Attend any marketing conference or panel in recent years and you’ll hear that ‘building authentic communities’ is at the centre of those discussions. However, what does this mean in practical terms for your business? And when many people confuse community with audience, how can we build an active and engaged community to make our business thrive? With the help of Squarespace, who facilitate authentic community generation and growth, we delve into why community truly matters. 

Why do communities matter? 

Now that we’ve established we’re all familiar with this buzzword, why does it keep entering into the conversation? Firstly, when you have a strong community built behind your business, it’s far more cost effective. We know that when it comes to retaining our current customers, this is far cheaper than trying to gain new ones. While new customers are definitely a key part of the growth of a company, being able to build loyalty is invaluable. When you have an authentic community behind you, you create built-in advocates for your brand. This means we have individuals who will recommend your products and services within their network and champion your brand in any way you may need it. 

Research shows when customers feel connected to brands, more than half of consumers (57%) will increase their spending with that brand and 76% will buy from them over a competitor. What this shows is that your audience wants to hear from you and when you’ve built a community, you can serve that audience at scale.

Do I have an audience or a community?

One of the biggest misconceptions when it comes to community building is thinking that you have one, when in actual fact what you have is simply an audience. So, what exactly is the difference?

An audience is anyone you are able to speak to, including your entire social media following or website visitors. An engaged audience is the proportion of that audience that interacts with your brand, for instance, your followers who may like, comment and share your social media posts. However, a community are those within your audience who participate in creating a shared space, for example someone who creates content about your product or service and actively connects with others who may be doing the same. While having an audience provides you with good reach and the ability to connect with people on their native platforms, you are vulnerable to the ever-changing algorithms. 

Thankfully for business owners, Squarespace have long since recognised the difference between audience and community and support entrepreneurs to drive their audience into community through their offering. Transforming your audience into a community is a worthwhile venture as you’ll create loyalty and capture the audience member’s full attention. In essence, an audience is one voice to many,  whereas a community is many voices connecting to many others.

How do I build a community?

As we enter a new era of the internet that allows for more openness, greater user experience and autonomy online, there also comes a lot of opportunities. For businesses, this is namely the chance to create a space for leaders, businesses and thought-leaders to offer real value. The focus here should be on creating an authentic community. Audiences are smarter than ever and pick up inauthenticity online quickly, so you need to consider how you’re going to give them the value they desire. But don’t let the fear of getting your brand out there put you off. Currently, there is a global desire for connection meaning that there has never been a better time to build niche, but valuable, communities. Leading voices in marketing say that now more than ever, marketers should invest in themes of community, togetherness and collectivism. 

So where to begin? As the old adage goes ‘a man is only as good as his tools.’ As with any other field, an integral part of creating this community is ensuring you have the correct tools at your disposal. One of the first things to consider is your webpage, AKA the face of your company. This space should not just be a stagnant page, it’s a space you can monetise and house resources. A good website is the perfect foundation for community building as you will be able to share the knowledge you have in your area of expertise, through content forms such as blogs, podcasts or emails. You can also build upon this by managing and interacting with the members of your community and offering them premium content or other automations that appeal to them as individuals. 

You may be thinking ‘this sounds great, but as an entrepreneur, I just don’t have the time to build it all’’ and you wouldn’t be alone. But this is where your reliable tools come into it. Being able to use a platform like Squarespace that provides you with easy-to-edit website templates, with no coding needed, that supports you through every stage can help take your website to the next level. This allows you to leverage the strengths of community building, offering an all-in-one solution to run your business, cultivate your community and deliver value with tools for lead generation, email campaigns, resource design, memberships and more. 

Now we have a better understanding of the focus on communities and why it matters, there’s no better time to start building yours! 

Try for yourself! Build your community & grow your business with Squarespace. 

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