3 Ways to Build Your Online Community Through Offline Experiences

22 Jul 3 Ways to Build Your Online Community Through Offline Experiences

By Sarah Dawley

There’s nothing more frustrating than hitting a plateau on social media. You stop gaining new followers as quickly as you once did. You craft what you believe to be a hilarious yet relevant post only to watch it sadly sit on your timeline with zero likes or replies. You start scrambling to come up with new tactics to get things moving again but feel like you’ve exhausted every avenue.

Sometimes the best place to look for inspiration is literally right outside the window. There’s no denying that the internet is a magical place. But another great place, full of opportunity and excitement, is the real world. Creating offline experiences for your followers can make your online relationships stronger by giving them deeper roots that exist beyond a screen.

These ideas—hosting events, providing experiences, sending out swag—are by no means new ideas. In fact, they’re pillars of traditional marketing strategies that many businesses have been using for decades. What we’re looking at instead is how you can use these traditional marketing activities to specifically strengthen your online communities and boost your social media presence, while benefitting your business in the process.

1. Host an event for your followers

Twitter’s core function is connecting people to one another, anywhere, any time. Hosting an event that helps turn these online connections into offline relationships is a good way to provide value for your followers and deepen their emotional connection to your brand.

Depending on the size of your social communities, you can either host a meetup open to all of your followers on social media or make it a network-specific event like a Tweetup or an Instameet if you’re looking to focus your social efforts on one in particular.

If your business operates in multiple locations try to organize regional events if possible, or empower your customers to organize them on your behalf. We do this with our Hootups, which are free events, organized by Hootsuite users, for social media enthusiasts around the world. These events offer our users a way to position themselves as leaders within their local communities, while offering people a fun way to network, explore, and learn about social media and the Hootsuite platform. View Full Article >>

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