue which can accommodate X number of people, to get this done we have to get the budget approved by this date.
• If you are collaborating, make sure you are adding some value to their business and is more of a give and take policy.
• Also remember to have a pre-event, during the event and post event plan to make it smoother.

9. Launch ✈️ your online community

• Have a proper description for your community group and choose the right platform based on the type of community you want to build.
• Next, launch you online community. You could either do this before your first community meetup or during the meetup.
• Send invite to the attendees and make them feel special. Remember, community is not about numbers, it’s about the quality so make sure you filter and add the ones who can add value to your community by healthy discussions or by keeping it engaged.

10. Keep your community active. HOW? 🤔

• Plan a content calendar and have a tradition to welcome new members.
• Share valuable content or user generated content more often, interact with the members and incentivize them in order to keep the online community active.
• Get feedback from people, make them feel comfortable and value your members always.

You’ll always have a lot of content and strategy, but remember to use that which will add value. Keep the main mission of building your community simple; Mission > Vision > Execution > Results > Asks

Always stay confident and believe in what you are doing!